THE/COUNSELING

Gao DIRECTIVE APPROACH

PSYCHOLOGIST
TO TELEPHONE
/ May 2001COUNSELING
Directive Approach to Telephone
Counseling in the Peoples Republic of China:
Underlying Cultural Traditions and Transitions
Yihong Gao
The Youth Hotline, China Youth Daily, Beijing

In the Peoples Republic of China, telephone psychological counseling is a new phenom-

enon that appeared in the late 1980s, following a social transition toward a market econ-
omy. Such counseling by paraprofessionals often adopts a directive style in that the coun-
selor gives direct advice pertaining to what the client should do on a particular issue.
After a brief description of its features, this article examines factors of cultural traditions
and transitions underlying the directive counseling and the interactive relationship
between counseling and culture. Analysis is made regarding traditional and transitional
values, social networks, and personality types. It is further argued that research and
training in cross-cultural counseling should go beyond static cultural relativism and
adopt an emic view of cultural change.

As a volunteer counselor in a Beijing hotline for more than 7 years, I will

describe to Western readers directive counseling in Chinese hotline counsel-
ing and its underlying cultural forces. I will first delineate the features of such
counseling and then demonstrate how it is related to Chinese cultural tradi-
tions and transitions. Finally, I will address the issue of cultural relativism and
make practical suggestions for international counselor trainers.

WHAT IS DIRECTIVE COUNSELING?

Definition. Telephone counseling can be placed on a continuum of com-

munication patterns, with directive on one pole and nondirective on the other.
In light of Carl Rogerss (1951) client-centered therapy, nondirective
counseling is targeted at the clients awareness of himself or herself and the

The author would like to thank Dr. David Smith, Dr. Xiaosui Xiao, Dr. Bernard Anderson, and
Dr. John Powers from Hong Kong Baptist University for their critical comments on the draft of
this article. She is also indebted to Di Long and Xiaoya Lu from the Youth Hotline, China Youth
Daily, for their insights and encouragement. Correspondence concerning this article should be
addressed to Yihong Gao, English Department, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, Peoples
Republic of China; e-mail: gaoyihon@public.bta.net.cn.
THE COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGIST, Vol. 29 No. 3, May 2001 435-453
2001 by the Division of Counseling Psychology.

435

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436 THE COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGIST / May 2001

potentials he or she may use for problem solution. By showing empathy and
unconditional positive regard, the counselor facilitates such a process. In
directive counseling, in contrast, the focus is on solutions to immediate prob-
lems, and the counselor gives direct advice pertaining to what the client
should do on a particular issue.

Example. The following is an example of directive counseling recorded on

a Beijing hotline in the early 1990s (Gao, 1996). The client in this case, a mar-
ried man, described his involvement in an extramarital affair. The counselor,
after listening to the description, told the client that a person should be
responsible for his family members and the society. Therefore, he should stop
doing things that would hurt his family members.

Counselor: Mr. Ai, I want to tell you, everything in this world, no matter work or
play, or love for someone, especially our . . . em . . . society and education, we
have to perform our own responsibility. When you are married, you will have to
be loyal to your spouse. If you have failed in this respect, its already not quite
right. Besides, if you dont think there will be a good result, that is to say, if
[you] know there are tigers in the mountain, why should [you] still head for that
mountain? Is it because you want to be bitten by tigers?
Client: (Laughs)
Counselor: Right?
Client: Yes.
Counselor: If you know for sure the result wont be good, why should [you] do it?
Isnt that doing harm to yourself, doing harm to that friend of yours, and doing
harm to your family? I believe that for a person, the most important thing is to
be responsible for himself, for his friends, relatives, and family members. If
you dont feel your action is responsible for all, then youll not be happy after
doing it.

Discourse features. Discourse analysis shows that directive counseling

has the following major features: (a) The counselor dominates discourse pro-
portion and topic change; (b) there is a sharp boundary between the problem
description stage and problem analysis stage, whereby in the former, the cli-
ent speaks and the counselor listens, and in the latter, the counselor speaks
and the client listens; and (c) the counselor frequently uses high directives,
such as imperative sentences, rhetorical questions, and lexical items such as
must and should (Gao, 1995, 1996). It was observed that in a Beijing hot-
line, the most frequently used sentence patterns were these three: Tell me
what I can do on the clients part, and You should and You should not on
the counselors part (Zhang & Liu, 1997).

