Abstract
Although the number of foreign students in Japan has shown a remarkable increase recently, these students often experience severe culture-shock and have many difficultuies in their lives. They have faced different kinds of emotional stresses, coming from language difficulties, isolation, prejudice and discrimination in their schools as well as in their communities. However, there are few helping institutions or lauguage services for foreign students in Japan. Thus, the students are not able to ask for help. This situation reflects the fact that there are also few social work studies regarding foreign students in Japan. The particular focus of this paper is a three-month study of a Systematic Eclectic Approach (SEA) with Mei-lin, a Malaysian student who has faced severe emotional problems. This paper explores the possibilities of combining and using two different approaches to solve the problems of persons living in a foreign culture. The first approach may be considered a clinical approach. The caseworker asists the client through SEA, which combines crisis intervention, life model and rational emotive therapy (RET). The second approach may be considered a social approach. The caseworker asists the client in a one-on-one, cross-cultural context. This study explores the possibility that the use of a combination of approaches, such as SEA and a cross-cultural approach may be more effective than the exclusive use of a single approach. Finally, this study touches briefly on a global approach as a third possibility for the solution of social problems.
