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Help-Seeking as a Coping Mechanism

  • Chapter
Coping with Negative Life Events

Part of the book series: The Plenum Series on Stress and Coping ((SSSO))

Abstract

This chapter discusses how individuals can cope with negative life events through seeking help from other persons. When presented with adverse or demanding events, people can respond by seeking help from a husband or wife, from family members or relatives, or from members of larger community networks. Individuals may obtain help primarily within the context of informal social support; they may seek help from formal agencies or professional helpers; or they may combine formal and informal sources of help. In this chapter I discuss the variety of supportive resources that are potentially available to distressed persons, suggest some propositions about factors that influence help-seeking behavior, and delineate some functional mechanisms through which help-seeking may be related to adjustment and well-being.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departments of Psychology and Epidemiology, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA

    Thomas Ashby Wills

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  1. Thomas Ashby Wills
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, USA

    C. R. Snyder

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Missouri, Columbia, Missouri, USA

    Carol E. Ford

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Wills, T.A. (1987). Help-Seeking as a Coping Mechanism. In: Snyder, C.R., Ford, C.E. (eds) Coping with Negative Life Events. The Plenum Series on Stress and Coping. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9865-4_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-9865-4_2

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