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 Gao / DIRECTIVE APPROACH TO TELEPHONE COUNSELING 437

DIRECTIVE COUNSELING COMPARED

WITH WESTERN PROBLEM-SOLVING MODELS

The directive counseling described admittedly shares some similarities

with problem-solving models in the Western tradition of cognitive therapy
(e.g., DZurilla & Goldfried, 1971; Egan, 1990; Heppner & Krauskopf,
1987). Both focus on problems, are goal-directed, and are highly structured
with distinctive stages. However, there are some important differences. First,
the problem-solving models make available a variety of response alterna-
tives for dealing with a problematic situation (DZurilla & Goldfried, 1971,
p. 1) and perceive decision making as the process of selecting one action
from a number of alternative courses of action (Heppner, 1978, p. 371).
Directive counseling does not perceive multiple alternatives as necessary and
strives at the right answer. Structurally, it does not have a stage of generating
alternatives, as the problem-solving models do. Second, the problem-solving
models make clear that the determination of the utility of a decision should
be made in light of that individuals own values (DZurilla & Goldfried,
1971, p. 118). In directive counseling, the decisions are often based on the
value system of the counselor or social conventions. Third, the problem-
solving models drive at problem-solving effectiveness, that is, increasing
clients ability to solve problems and make decisions (Heppner & Krauskopf,
1987, pp. 372-373). In contrast, directive counseling focuses on a particular
solution to a particular problem. Therefore, the former involves clients in the
process of decision generation, whereas the latter often imposes the coun-
selors views.

DIRECTIVE COUNSELING IN THE

CHINESE CONTEXT OF MENTAL HEALTH

Initial development stage. In the Peoples Republic of China (PRC), psy-

chotherapy and psychological counseling emerged only some 20 years ago.
Their development can be divided into several stages. According to Zhong
(See Qian, 1994, p. 9), 1949 to 1978 was the zero stage when psychology
was considered a pseudo-science and political ideological work played a
dominant role in dealing with mental problems. This was followed by the
preparation stage, from the beginning of the economic reform (1978) to the
mid-1980s. During this time, psychotherapy and counseling began to appear
in a small number of hospitals and colleges. The mid-1980s marked the
beginning of the initial development stage. Related journals, books, profes-

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438 THE COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGIST / May 2001

sional organizations, academic conferences, and international exchange pro-

grams have appeared in a considerable quantity. By 1994, 50% of universities
in Beijing and 30% of universities in the country had begun face-to-face
counseling services (Fan, 1994). The first telephone counseling hotline was
established in Tianjin in 1987. In Beijing, there are now more than 30 such
hotlines (Mao, 1995) targeting different client groups. The development of
Chinese mental health services has been rapid, but its state of art is still quite
preliminary. Pressing problems include insufficiency of training programs,
professional exchanges, and understanding from both the government and the
public (for a detailed survey, see Qian, 1994). Also, mental health practice is
largely confined to urban regions.

Base of the mental health pyramid. In big cities such as Beijing, Shanghai,
and Guangzhou, psychotherapy and counseling are practiced at three levels.
The first is therapy in psychiatric hospitals and departments of mental health
in general hospitals. The practitioners are mostly doctors with medical train-
ing. The second level is face-to-face therapy and counseling in certain institu-
tions, typically colleges. The practitioners are combinations of professionals
with psychological or medical backgrounds and paraprofessionals such as
professors.
Hotline telephone counseling constitutes the third level. It is considered
the base of the mental health pyramid (Editor, China Youth Daily, 1996)
because its function is to a large extent preventive. Like face-to-face counsel-
ing, telephone counseling is also on a confidential, one-to-one basis. The
counselor is usually a volunteer paraprofessional who has received some
short-term training. The anonymous client is an individual having certain
psychological problems, for example, marriage and adaptation to new work
environment. These problems vary in degree of seriousness, from mild frus-
tration to suicide attempt (for a case of suicide intervention, see Gao & Gu,
1997). Services are free for most lines and charged for some, and most calls
are single-shot business.

Hotline organization. Some hotlines are run by nation-owned units such

as journals and newspapers; others are self-funded private organizations. The
former usually have financial and communication resources to draw on but
suffer from certain institutional constraints. The latter usually enjoy more
flexibility but have financial difficulties and lack channels to make them-
selves known to the public.
The Youth Hotline where I work is an example of the first type. Founded
by an editor of China Youth Daily, it is attached to the newspaper and has a
special page in the paper every week. Because China Youth Daily is essen-
tially a government-controlled newspaper, the hotline is apparently and pre-

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 Gao / DIRECTIVE APPROACH TO TELEPHONE COUNSELING 439

sumably under such control. However, it remains independent in a number of

respects. First, the content of calls is kept confidential from the public,
including newspaper officials. Second, the recruitment, training, and dis-
missing of counselors are also internal affairs, taken care of by a hotline coun-
cil consisting of the director, the supervisor, and several volunteer counsel-
ors. This loose connection benefits not only the hotline but also the newspaper.
The hotline and its special page, with its lively content and form compared
with other pages that echo the Partys The Peoples Daily, softens the previ-
ously hard image of China Youth Daily and brings it popularity.

