Welcome to the Reach Out Pro blog

Hi I'm Natalie, I previously wrote a blog on help seeking behaviour and how the stigma associated with mental health may hinder help-seeking behaviour. During my research I also came across the topic of emotion and more specifically how emotional competence effects help-seeking behaviour.

Emotional competence is characterised by the ability to perceive emotions, manage your own emotions and manage others emotions in an acceptable way (Ciarrochi & Deane, 2001). High emotional competence is thought to be related to help seeking behaviours as these individuals are more likely to have social support network allowing opportunities for help seeking, better at recognising when they are distressed which would help them know when to seek help and have better skills at managing emotions of others which makes it more likely the their help seeking behaviour will be more successful in getting the help response they need (Ciarrochi & Deane, 2001). This can also have important implications for young people as they may have more difficulty perceiving their emotions, managing their emotions and managing others emotions therefore having lower emotional competence. This could be due to their level of maturity and cognitive development. As a young person and many young people I know sometimes I find it hard to deal with my emotions appropriately and may not go about finding help the right way because of the way I might be feeling. Emotions are also a big part of a young person's life and many decisions are made by young people based on emotions

From a study conducted by Ciarrochi, Wilson, Deane and Rickwood (2003) it was found that adolescents with higher emotional competence were found to be associated with higher intentions to seek help. This implies that those with lower emotional competence are reluctant to seek help which may be a major reason why young people fail to seek help for their mental health issues. In order to get past we could encourage help seeking among young people with lower emotional competence in order to get them they help that they need. We could also try to reach individuals with lower emotional competence through avenues they may be familiar with. As a young person and many young people I know sometimes I find it hard to deal with my emotions appropriately and may not go about finding help the right way because of the way I might be feeling.

A great way that mental health professionals could help young people with lower emotional competence is through the use of the internet. Many young people would feel more comfortable seeking help online rather than face to face because they don't have to overtly deal with others emotions which may be intimidating. Many young people may also find it easier to express their emotions by writing and chatting to people rather than face to face as they may find opening this way easier. Personally as a young person, if a topic was sensitive for me and had a lot of my emotions attached to I would rather contact somebody over the internet because firstly I could deal with my emotions in a place I was comfortable in and I know that I would express how I would be feeling better than if I were to interact with the person face to face. Connecting to young people through the internet may be the ice breaker that gives young people with lower emotional competence the help they need that they may not otherwise receive. It is therefore extremely important for health care professionals to consider this avenue of treating patients.

References

Ciarrochi, J. V., & Deane, F. P. (2001). Emotional competence and willingness to seek help from professional and nonprofessional sources. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 29, 233-246.

Ciarrochi, J., Wilson, C. J., Deane, F. P., & Rickwood, D. (2003). Do difficulties with emotions inhibit help-seeking in adolescence? The role of age and emotional competence in predicting help-seeking intentions. Counselling Psychology Quarterly, 16, 103-120.