Counseling psychology doctoral students' help seeking behavior: Factors affecting willingness to seek help for psychological problems

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that may affect counseling psychology doctoral students' tendencies to seek professional psychological help for their personal problems. The study had the following specific goals: (a) to identify psychology students' reasons for seeking professional help, (b) to identify psychology students, reasons for hesitating to seek professional help, (c) to determine the incidence of personal distress among psychology students, (d) to determine the incidence of professional psychological help seeking, and (e) to begin to examine the impact that training environments have on the development of psychologists' attitudes toward seeking personal psychotherapy.; The population of this study was doctoral students in APA-approved programs in Counseling Psychology during their internship phase of training. The sample consisted of 178 pre-doctoral interns. Students were mailed a survey developed by the researcher. The survey instrument consisted of questions about psychological problems experienced and the extent to which students had sought or would seek help for these problems. The survey also addressed students' perceptions about whether or not personal help seeking was advocated in their training programs and extent to which the topic of personal psychotherapy was included in their graduate curriculum.; Data were analyzed using a combination of qualitative and quantitative procedures. Grounded theory analysis techniques, frequency distributions and multiple regression analyses were utilized.; The study reveals that the decision to seek help is a complex one. While most students had sought or would be willing to seek help in the future, many would hesitate to do so. Conclusions drawn are that psychologists (in training) may prefer to turn to professional help as a last resort, and that there are barriers that prevent trainees from obtaining psychological services including finances, availability of therapists, and concerns about confidentiality. Trainees who have had positive experiences with therapy or who value it for personal or professional growth are more likely to seek help. Trainees who perceive that help seeking is normative among their peers are also more likely to seek help. The topic of "psychologists' seeking help for themselves" is not consistently addressed as a part of counseling psychologists' formal training.