BROADER CULTURAL CONTEXT OF DIRECTIVE

COUNSELING: TRADITIONS AND TRANSITIONS

Without doubt, developmental and structural limitations of counseling all

contribute to the directive style. Yet in a broader sense, the special appeal of
the directive style is a result of cultural traditions and transitions. Here, tradi-
tion refers to the mainstream of social and ideological reality before the
open-door policy of the late 1970s, particularly the Mao Tse-tung era (1960s
and 1970s). Transition refers to the social change since the late 1970s, from a
planned economy to a market economy with Chinese characteristics, from
an ideologically closed society to a more open one. In this section, I will dis-
cuss such traditional and transitional factors along three dimensions: cultural
values, social network, and personality types. I will then describe briefly in
what manner these factors influence the counseling relationship.

Traditions

Values: Interdependence, authoritarianism, pragmatism. Chinese tradi-

tions from the time of Confucius have emphasized interdependence between
people rather than independence of the individual. This interdependent-
independent contrast between Chinese and some Western cultures (typically
American culture) has been stated in various forms, such as social orienta-
tion versus individual orientation (Yang, 1981, in Guan, 1995, p. 167) and
collectivism versus individualism (Hofstede, 1984).
According to Hofstedes (1984) investigation of IBM employees in 40
countries and regions, Taiwan ranked 36th, Singapore 34th, and Hong Kong
32nd on the individualism scaleamong the lowest. Although there was not
a PRC sample in that study, the would-be position could not be very far from
the other Chinese communities. Comparing mainland Chinese and English-
speaking samples, Gaos (1993) semantic differential analysis shows that PRC

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students rating of individualism is significantly lower than those of native

English speakers.
Counseling practice in the West, as Katz (1985) pointed out, is based on
the value of individualism, where individual potentials are assumed for
problem solution. Psychology as a discipline focuses its attention on the indi-
vidual. It was no surprise that in the Mao era, psychology, including psycho-
therapy and counseling, was severely criticized as pseudo-science of the
bourgeoisie. The traditional Chinese value of interdependence stresses
mutual support in the form of direct help. Thus, when it comes to emotional
exchange, Westerners focus on venting personal feelings such as anger and
sadness, whereas Chinese prefer mutual concern, sharing of experience, and
consolation (X. Chen, 1998). When nondirective counseling is conducted on
Chinese with traditional values, the counselor may be viewed as impersonal
and afraid of taking responsibilities (Yue, 1994). This is because an interde-
pendent helping relationship assumes that the helped request and the helper
provide advice.
A second traditional value orientation in the helping relationship is the
important role of authorities. The Chinese society can be described as a verti-
cal one (Okabe, 1990), in which hierarchy of social ranks is well maintained
and authorities are respected. According to Hofstedes (1984) investigation,
Chinese communities ranked high on power distance (Taiwan: 19th; Hong
Kong: 8th; Singapore: 6th), which means authorities directions are to be
obeyed. Similar results might be expected for groups from mainland China.
Such orientation to power distance is due not only to the Confucian tradition
of the rites in terms of maintaining social hierarchy but also to the political
practice during Mao Tse-tungs era, where the masses listen to whatever the
Party says, the Chairmans one word equals one thousand words, and
political ideological work played a dominant role in dealing with mental
problems. This high power distance grants helpers the power of telling peo-
ple what to do.
A third value orientation in traditional Chinese society is pragmatism,
defined as concern for practical issues in everyday life. For its worldly or
pragmatic concerns, Confucianism remains a philosophy rather than a reli-
gion. The orientation of being versed in the classics in order to use them for
practical purposes (tong jing zhi yong) is evident in the development of vari-
ous academic and nonacademic fields. The Chinese mind, in the traditional
sense, is oriented toward the solution of practical problems. During the Cul-
tural Revolution, Maos revolution or reformation in education, medicine,
and many other fields was targeted at practical aims. His education reform,
for example, required students to shorten their years in school, cut down on
empty, useless theories, and increase the learning of practical skills such as

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how to operate a machine or how to drive a tractor. Such pragmatism has

become a general life principle. In helping behavior, this pragmatism trans-
lates itself into practical advice (what to do) on specific issues.

