NANIE 0727412
POSITION PAPER 4
“Since most of the assessment instruments in the market were made based on American culture, Muslim counselors should not use standardized assessment instruments at all”. Discuss.

Generally, assessment in counseling can be referred as the procedures and the evaluation process that counselors’ use in gaining information about the clients. Clients’ information is important and very useful for the counselors in obtaining better understanding about their clients. This is because, we as the counselor need to get to know our clients personally including their background as well as we have to investigate the root or the causes of their problems. Assessment also is vitally important to the counseling process as it includes gathering and integrating information about a client in a manner that promotes effective treatment. Why it is said as can promotes the effectiveness of the counseling process is that by the information or data gathered on the clients, counselors can then interpret these data and formulate understanding related to the client's strengths and weaknesses. Assessment provides direction for treatment and aids in the evaluation process.
There are quite numbers of assessment instruments in the market as well as personality trait assessment, behavioral assessment, career testing, motivation assessment and many more. From these assessment and tests, counselors are able to explore their clients’ attitude, abilities, emotions, interests, capabilities and also personalities. The sources of these instrument are for instance, the Association for Assessment in Counseling and Education (AACE), A Division of the American Counseling Association, American Counseling Association (ACA), American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), American School Counselor Association (ASCA), and last but least, National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST). Yes, it is true that by looking at the list of the sources above, we can conclude that they are all from America. These instruments are made or created by the American psychologists and therapists as they are the people who invented this counseling and psychotherapy field. Because of that, all the assessment instruments available in the market are based on their culture. The American culture that are been used worldwide nowadays.

For me, I personally do not agree that Muslim counselors should not use these standardized assessment instruments at all. It’s not that we could not use them ‘at all’ but then we can still employ them as they are very useful for counselors and facilitate us in counseling process while dealing with our clients. I said it is facilitating us because we just give the assessment or test or questionnaire to our clients and once they completed it, we can know the will interpret the result for us. By that, we can easily evaluate what we want to evaluate our clients.
Nevertheless, everything has their contradictions. By contrast, we as Muslims counselors can not employed these assessments blindly. This is because, as we know, these instruments are made based on the American cultures which are relatively different from our culture as Malaysian. We are living in multiracial communities including Malay, Chinese, Indians, and also all the countless ethnicities here as we are different in terms of our customs, cultures, religion and beliefs and the ways we lead our lives. It is important for counselors to be alert or aware enough regarding to all of our differences so that we did not touch the sensitivities of others. Therefore we need to use those assessment instruments appropriately suits with the clients needs.

In addition, we have to be attentive and conscious whether those instruments are well appropriate to be applied to our Muslim’s clients when we refer it to the Islamic teaching. As many of the western counseling are more focusing on clients’ behavior changing or modifications towards the more rationale and follow the guidelines as normal human being. While in Islam, counseling has its own meaning and position. It is significant and consistent with the Islam’s own demands which use the holy Al-Quran and As-Sunnah as our references. Islamic counseling has widened scope of tribulations which regarded with one’s faith such as the divinity aspects, the life after death or eternal world, sins, rewards and punishments, the hell and paradise and so on. Islamic counseling services use an approach known as the wisdom of preaching. The purpose of this approach is to shaping the attitudes and personality the perfect man who possesses serene soul and peaceful. The effectiveness of this approach is through its ultimate purposes which different from others approaches. The ultimate purpose or an objective of this counseling session is to strengthen our relationship with Allah, relationship with other Allah creations, and the ultimate purposes of our life in this world. It emphasizes four important aspects which are the developmental of spirit, development of the heart, developmental of the mind, and developmental of the lust. I believe, when refer to this purposes, western assessment instruments that available today are not really appropriate and significant to be applied to the Muslims clients.

As for the conclusion, counselors can still employ all the standardized assessment instruments that available in the market. But, we have to consider the sensitivity of all regardless of the clients’ races, ethnicities, cultures, beliefs, and also religions especially the Islamic religion as Islam very particular and put the priority to the demand in the holy Al-Quran and As-Sunnah.