Singapore

According to the WHO, the suicide rate in Singapore ranked 105th in the world in 2016. Suicide has been rising exponentially in the country.. Similar to many Asian countries, suicide at this current time in Singapore generally is being viewed as a taboo subject. Mental health has been heavily stigmatized within society. Initially, it had been known in Singapore that all attempted suicides will be seen as a crime (Wei, 2019). The Penal Code review committee issued that the law for attempted suicide to be repealed in 2018 (Wei, 2019). The law was then officially amended to decriminalize suicide on the 6 May 2019. Now, there are many private services and state counselling can be found with diverse languages equipped in many institutes for the client to meet their standard. 

There are still several concerns on the issue of prematurely licensing the counselling profession in Singapore (Yeo et al., 2012). Many counsellors provide services with vastly different credentials. Standardized requirements are only held by professional organizations such as the Singapore Association for Counseling  (Yeo et al., 2012).

Singapore is known to follow the Western codes of ethics, however, in light of the culture-bound characteristics of code of ethics developed within a cultural context, it has been considered vital for the professional bodies in Singapore to adopt the Western codes of ethics with caution (Yeo et al., 2012). This is due to the individualistic culture that may be interpreted by counsellors in the context of client collectivist culture in Singapore.