Social network: High density, single system, one-way message transmis-

sion. Here, social network refers to the relational systems of the society for
communication. Before the economic reform of the late 1970s, China was a
tightly woven whole. There was a high density of social network (Milroy,
1980) or high interconnectedness (Rogers, 1983, in Dodd, 1995, p. 204).
That is, a persons contact circle was very small; the people he or she had rela-
tionships with at work, at home, and elsewhere might know one another or
were essentially the same group.
The social organizations were highly controlled from above. Apart from
the Chinese Communist Party, which had its branches in grassroots units,
there were the Youth League, the Womens Association, the Student Union in
high schools and colleges, and the like. These were strictly under the leader-
ship of the Communist Party and were to carry out the ideas of the party and
its chairman.
Less controlled or more natural groups also existed, such as Neighbor-
hood Committee ( juwei hui). The Neighborhood Committees were suppos-
edly organizations of the neighborhood people themselves, coordinating
common issues that concerned those living in the neighborhood, such as pub-
lic security and cleanliness of the environment. Nevertheless, during the Cul-
tural Revolution and for a period of time afterward, they were to a large extent
party-controlled organizations and were granted the power of proving indi-
vidual identities and making statements about individual affairs. The Neigh-
borhood Committee was in direct touch with the family, the smallest cell of
the society. The grandmas and aunts in the committees were well
informed of what was going on in each family.
The mass media were centralized. Their function was to educate the peo-
ple and let them know what the party was saying, what was the right thing to
do. They were targeted toward different subgroups in the culture, however.
Take the example of China Youth Daily, the newspaper to which the Youth
Hotline is currently attached. This newspaper was (and still is) an official
paper under the leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist
Youth League. Its targeted readers were the young, approximately between
ages 18 and 30. With a circulation greater than 1 million, its subscribers were
mostly units (institutions) but not individuals; in fact, units with young
people were required to subscribe to this newspaper so that they knew what
the party expected the young people to do during a particular period of time.
Apart from reporting news in the same way as the party newspaper The Peo-

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ples Daily did, it would typically carry stories of revolutionary heroes and
models for youths to learn from. Message transmission in such a tightly
woven network, therefore, was a one-way process.
Psychologically, individuals were tightly bound to the social network.
Although such a network might be said to constrain freedom and intrude on
privacy, its meaning to the Chinese people was not purely negative. This is
because the network provided a support system for individuals. In case of a
family crisis, for example, the couple might go to either the party branches at
working units or to the Neighborhood Committee or both. The party branches
and the Neighborhood Committee might also cooperate with each other; they
might mediate the family crisis jointly by asking the husband and the wife to
make self-criticism respectively and, as a result, make peace. Usually, a
divorce was not possible unless granted by the Neighborhood Committee. In
such a tightly woven social network, therefore, problems were solved collec-
tively, and the support system consisted of those who knew the individual
under concern very well.
While providing abundant help, the tight-knit, centralized social network
has limited individuals independence and institutionalized a directive orien-
tation in helping.

Personality type: Belonging. For a long period of time, the ideal life of
Chinese farmers, 80% of the entire population, was thirty acres of land and a
cow; a wife, several children, and warm beds. That is to say, a harmonious
family life is the central meaning of life for the Chinese. According to Xu
(1988), such personality is belonging in type, because the dominant con-
cern of the person is belonging needs, as defined by A. Maslow (1957). For
Xu, the majority of personality types in a culture correspond to the stage of
social development in the Marxist sense. Thus, the belonging personality
corresponds to a feudalist society or feudalist tradition, whereas the esteem
personality corresponds to a capitalist society or tradition.
Similar ideas are also expressed by other scholars. Francis Hsus Galilean
model defines the self as consisting of concentric circles, from the individ-
uals subconsciousness and consciousness to different levels of social rela-
tions (Marsella, DeVos, & Hsu, 1985). In this model, the Chinese self is dis-
tinguished for the importance of the personal society and culture, a level to
which the individual has great feeling attachment. This personal society and
culture for the Chinese consists mainly of family members and relatives and
is very stable throughout the individuals life. In contrast, the personal soci-
ety and culture of a Westerner may consist of other elements and may change
frequently. For the Chinese, therefore, mutual belonging between the indi-
vidual and his or her family, relatives, and close friends is essential.

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 Gao / DIRECTIVE APPROACH TO TELEPHONE COUNSELING 443

When in need of psychological help, a traditional Chinese with a belong-

ing personality is expected to turn to family members, relatives, and close
friends, that is, those in the personal society and culture. He or she will also
expect much direction, which itself is a demonstration of concern and
belongingness.
In sum, in traditional Chinese society, an individual seeks direct help from
a tightly knit social network and respects the authority in such a network. The
help comes from well-acquainted people; the advice is usually directive.

