Importance of Psychological Help - Lab Report Example

Importance of Psychological help: Who are involved in counselling? Name: Institution: Abstract Psychological help and counselling means seeking for educational, theoretical, and applied science help from peers and professionals who give advice of mental operations with performance and behaviour. Properly explaining this issue, psychological study must be outlined. It refers to an application or usage of knowledge, understanding and skills to a given number of sections of human activity, that involves issues concerning people's daily activities such as sports, social gatherings, education, events, employment, people and their task, associations, relationships and also the treatment of problems concerning mental-health. This research will give the proper outline of both psychological study an why people look for psychological help. Introduction There are many issues that require proper discussion on the bases of counselling. Many have a history of seeking help from the counsellors. This is a research involving the history of people seeking help of psychological help from the counsellors. The research will give facts about how people look for counselling help. This research will try to answer the hypothesis below. There are three hypotheses to be answered from the research that was conducted. The results are provided in tabular forms and then are properly explained and discussed. This helps to show why the people look for counselling help and psychological help. The research below will give the answers to the questions that have been provided. Hypothesis There are three hypotheses to be tested: Hypothesis 1: Women are more well seek psychological help than men? Hypothesis 2: New generation is more accepted than the old generation? Hypothesis 3: A negative experience with psychological help defers from referring in the future? Method This research used 506 participants. This included 250 females and 256 males. The participants were collected from urban university, both the students and the staff to constitute the required number. It is also worth noting that ages of the participants ranged from 18 to 60 years. The median age was taken to be 31 year. This sample was very appropriate since it included a diverse age bracket. The sample was also balanced in terms of ethnic background. The random picking ensures a fair ground when conducting the research to avoid biasness (Fischer and Amerigo Farina, 1995). Construction of questionnaire The questionnaire contained demographic questions. These are the questions that were supposed to be answered by the participants. It is also worth noting that the questionnaire contained a parasocial interaction scale. This scale was supposed to measure that level of relationships that existed in the participants. The questionnaire more importantly indicates the number of times a person have sought the services of a counsellor. This helps to indicate how many people and of what age prefer counselling. Procedure It is always good to describe the precise and the followed procedure when carrying out the research from the preparation of the study to the conclusions and later to the recommendations. This involves what exactly a researcher did in the research. It should be simple and that anyone is able to copy from what the researcher did from this research. It is good to include some brief and standardized instructions. It is good to involve the ethics that were used in conducting the research (Edward & Turner, 1970). The participants were requested to fill the information that was contained in the questionnaire. This task took place randomly where everyone would be found. Some took place in class when the students had settled while the others took place in different offices. It must be noted that the participants were never informed of the counselling aspect of the study until the measurement had been completed. This was done because the participants were capable of writing what they believed was true hence introducing bias. The completion of the questionnaire by the participants took 5 to 10 minutes. The duration was very short since the questions in the questionnaire were designed in a very simple way to allow easy time for answering. Participants The participants included 250 females and 256 males of the people in the study. An equal number of participants consisting of females and males were randomly chosen. Of these, 261 young and 245 older participants were involved. To bring it down with the figures for the younger participants 130 were younger males and 131 younger females. In the figures, 126 were older males and the rest were 119 older females. These participants were later contacted by phone. The participants who were friends were not supposed to be in romantic affairs. The participants were then tested in groups of two four pairs of friends. The groups were requested to fill in the details that were contained in the two sets of questionnaire. One of the questionnaire required demographic information while the other contained personal information about themselves. After this participants were subjected to attachment interview that was tape recorded. The mean age of the participants of the younger participants is 20.59 with a standard deviation of 2.24 while the older participants have a mean of 60.83 and a standard deviation of 6.71. Number Mean Standard deviation Older participants 245 60.83 6.71 Younger participants 261 20.59 2.24 Results In terms of results the younger participants of the age between 18 years and 30 years represent of the new generation while the older participants that is 55 years and above. Women are more likely to seek