We held Seminar 2 for Foreign Consultation Workers – Overcoming Cultural Differences with Clients and Achieving Sustainable Consultation Activities.

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Group discussions were also very active.

Date and time Saturday, February 23, 2013 18:00-20:00 (doors open at 17:45)
Venue: Itabashi Green Hall, Conference Room 503
Lecturer: Neri Tanaka (Chiba Mental Clinic, Yotsuya Yui Clinic, Clinical Psychologist)
Content ① Intercultural psychology for supporting foreign residents (lecture)
② How to overcome cultural differences with the person seeking advice (individual work and group work)
Target audience: Foreign national consultation staff and those interested in participating.
Participation fee: Free
Organized by the Nonprofit Organization ASIAN PEOPLE'S FRIENDSHIP SOCIETY (APFS)

Following the first seminar held in December 2012, we are pleased to announce this second seminar. For this second seminar, we invited Ms. Neri Tanaka (Yotsuya Yui Clinic/Chiba Mental Clinic), a clinical psychologist involved in mental health care for foreign residents, to give a lecture on the psychological problems faced by foreign residents and burnout among those who provide counseling to foreigners.

Foreign counselors are prone to burnout due to cultural differences with clients and the difficulty of resolving challenging cases they encounter in their work. Furthermore, many foreign residents live in harsh conditions, making them susceptible to mental health issues. To achieve sustainable counseling activities, we considered mental health care for clients and self-care for foreign counselors themselves through Professor Tanaka's lecture and group discussions.

At the end of the seminar, Professor Tanaka Neri said, "It's a wonderful time to be able to exchange opinions with all of you like this." True to her words, there was a lively exchange of opinions between the instructor and the participants, as well as among the participants themselves. I believe that by exchanging opinions with participants from diverse backgrounds, each participant gained a new perspective. However, despite thinking about things from different perspectives, there were surprisingly many common opinions. Perhaps the attitudes necessary to support foreign residents are the same, even if the fields are different.