Transitions

Values: Independence and autonomy of the individual, efficiency. Since

the late 1970s, a shift has been taking place in culture values from collectiv-
ism to individualism (e.g., Xu, 1988). Much emphasis has been put on the
individuals independence and autonomy from authorities and the personal
society and culture. In business circles, earning money is seen as a reflection
of individual success. In sports, the friendship first, competition second
principle of the 1970s has been abandoned, group gains are less emphasized
than before, and individual athletes are allowed to obtain personal gains from
outstanding performance. In academic circles, signing personal names on
publications during the Cultural Revolution was discouraged, but now pub-
lish or perish is the norm, and seeing ones name printed in black and white
has become a great honor as well as a great pleasure. For college students, the
evaluation of individualism has significantly moved toward the positive side
(Gao, 1993). A serial debate about individualism was carried out in China
Youth Daily in 1996. Whereas individualism was severely criticized in the
Mao era, the occurrence of the debate itself in the 1990s shows a more toler-
ant or more favorable attitude toward individualism. When seeking help,
individuals may avoid going to those who are close to them, so that some
room for independent decision can be preserved.
A sense of efficiency has come along and is married to traditional pragma-
tism. The society seems to be moving from a polychronic culture to a
monochronic one (Hall, 1977). Fast solutions are sought. There is a here and
now or fast-food orientation when it comes to the accomplishment of per-
sonal goals. This phenomenon is seen not only in the mushrooming of
fast-food restaurants but also in many other respects of the culture: fast
money making (adventures in lottery and the stock exchange), fast publica-
tion of books (thus the frequent appearance of plagiarism), fast gaining of
degrees (intensive training programs of various kinds), fast acquisition of
knowledge (thus simplified, cartoonized versions of the classics), and fast
ideas for pressing problems (thus hotline counseling).

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Although psychological counseling still sounds too serious and embar-

rassing to a large number of Chinese, the idea of receiving counseling
through the telephone seems acceptable to many, especially because clients
do not reveal their names on the phone. From November 1991 to November
1996, the Youth Hotline received more than 18,000 calls. During the 3 ser-
vice hours every day, the line was kept busy, and clients often said they had
been dialing for a long time before the line was free. The demand is appar-
ently much greater than the supply. What drives the clients to call hotlines
may be the preservation of face (a traditional Chinese value), the safeguard of
individual privacy (an imported concept from the West), and a quick solution
to a practical problem (a hybrid value).

Social network: Low density, multiple systems, two-way message trans-

mission. Mobility has increased, both horizontally in terms of places of living
and employers one works for and vertically in terms of status change. When
the iron bowl (guaranteed job) is broken, freedom in interpersonal relations
is increased. Typically, if a person doing administrative or secretarial work
for a state-run organization feels unsatisfied with his or her salary, employers,
or intellectual gain, he or she has a number of alternatives: finding another
organization to work with, hanging around for some time, going to school
(in continuing education) for new skills, or starting his or her own business
right away.
The function of previously party- or state-controlled organizations has
been drastically decreased. The visibility of Beijing Neighborhood Commu-
nities, for example, is very low when compared with their flourishing period
of the 1970s. A turning point can be identified. In April 1976, Beijing people
went to Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of Premier Zhou Enlai and
called for democracy, despite the restriction posed by the Gang of Four. In
this movement, some grandmas and aunts of Neighborhood Communities
gained the reputation of the bound-feet detective team for their spying on
people and recording their supposedly politically incorrect behavior. The
meaning contained in this ironic title is that these old women had thoughts
that were as outmoded as foot binding (few of them actually had bound feet),
and they were intruding upon others rights. From then on, the credibility and
functions of Neighborhood Committees have been decreasing. In a more
general sense, the tight-knit social network that enables power imposition has
considerably weakened.
Although individuals attachment to the controlled system is loosened,
various social networks have appeared. For different activities, such as work,
social activity, religious practice, entertainment, and so on, one might contact
different groups of people. A domestic helper in Beijing that I know, for
example, has four circles of interpersonal relations. First, she has her family,

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relatives, and the entire kinship network in a village in Anhui, a southern

