Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping

Has the developing world developed modern concepts of stress? Are coping methods the same around the globe? Such questions are not simple to answer, and until recently, few knew to ask them.

In recent years, Western psychologists have recognized that their prevailing views of psychology do not always translate worldwide—and that no culture has a monopoly on either stress or coping. The Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping was created to address this realization. This unique volume moves beyond simple comparisons of behaviors in other countries by clarifying critical concepts in stress and coping, analyzing and synthesizing vast amounts of global data, and identifying constructs and methodologies necessary for meaningful cross-cultural research.

An international, multiethnic panel of forty-five contributors presents elegant studies of stress, survival, and resilience as cultures evolve and countries interact, including:

• Personal transformation as a coping strategy
• Psychological skills that enhance intercultural adjustment
• Individual versus collectivist values in coping
• Buddhist and Taoist traditions in coping
• The cumulative effects of historical, environmental, and political stressors on nations in the Middle East
• Specific cross-cultural perspectives, from Latino-American families to Canadian aboriginal peoples to minority university students

The editors have assembled a vital store of knowledge, raising crucial implications for clinicians working with immigrant/international populations, and evaluating the current state of theory, research, and assessment. The Handbook documents major steps toward scientific advancement—and human understanding.

• Hardiness
• Supervision
• assessment
• culture
• psychology
• women

From the reviews:

The breadth of cultural perspectives represented in this handbook is truly extraordinary as well as refreshing. The diversity of the chapters encourages the reader to think about stress and coping in ways that broaden and enrich the mind. The volume is an invaluable resource for stress and coping researchers who want to find new and provocative ways to think about their own research and the research of others.

- Susan Folkman, Ph.D.
Professor of Medicine
University of California – San Francisco

This is a comprehensive collection of papers on a topic of emerging importance in the cross-cultural literature. Stress and coping need to be considered by scholars from differing cultural backgrounds, since adaptation to the inevitable challenges of life must be socialized for all future participants in the cultural drama and this participation will  be shaped by the historical and philosophical traditions informing each of those cultures. The editors have assembled a diverse array of competent scholars from many cultural traditions to address key issues in the literature, and thus provided us readers with the necessary guidance for future comparative research in this fundamental topic area.

- Michael Harris Bond, Ph.D.
President, International Association of Cross-Cultural Psychology

A cross-cultural book on coping has been long overdue and I cannot think of a better editor than Paul Wong to bring such a huge project to fruition. At last, with the publication of the Handbook of Multicultural Perspectives on Stress and Coping, the days of understanding coping without considering cross-cultural factors are over. Every researcher and practitioner who is interested in the topic of coping will want to read this magnificent volume.

- C. R. Snyder, Ph.D.
Wright Distinguished Professor of Clinical Psychology
University of Kansas, Lawrence

"Paul Pederson provides a sobering inventory of the knowledge gaps in the culture, stress, and copying literature. The current volume is a welcome edition to this growing field, providing researchers with useful tools and intriguing hypotheses for use in future studies. … The editors did an outstanding job of involving a number of cultural perspectives, both in terms of the writers themselves and also the topics they have chosen to study. Most chapters are thought provoking, containing the seeds for many research programs." (Andrew G. Ryder, Donald D. H. Watanabe and Angela J. Ring, Canadian Psychology, Vol. 48 (1), 2007)

• Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology, Trinity Western University, Langley, Canada

  Paul T. P. Wong, Lilian C. J. Wong

Paul T. P. Wong (Ed.) received his Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Toronto. He has held professorial positions at the University of Texas at Austin, York University, Trent University, and the University of Toronto, and has spent one year as a Visiting Scientist at the University of California at Los Angeles. He moved to Vancouver from Toronto in 1994 to assume the position of Director of Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology of Trinity Western University, where he currently holds the position of Research Director and Professor. He is the founding President of the International Network on Personal Meaning (www.meaning.ca), the International Society for Existential Psychology and Psychotherapy (www.existentialpsychology.org), and the Meaning-Centered Counselling Institute. With more than 120 published articles and book chapters reflecting his many research interests, he has focused on the roles of meaning, appraisal, and culture in the stress and coping process. The Stress Appraisal Measure developed by Edward Peacock and P. T.P. Wong has been widely used. His resource-congruence model is one of the early coping theories that emphasize the importance of cultural context. As well, he is a pioneer in research on stress and coping in the Chinese elderly. His edited volume (with Prem Fry as co-editor) on The Human Quest for Meaning Lawrence (Erlbaum Associates, Publishers) has contributed to the current interest in meaning research.

Lilian C. J. Wong (Ed.), received her B.Sc. (Toronto), M.A. (Educational Psychology,  University of Texas at Austin), and Ph.D. in Counselling Psychology at the University of British Columbia. She also completed courses in Special Education and Psychopathology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of School Counselling of the Graduate Program in Counselling Psychology, at Trinity Western University, BC, Canada. She had held positions as Psychoeducational Consultant with the Peterborough County Board of Education, Ontario, and School Psychologist and Area Counsellor with the Vancouver School Board. Her primary research area is multicultural supervision competencies. Her Multicultural Supervision Competencies Questionnaire (developed with Paul Wong) has contributed to the conceptualization and measurement of multicultural supervision competencies. She has taken an active part in the Roundtable Discussions in Exploring Psychotherapy Supervision and Training, at APA Annual Conventions for the last few years. Her other research interests include cross-cultural assessment and counseling, emotional and social intelligence, and moral development. She has presented internationally workshops in play therapy and grieving in children and adolescents. She is currently on the Education Committee of BC Association for Play Therapy and on the board of the International Network on Personal Meaning. She is the editor of "A Journey of Courage" (a Commemorative Publication, Trinity Western University). She also is Vice-President of The Meaning-Centered Counselling Institute, Inc.

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