Reflecting the potential role of family counselling in addressing emotional issues in Afghan youth

Working with family conflicts can be a challenging task for counsellors. In a collectivist society, such as Afghanistan, where interactions between people of the opposite sex are highly regulated, counselling sessions with an individual involved in a family conflict may not be very effective unless conducted in a culturally sensitive manner. As asking for help from professionals may be considered to be ‘lunatic’, as well as a potential threat to the honour of the family, family counselling is not often easy to carry out and may actually pose risks to the client and to the counsellor. Therefore, family counselling is likely to be more effective if counsellors team up with respected members of the community, such as social workers and religious leaders, to deliver family counselling.