province. This is supposedly her personal society and culture to which she
attaches emotion, sends money, but relates only through writing. Second, she
is well integrated with the host family and the urban, intellectual neighbor-
hood. From this family of professors, she obtains money, literacy, a broader
view and experience, and a sense of belonging. The child in the family
addresses her as Aunt X, X being one of the two words in her first name.
Third, she has recently married to a self-employed businessman in Beijing
and, through him, has contact with people in the business circle. The relation
is approved by neither her own nor her husbands family, yet it stays out of
their realm of interference. Her fourth contact circle consists of a large num-
ber of Anhui domestic helpers in Beijing. With these friends of basically the
same gender, age, and experience, she shares practical information, emo-
tional support, and sometimes material help. Recently, she appeared in a TV
program Speaking Your True Mind, venting out frustration in dealing with
parents and in-laws for endorsement of her marriage.
A hotline colleague of mine, a young college professor, has even more
contact circles. As the only child of the family, he sends his love and filial
piety through writing to his parents, who live in the remote northwest of
China. He has colleagues in the work unit. At the same time, he is pursuing an
in-service masters degree in philosophy and thus has classmates. Although
not very wealthy, he is trying his hand on the stock market and exchanges
related information and strategies with a handful of close friends, mostly out-
side the campus. He devotes considerable time and energy at the hotline,
where he is in contact with fellow liners (volunteers), and a circleless,
nameless group of clients. As a lover of excursion, he also has a few people
with whom he goes hiking. The number cannot be large, as the furthest place
he has been to is Tibet.
From an individual perspective, such a situation of multiple contact circles
is not uncommon, especially among young people, although the kinds of con-
tact circle may vary from person to person. From a social perspective, as flex-
ibility and freedom are gained in the selection of social connections, the func-
tion of providing support has been diffused in various systems. This grants
individuals choices in selecting the sources of help and ways of processing
the help received.
Various forms of two-way communication have become possible: mov-
able telephones, e-mail, call-in talk shows on the radio and television, press
conferences, professional consultations, and telephone counseling. These
new forms of communication affect a large part of the population, and the sig-
nificance of the form itself is as important as or more important than the
content.

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Take, for example, the direct call program on the radio, with which I have
had some direct experience. The basic form is that the host, hostess, or hon-
ored guest raises a question, and then the audience calls in by phone to give
an answer. Or the audience calls in to raise questions for the other side to
answer. The program is broadcast live rather than previously recorded, cut,
and pasted. The content covers a wide range of areas, such as entertainment,
public health, financial investment, education, daily life skills, psychological
problems, and social-cultural issues. The specific issue can be as light as
identify the singer for a segment of a pop song or as serious as What is a
healthy personality? Usually there is a call director who works as a gate-
keeper to filter out undesirable calls by asking the callers what they intend to
say. However, once the line is connected, there is practically no control over
the message transmitted to the public audience.
The counseling hotline is also such a form of two-way message transmis-
sion system. The professional ethics determine that the client is free from
accusations, moral or ideological. The technical channel further secures the
freedom of anonymity. For the Youth Hotline, there is an additional commu-
nication channel, namely, the special page in newspaper. Many letters are
received for the Miss Clever & Mr. Muddle-headed column, which dis-
cusses the problems raised in the letters and provides suggestions.

Personality types: From belonging to esteem. According to Xu (1988), a

shift has been taking place in the Chinese personality from the belonging type
to the esteem type, in that the predominant concern for many is now
self-esteem. Although harmonious interpersonal relationships remain impor-
tant, individual success in career and the related esteem have become focal, at
least for a large number of people in large cities. The hero of the new era is the
capable entrepreneur rather than the altruistic Lei Feng (an example of serv-
ing the people set up by Mao in the 1960s). The media repeatedly tell stories
of how poor young boys through individual struggle became millionaires,
which in a sense parallels the Abraham Lincoln log cabin to the White House
myth.
Inside the family, there has been a shift from the traditional belonging to
individual autonomy. On May 12, 1994, China Youth Daily published a sur-
vey on the situation of and attitudes toward the family, with the subjects being
100 young people (about age 30) working in industry, business, and science
and technology. The results indicate that there is considerable amount of tol-
erance for individual family members to have friends of the opposite sex. As
an example, 61.9% of the married men and 50% of the married women indi-
cated such attitude of acceptance. Moreover, 66.7% of the married male and
58.3% of the married female participants reported that the actual number of
their personal friends is higher than that of husband-wife shared friends. Ms.

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 Gao / DIRECTIVE APPROACH TO TELEPHONE COUNSELING 447

Zhang from a Beijing factory said that she enjoys a completely independent
and free circle of communication, which her husband never interferes with.
These findings are sharply contrasted with the traditional family model as
described by Hsu (1971), which had close and exclusive in-group ties.
The transition from belonging to esteem personality brings about a special
need to reestablish social psychological balance: keeping a distance from
the personal society and culturefamily members, relatives, and close
friendsand relating to people in outer circles while exploring ones own
inner world. The communication pattern of telephone hotlines, that is, talk-
ing with an intimate stranger, is particularly suitable for the gratification of
such needs.

Paradoxical Expectations of Clients and Counselors

Cultural traditions and transitions described above contribute to the direc-
tive counseling relationship. Such cultural influence is evident in paradoxical
expectations of both the clients and counselors.

