Research on Clinical Mental Health Counselling and Psychotherapy with Punjabi Sikhs: A Scoping Review

Abstract

Punjabi Sikhs enter counseling/psychotherapy with some highly unique and impactful historical and present contextual circumstances unfamiliar to many practitioners that could be highly relevant for culturally-responsive treatment. This scoping review set out to mobilize existing research knowledge about counseling/psychotherapy with Punjabi Sikhs. Only 15 research studies were located. Analysis indicates that about 2/3 of the studies were conducted in India and the rest in Western countries. Men and women as clients were comparably investigated and there was only one study with children. The largest share of clients studied were hospital/medical patients with psychological issues, subsequent to medical conditions and stress/anxiety was the single most frequently investigated client presenting concern. Progressive muscle relaxation was the only theory/intervention investigated more than once across the studies. The vast majority of research was quantitative and focused on establishing the effectiveness of counseling/psychotherapy, although only three studies used full experimental designs. This small body of research provides promising evidence in support of the general effectiveness of counseling/psychotherapy for Punjabi Sikhs. The results of this review also identified serious knowledge gaps in need of research. This identification and summary of studies can serve as a resource list for practitioners, supervisors, instructors, researchers and students interested in increasing their knowledge about and competence in working with Punjabi Sikhs. It is hoped that this review will inspire more research on counseling/psychotherapy with Punjabi Sikhs.