Counselling Muslims: A Culture-Infused Antidiscriminatory Approach Musulmans en counseling : une approche anti- discriminatoire tenant compte des références culturelles

According to a worldwide study by the Pew Research Center (2009), there are approximately 1.57 billion Muslims in the world, totalling approximately 23% of the world population. In particular, there are about 940,000 Muslims living in Canada, making up approximately 2.8% of the Canadian population (Pew Research Center, 2011). Based on Statistics Canada (2003a) estimates, the Canadian Muslim population increased from 253,300 in 1991 to 579,600 in 2001. Furthermore, according to the Pew Research Center's (2011) research on the global mapping of Muslims, there is an expectation that the number of Muslims will nearly triple within 20 years. Despite these numbers and despite the backlash against Muslims after the attacks on September 11, 2001, there still exists a dearth of research on the intracultural differences and worldview of Muslims, and only a few studies are available on Canadian-Muslims.The impact of the 9/11 attacks has had numerous destructive and even deadly impacts on identifiable Muslims all over the world, triggering a need for counsellors and psychologists to actively engage with Muslims. In 2002, the Council on American-Islamic Relations documented 1,500 reported incidents of attack and discrimination against American Muslims (Kwan, 2008). According to Kwan, "These incidents include 12 killings, firebomb and arson attacks on Muslim properties (mosques or businesses) and homes, physical assaults with fists, knives or guns, a hate rape, and work place discrimination" (p. 656). With respect to younger populations, aside from the well-known issues that adolescents generally face such as personal identities and relationships, young Muslims have also had to deal with the negative biases and stereotypes against Islam and Muslims (Sirin & Fine, 2007). It was clear that more Muslims were in need of counselling after the attacks. According to one study, some Muslims in the USA who experienced discrimination did receive counselling, but not through professional counsellors. Islamic clergy (imams) usually play the role of counsellor in most Muslim communities around the world. Ali, Milstein, and Marzuk (2005) conducted a quantitative study highlighting the role Islamic clergy play in meeting the therapeutic needs of their communities. In this study, although only 62 out of the 730 self-report questionnaires that were sent to mosques all across the United States were returned, the imams who responded reported that they had not received formal counselling training. Furthermore, the imams stated that the need to counsel members of their congregation for being discriminated against had greatly increased since 9/11. Those who were discriminated against were mainly Muslims who were Arab American, South-Asian American, and African American.In the Canadian context, despite the possibility that Canadian-Muslims may require more support from the professional community of counsellors and psychologists, there is a lack of academic resources to inform culturally competent practice with Muslims. According to Sheu and Sedlacek (2009), culturally competent practice should develop through a foundation of empirically based research that explores culture beyond race and ethnicity, gives a high importance to intracultural differences, and avoids ambiguity in establishing a research plan. Practitioners who know very little about their Muslim clients will thus be faced with difficulty, as little research on this group exists.By way of example, the PsycINFO database, a resource commonly accessed by psychologists and counsellors, included 2,488 journal titles in April 2010, including the Canadian Journal of Counselling and the Journal of Muslim Mental Health. However, a search for the term "Canadian Muslim" in those journals retrieved only 18 articles. Muslims constitute one fifth of the world's population and continue to grow (Pew Research Center, 2009), yet research on Muslims makes up only a fraction of one percent in the PsycINFO database. …