The client: Getting rid of and holding on to an external authority. In tele-

phone counseling, there is a paradoxical expectation on the clients part. On
one hand, the effort of calling a stranger rather than turning to someone in the
personal circle is a pursuit of individual independence. A frequently stated
explanation on the clients part is I want to hear from someone who is objec-
tive. On the other hand, the expectation of direct advice reveals the clients
dependence on an external authority: Tell me what to do and I really
wanted to hear your advice, and thats why I called. It seems the clients
expect directive advice from an intimate stranger. They are breaking away
from authorities in the immediate circle but are relying on authorities in a
more remote circle. This act of relocating the authority to the periphery of
interpersonal contact may well be one step in the growth of the individual and
the death of an always depended-on external authority.

The counselor: Wanting to learn and wanting to teach. If for the client
there is a paradox between getting rid of and holding on to an external author-
ity, then for the volunteer counselor, there is a contradiction between wanting
to learn and wanting to teach. When asked about their motivations for coun-
seling, many counselors will say to learn new things, make new friends,
and thus pursue self-growth (Y. Chen, 1996; Tan, 1996). When criticized
for being too directive, a common response from counselors is What can I
offer otherwise? or I think that can give him some actual help. To many,
counseling is rewarding in that it makes one feel needed; to be helpful means
to give direct advice.

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448 THE COUNSELING PSYCHOLOGIST / May 2001

The paradoxical expectations indicate that, on one hand, the current Chi-
nese society is open and flexible enough for the previously tight-knit inter-
personal network to be broken and new relational systems to be formed based
on individual choices. On the other hand, it is not yet egalitarian enough for
the newly established relations to be free from the vertical, directing versus
directed pattern.

PERCEPTIONS OF DIRECTIVE COUNSELING:

ISSUE OF CULTURAL RELATIVISM

A Cultural Relativist View

Cross-cultural counseling models have gone through several stages, dis-
tinguished for their views of the minorities: the pathological model, the
genetic deficiency model, the cultural deficiency model, and the cultural dif-
ference model (Sue & Sue, 1990). The current direction of counseling, at
least as shown in major English journals in the field, seems to be the cultural
difference model based on cultural relativism. It is believed that cultural dif-
ferences should be respected; cultural traditions should be preserved. Atten-
tion has been called to the underlying ideology of counseling practice and the
applicability of such ideology in different cultures (e.g., Ho, 1995; Ibrahim,
1985). Katz (1985), for example, has called for the awareness that White
culture serves as the foundation for counseling theory, research, and prac-
tice (p. 615). Yue (1994) held that the nondirective style was problematic in
the Chinese context. Sue and Sue (1990, p. 204) proposed that when counsel-
ing Asians, the counselor should take an active approach and be prepared to
create structured situations and give direct suggestions. Zeng and Xu (1989),
in an attempt at indigenizing psychotherapy, have proposed a model of
cross- cultural psychotherapy:

In a society that values independence of the individual, psychotherapy should

target at helping patients to stand on their own feet in the society, to make deci-
sions for oneself, to strive for individual success, and not to rely on others. . . . In
contrast, in a society that values convention, stability and harmony, psycho-
therapy should target at helping people to accept difficulties, accept the reality,
and deal with life problems with the attitude of reducing a big problem to a
small one, and a small one to none. (p. 315)

Such cultural relativism should no doubt be admired for its awareness and
respect of differences, given the culturally unaware or ethnocentric context in
and against which it is proposed. However, several points need to be kept in

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 Gao / DIRECTIVE APPROACH TO TELEPHONE COUNSELING 449

mind. First, the cultural difference model sees a culture as static and homo-
geneous and ignores its dimensions of dynamic change and intragroup diver-
sity. Such a model fails to deal with the complexity embedded in cultures
under rapid transitions, in which traditional and transitional values and com-
munication patterns coexist. Moreover, although apparently fair and liberal,
relativism can well serve as a pretext for cultural conservatism and resistance
to changes that are ultimately beneficial to individual clients and the culture
in general. Empirical work has also shown that some of the stereotypical cul-
tural characteristics are not relevant to counseling-related behavior or attitude.
For example, Leong, Wagner, and Kim (1995) did not find the hypothesized
correlation between loss of face and negative attitude toward group coun-
seling among Asian Americans. Furthermore, views of cultural relativism
may not be free from a cultural center. As Ho (1995) challenged, the cultur-
ally different (p. 17) leads to a conceptual conundrum: different from
whom? In my personal opinion, the cultural difference model of counseling
based on relativism might inherently contradict its very basis. Taking a posi-
tive line of thinking, if the virtue of cultural relativism is to respect emic per-
spectives, then the crucial point is not to preserve whatever differences in
their current, superficial form but to make in-depth investigation of what is
beneficial to the native culture in the long run, from their own perspectives.

