A Re-Examination of the Current Status and Future of Family Therapy in India

Abstract

Marital and family counseling has existed in India for many decades. However, the formalized discipline of marital and family counseling/therapy has its theoretical foundation in the West. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the need for and the current status of the practice of marriage and family therapy (MFT) in India. Based on our limited experiences we have attempted to prognosticate the future of the profession of family therapy in India by proposing a number of salient issues that we think would be useful discussion points as the development and advancement of family therapy in India is considered. KEY WORDS: Marriage and family therapy; India; status of profession.Marital and family counseling in India is not new. Indian folk tales and scriptures make references to and present numerous examples of advice being given by a large range of persons such as family members, doctors, lawyers, and priests, to married individuals as well as to those on the threshold of marriage (Mane, 1991). However, the formalized discipline of marital and family counseling/therapy (MFT) has its theoretical foundation in the West. Indians experiencing emotional problems typically visit native healers, gurus, and exorcists (Davar, 1999) before approaching a counselor or therapist. Mental health services are mostly sought as either a last resort Mona Mittal, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at

Counseling and Family Therapy in India: Evolving Professions in a Rapidly Developing Nation

“…An important factor in the evolution of counseling and family therapy in India is professional organization to program/institutional collaboration across countries and cultures. As Mittal and Hardy (2005) have rightly argued, professionally recognized organizations can play a pivotal role in facilitating the development of mutually beneficial partnerships with people and institutions in India. We would list, for example, established counseling organizations both in India and other settings, including the NBCC-I, American Counseling Association, American Psychological Association, British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, International Association of Marriage and Family Counselors, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, International Family Therapy Association, International Association for Counselling, Indian Psychological Association, Counseling Association of India, and the India Association for Family Therapy.…”

“…It is important to recognize, however, that these "rules of thumb" should be considered with the understanding that India is one of the most culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse nations in the world, albeit with some common threads and themes running through the culture at large (see Carson and Chowdhury 2000;Das 2007;James et al 2002;Mittal and Hardy 2005;Natrajan and Thomas 2002;Prabhu 2003;Raney and Cinarbas 2005;and Rastogi et al 2005).…”

Barking at Heaven’s Door: Pluto Mehra in the Hindi Film Dil Dhadakne Do

“…However, this reinforces a consolidated family model [41]. Even in the fairytale-like world of Bollywood, the dream of constituting a two-person universe remains something to be negotiated within the family framework, and the individual is not considered to be autonomous, but interconnected with, and also lower in hierarchy in comparison with the family network [42]. In the end, the only real innovation in the new family model is that pets too are considered to be siblings.…”

Thematic review of family therapy journals in 2005

“…This issued included a useful overview (Mittal and Hardy, 2005), a discussion of clinical issues unique to working with Indian families (Sonpar, 2005), the history of the profession of marital and family therapy in India (Rastogi et al, 2005), the treatment of conduct disorders with marital and family therapy (Anant and Raguram, 2005), the use of cognitive-behavioural family therapy with immigrant Indian families (Dattilio and Bahadur, 2005); and experiences of families living with HIV/AIDS in India (Krishna et al, 2005). In the Journal of Systemic Therapies there was a special section on diversity.…”