Background
In the present study, the reasons why people ask for psychological support according to their sex is being investigated.
Materials and methods
Data was obtained from the Association of Psychology & Psychiatry for Adults & Children (A.P.P.A.C.) from January 2002 until December 2006. The sample size was N=100, aged from 22 years to 65 years.
Results
Results indicated that there were population differences (62 women and 38 men) and statistically significant differences were found in the primary therapeutic goal of clients as well as their therapeutic course, according to their sex.
Conclusions
More specifically, results indicated that women tend to seek counselling mostly for themselves and secondary for a family member: women aged 25-35 want to deal with personal problems, women aged 35-45 seek for counselling (mostly relationship-based), while women aged 45-65 mainly wish to resolve problems with their children. On the other hand, men aged 30-50 years usually require counselling when their symptoms seem to disable them to successfully function in their workplace. Men over 50 years old ask for counselling in order to resolve a problem concerning their children. These men usually end their sessions when symptoms become less severe, while women are found to be more consistent towards therapy. Finally, as far as their socioeconomic status is concerned research results indicated that men of high socioeconomic status do not easily accept that they need counselling, while women of high socioeconomic status are more receptive towards counselling.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
An erratum to this article is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12991-017-0129-3.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
About this article
Cite this article
Kouros, J., Karkanis, A. & Kotta, D. Sex differences in asking for counselling and psychological support from a therapeutic center (A.P.P.A.C.). Ann Gen Psychiatry 7 (Suppl 1), S329 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S329
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-859X-7-S1-S329