Going Beyond Cultural Relativism

Although recognizing cultural differences, counseling practice should go
beyond cultural relativism. This means to be aware of differences in cultural
norms yet not necessarily comply with such norms or use them as the primary
yardstick for counseling assessment.

Common aspects of psychological health. Human beings share some com-

mon basic needs, and there are common perceptions of psychological health
or well-being that do not belong exclusively to particular cultures. Among
these are respect for the person with his or her unique qualities, the actualiza-
tion or cultivation of the individual, the importance of personal growth, and
the significance of a benign interpersonal environment that facilitates such
growth. Both Rogerian humanistic psychology in the West and Confucian-
ism in China have dealt with such concepts in depth. The similarities between
such theories and the possibility of their integration have also been explored
by counseling psychologists (e.g., Lam, 1992). At least, it is still too early to
draw the conclusion that Asians are prone to explicit directions only, whereas
Westerners are inclined to open self-exploration.

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Assessment standard of counseling. Assessment of counseling styles

should be based on the ultimate psychological well-being of the clients, as
defined above, and related to this, the well-being of people in the entire cul-
ture. Congruence with existing cultural norms should be followed only when
these norms gratify such well-being. In a culture where drastic changes are
taking place, it is particularly important to look at the existing norms with a
critical, dynamic perspective. Values and behavioral principles such as
reducing a big problem to a small one, and a small one to none, while still
having their traditional appeal, are becoming outmoded and ineffective in
many hotline situations. Those Chinese who hold such values will rarely
make the effort to call the hotline; they can dissolve or swallow the problems
themselves or within their personal society and culture. Those who make the
effort to call, therefore, may not expect to be told what they would be told by
their parents or grandmas in the Neighborhood Community.
Because hotline counseling in China is still at the initial stage of develop-
ment and the clients are virtually inaccessible, feedback from clients is rare.
Empirical work eliciting and analyzing such response is yet to be started.
Therefore, my vision regarding the positive prospects of the nondirective
model remains to be verified.

Counseling as a mechanism of cultural change. It should be noted that

counseling can be either a mechanism of cultural maintenance (by helping
individuals become better adapted and better assimilated to existing cultural
norms) or an agent of cultural change (by offering different perspectives and
by initiating a dialogical discourse pattern that was previously absent). We
should keep in sight positive characteristics of hotline clients and counselors,
both small in proportion to the general PRC population. The clients, despite
their fast-food consumption attitude toward hotline service, may well repre-
sent those who are less conventional and more ready to reach out and make
self-explorations. The counselors have easy access through training to non-
directive, dialogical ways of communication. Both parties on the hotline, as
the supervisor of the Youth Hotline pointed out (D. Long, personal communi-
cation, 1997), may well be among the first Chinese who actively struggle to
shake off the authoritarian personalities that history has imposed on them.
Communication is a value-enacting as well as value-implementing process
(Smith, 1996). Although psychologists (counselors included) will typically
perceive their work at the individual rather than sociopolitical level, aware-
ness of such interaction between counseling and cultural values will lead to
more informed decisions.

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Future Directions

With regard to prospects of telephone counseling in PRC in the coming

century, the directive style will probably continue to exist for a long time.
Meanwhile, alternative counseling models may be adopted or adapted.
First, humanistic, nondirective models can be forcefully promoted. Such
models will benefit Chinese counselors especially for their basic attitudes,
counselor-client relationship, and healing effect in emotional discharge. Sec-
ond, the previously mentioned Western problem-solving models can be
indigenized. Elements of particular interest include generating multiple per-
spectives, actively involving the client in the process, and making the poten-
tial decisions relative to the clients own value system. These models will be
appropriate for telephone counseling on the grounds of effectiveness, being
easy to follow, and similarities with the directive style.
These changes will be facilitated by, first, the gradual standardization and
improvement of the counseling practice; second, the increase of knowledge
about counseling on the part of the public; third, further personality type
change in the society from belonging to esteem and even to actualization
type; and fourth, a more dialogical culture associated with the development
of dialogical discourses. In fact, there is already evidence that such changes
are occurring. The two major counseling models that have been explored in
the Youth Hotline in recent years include Jackinss (1978) reevaluation model
(humanistic type) and Egans (1990) effective helping model (problem-
solving type).

CONCLUSION

The directive discourse of counseling in PRC interacts with its cultural

context. It is both a result of cultural traditions and transitions characterized
by their values, structure of social network, and personality types and an
influencing factor on the current cultural transition. A cultural relativist
approach would affirm this directive style, but not necessarily in a way that
will benefit the individual and the culture in the long run.
Communication creates as well as transmits values. Telephone counseling
in PRC, although primarily directive at the present stage, has great potential
to change toward a more dialogical direction and, consequently, a have more
positive role to play in a transforming culture.

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