Massey Documents by Type

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/294

Browse

Subject: search.filters.subject.Help-seeking behavior

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The surviving emotional storms programme : a service user informed programme developed from an exploratory study of help-seeking experiences of NZ tertiary students with Borderline Personality Disorder : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2023-04-11) Beckett, Jennifer Jean
    In this qualitative thesis, 14 university students were interviewed about their lived experience of having Borderline Personality Disorder. Participants discussed arduous journeys in search of effective treatment and described their increasing risk while trying to access help, alongside their experiences when able to access publicly funded treatment. Results from thematic analysis highlighted a super-theme of a continuous invalidation loop, discussed from an ecological and attachment perspective. This started with early help-seeking invalidation in participants’ microsystems, with the loop then broadening across systems over time, and help seeking attempts. This included contact with the mental health system, which was suggested to be a perpetuating factor in the development and maintenance of Borderline Personality Disorder. The help-seeking invalidation loop was briefly interrupted when participants were diagnosed, which occurred for most, directly after a suicide attempt. Diagnosis brought temporary relief, when participants armed themselves with knowledge about the condition including prognosis and treatment. The validation from informed diagnosis aided an externalisation process to occur, enhancing connections with self and others. However, accessing treatment proved difficult, crisis and respite was perceived as invalidating and when in treatment participants’ attempts at connection were often thwarted. Results from the thematic analysis guided the design and delivery of a group intervention. The intervention was administered using an action research methodology to university students either diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder or with borderline traits. The intervention, an adaptation from traditional dialectic behavioural therapy, integrated the results from the thematic analysis. To address the super-theme findings, attachment theory was interspersed throughout the intervention, utilizing aspects of narrative and acceptance and commitment therapies. The intervention was adapted and evolved from participant feedback over six cycles of 12-session intervention groups. In each group participants reported reduced severity of borderline symptoms and increased mindfulness ability. The research took place prior to and during the global pandemic and Covid-19 mandatory lockdowns in NZ, during which the research was expanded to finish with an online intervention accessed by students across NZ.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    An examination of attitudes toward help-seeking and attributions made for a psychological problem by an undergraduate adolescent population : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirement for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1988) Maxwell, Penelope J
    The aim of the present study was to examine the help-seeking attitudes held by an adolescent undergraduate student population using the modified version of the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale, (ATSPPH). An investigation was also held into the type of attributions made as to the cause of a psychological problem and the particular help-source chosen to deal with this problem. Four hundred and forty-four hostel resident undergraduate students participated in a three component descriptive study within a quasi-experimental design which included a pre-test pilot study group, a main study matched group and a control group. The results obtained showed that this particular adolescent population held less positive help-seeking attitudes than a wider heterogeneous population. Both females and those subjects who had a prior contact with psychological professionals held more positive pro-help attitudes than either those who had no prior contact and male subjects. Two thirds of the subjects made external (situational) attributions as to the cause of the psychological problem and one-third internal attributions. The majority of subjects from the two attribution groups chose a friend as the preferred help-source to deal with a psychological problem. Help-source significantly discriminated the help-seeking score on the ATSPPH scale with those with less positive attitudes choosing a friend as the preferred help-source whereas those with more pro-help positive attitudes chose a psychologist or psychiatrist. Informal and formal help-sources were defined and the stated preferences of subjects in the present study were evaluated in relation to the mental health resources currently available. Changes that the psychological professionals themselves may need to consider in matching supply to demand were also discussed.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Performing competence and negotiating disclosure : discourses of adolescent help-seeking : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2001) Mathewson, Kay Marie
    Research indicates that many adolescents experiencing psychological distress do not seek help. The traditions in which this research has been conducted have contributed to gaps in understanding about the meaning of seeking help and the ways that adolescents make sense of psychological services. Using a collaborative interview method, the help-seeking experiences of a group of nine adolescents aged 13 to 17 years of age were examined. An analysis of their talk identified two distinct but inter-related discourses. A performance-of-competence discourse made available a position of an agentive competent-self who claimed the ability to resolve problems without help from others. The competent-self was constructed in three ways; by providing evidence of competence as a continuous aspect of identity, by claiming a position as a source of help to peers and by constructing available sources of help as incompetent. Competence was also discursively maintained by constructing a 'not coping experience' variously as; an isolated one-off event, using indirect requests for help, normalising this experience, and spatially and temporally distancing the self from not-coping. Positioned against the competent-self was the incompetent-other whose inability to help was constructed in terms of irreconcilable generational differences, who acted in immoral ways by breaking confidentiality, who was culturally incompetent and who failed to notice clear requests for help. Both these positions of competency and incompetency functioned to disclaim the need for help and legitimised avoidant actions. A second discourse, negotiating-disclosure, was centred around the contradiction between wanting to disclose and holding back. Holding back was used to avoid the potential for being repositioned as incompetent by peers or powerful adults, as well as avoiding possible abandonment or ridicule by peers. The social consequences of being repositioned as incompetent impacted on both the level of disclosure and engagement with services. These consequences were managed by invoking the competent-self, withholding information or using silence to resist disclosure. Informants constructed facilitative 'rules of engagement' with psychological services in terms of professional competence, friendship, trust and confidentiality, congruence and indirectness. Implications are discussed for counselling interactions with young people in highlighting the importance of a competent counsellor in facilitating disclosure in ways that enable young people to maintain a competent identity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The social barriers and social facilitators of men's medical help seeking behaviours : a thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2013) Vlahakis, Sandra
    Gender, along with men’s alignment with the normative masculine identity have been identified key determinants of medical help seeking for cancer symptoms. Combined these factors influence the self construct and shape individual attitudes, values, beliefs, norms, expectations and thus behaviours regarding health and including when medical help is sought. Socially conditioned from birth and with a need to conform to social expectations, men delay medical help seeking until their pain is unbearable, or they are faced with an inability to complete routine tasks due to the severity of their illness symptoms. This pattern of men’s delayed help seeking contributes to their early mortality from all the leading causes of death, including gender neutral cancers. Lifestyle factors have been identified key determinants of cancer and thus cancer is concentrated in low socio economic areas where factors such as poor nutrition, high obesity and low exercise prevail, as does delayed medical help seeking by men. In considering how best to address men’s delayed help seeking, the source and accuracy of the health information men held was investigated and was found to be to a large extent, inaccurate. A positive factor identified however was that men do discuss heath issues, informally amongst themselves. With numerous factors influencing men’s medical help seeking, Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory (1979) was identified a suitable framework on which to base this investigation into those social factors that influence men’s medical help seeking. Suggestions are made as to how to use this same framework to effect population behavioural change in this regard, that if successful would see improved treatment outcomes and a reduction in the gender mortality disparity.