psychological help than men. This is a true hypothesis that was tested by the research and put in the results. In addition, from the results it is for sure that more women seek counselling help and services. A mean of 17.90 of the standard deviation of 4.73 young females as compared to their male counterparts who had a mean of 14.34 and a standard deviation of 5.22 in the same age bracket resulted from the research. In addition, the older participants, females had a mean of 18.00 and a standard deviation of 5.65 as compared to 14.36 for the males and a standard deviation of 6.12. Therefore from the results this hypothesis is confirmed. The results were in line with the hypothesis of the study. In terms of the acceptability of the new generation, from the results it can be said to be in line with the hypothesis. Therefore, new generation are more accepted than the old generation. The results were in line with the hypothesis of the study. A negative experience with psychological help defers from referring in the future. This is another hypothesis that was to be tested. However from the results of the research the hypothesis is difficult to confirm or deny. This is because some of the participants only required the assistance in the old ages age and hence has no history with the psychologists. In addition most of the participants had a very minimal history with the psychologists. Number Young Old Male 256 130 126 Female 250 131 119 Discussion The results of this study showed that there the younger group obtained high ratings of coherence of the interview that they undertook. This group also showed that only a few of them sought the help of the psychologists. The following results were as follows only 27 from the many participants had a history of counselling. 157 had a little counselling a mean of 18.22 representing a standard deviation of 5.46. An overwhelming 322 of the participants had n history in counselling a mean of 14.74 representing a standard deviation of 5.29. The older group scored lower than what the younger group scored. Both groups reported counselling that had existed in their lifetime. Researchers have been noted not to generally look at the importance of self-esteem as a major factor to an individual’s decision in seeking counselling services. However, self-esteem is reported to have been an important psychological barrier in seeking help from the nonprofessional sources such as family and friends. Some researchers suggested that seeking help from another entails an implicit analysis of the costs and benefits to a person’s self-esteem. Seeking help from another to some degree means admitting that one cannot deal with the problem on one’s own and, as such, can be an admission of inadequacy. Thus, a person may decide not to seek help in order to maintain a positive self-image I would therefore recommend a follow up study to be conducted. The study follow up study should investigate and come up with relative merits of measuring attachment patterns in terms of two dimensions. This will replace the use of four prototypes. For instance structural equation modelling should be employed while carrying out this follow up study. This paper highlights some of the pertinent theories that tend to explain why the participants had psychological problem. These theories also state in a more categorical manner some of the factors that might have caused the condition that resulted in seeking counselling. It is also worth noting that the theories will also give a clear understanding of this psychological problem thereby stating ways of dealing with people of such nature. These theories also explain remedies for such particular psychological case. Many scientists have taken different and unique approaches in dealing with adolescent cases. Their theoretical point of view concerning the cases of adolescents makes us to understand the adolescents in a more realistic manner. The following theories will be very important in explaining this particular case. The biological - Maturational theory This theory was developed by a scientist known as Stanley Hall. Hall argued that psychological development of every human begins always has a very direct link with the evolution of the human being. He developed two major notions namely ontogeny and phynogeny. In his arguments, ontogeny majorly means the development of a person from child hood to adulthood through the stage of adolescence. He also explains vividly that phylogeny on the other hand means the development of a human being from primitive species a phenomenon known as evolution. It is fundamental to highlight that Hall explains an adolescence stage as a stage of stress. This is because this stage is always accompanied with a lot of psychological challenges. It is vivid to note that Hall raises some of the pertinent issues that explain why adolescence stage is a storm of stress. He tries to speculate whether an adolescence period is more stressful than other stages. He also tries to explain the magnitude of stress that accompanies the stage of adolescence. Thirdly, Hall tries to ascertain some of the measures that can be put in place to explain this stressful stage (Vogel, Wester & Larson, 2007). References Edward H. Fischer and John Lcb. Turner (1970) Orientations to Seeking Professional Help: Development and Research Utility of an Attitude Scale H. Fischer, Amerigo Farina (August 1995) Attitudes towards seeking professional psychological help: A shortened form and consideration for research. Vogel, D. L., Wester, S. R., & Larson, L. M. (October 23, 2007). Avoidance of Counselling: Psychological Factors That Inhibit Seeking Help. Journal of Counselling & Development, 85, 4, 410-422. Read More