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The paper deals with the organizational context of medical practice, help-seeking, and illness behavior in a manner which attempts to show their relevance to more extensive sociological issues. In the first part of the paper, both the advantages and costs of bureaucratization of medical practice are discussed in relation to changes in society itself. The second part of the paper deals with the strategy for developing a social psychological help-seeking model. Although the entire paper attempts to identify strategic areas for research in medical sociology, the third part of the paper is more specifically directed to needed areas in research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's physician mast appreciate that his role as a family life counselor entails more than the imparting of the bare details of anatomy and physiology. He must help people to reach an under- standing of the emotional and physical facets of human growth, and to comprehend the many forces that form an adult's responsiveness to his needs in relation to those of others. When a physician serves as a family counselor, be has two advantages: He is accepted as one considered to be familiar with the complexities of human relations, and patients come as supplicants seeking help. The physician must himself, however, have met certain requisites before be is able to counsel well on the subject of sex. He must first divest himself of his own anxieties, guilt, and fears so that his personal unresolved attitudes do not impinge on his patient' problems. He must be able to identify himself as a sexual being, and be able to deal with issues of sexuality as be would with any other medical troubles, within the bounds of his knowledge and emotional security. The physician must be prepared to discuss and advise upon many medically oriented sexual issues that include masturbation, homosexuality, venereal disease, premarital as well as extramarital sexual experiences, sexuality as it pertains to his geriatric patients, conception control) the problems of the infertile couple, and expression of viewpoints about some of the sociologic problems related to reproduction. The physician-counselor must be aware that other elements and professions within a community are helpful in the area of family life education. Accordingly, physicians must extend the recognition of mutual interdependence that exists not only in the relations of individuals to one another but also as it exists between such individuals and that portion of society in which they find themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on an incident of taking counseling service by a man Joe, who was very ambitious and wants to be a successful man in his future life. Joe looked through the directory and telephoned a place that was described as offering all types of counseling services for all ages- the Institute for Living and Learning(ILL), listed as part of the Human Sciences Complex. Joe found a comfortable seat in the waiting area and began to read the Public Information Bulletin where be had left off. Joe chooses to take Life style assistance. The counselor, Samuelson begins with the post martial adjustment counseling. As Joe talked to Samuelson,a recording was made of his conversation, and it was processed and summarized for ILL's information retrieval bank. our Data Bank. The summary was then recorded, so that other counselor could designate the appropriate code and then hear a playback of the summary. It saves innumerable hours for the counselors and frees counselee's time and counselor so the counseling process keeps moving. Joe do not want to go on living.

Previous research has indicated a relationship between the inclination to adopt the sick role and actual help-seeking. The present paper is an attempt to discover how self-reliance, an important value in American society, affects this inclination. The findings indicate that those placing the strongest emphasis on self-reliance are the least likely to indicate a willingness to adopt the sick role. The relationship between self-reliance and tendency to seek help is maintained under several different controls, although the introduction of a control for value on health acts to specify the relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses some social and mental aspects of mendicancy. Sympathetic action towards those in need has been based upon certain natural feelings, the so-called tender emotions coupled with self-assertion and fear which have been accepted without conscious thought as proper for man. Early society was simple and nothing could be more natural than the spontaneous sharing of one's food and drink with the stranger at one's door. A complex society has changed this naive conception of duty. Such actions occurring in a modern city might do incalculable harm. There is need to consider the effects of charity upon the birth-rate, upon exploitation and injustice, and upon the moral fibre and the self-reliance of the recipient. The most direct form of charity is the giving by one person to another who openly asks for aid. A person who solicits aid more or less regularly in the public way from passers-by is usually termed a beggar. Of these there are many types ranging all the way from the whining moocher and the panhandler to the clever mendicant who secures aid by means of unusual tricks.

This article focuses on the different concerns relating to counseling research. One major observation of every author, directly stated or implied, is that more research per se is not needed. Instead, a greater variety of inquiry in terms of design and content is needed. There are several authors who cited the confusion and ambiguity about goals, purposes or objectives. Additionally, authors repeatedly criticized studies involving counseling procedures for the irrelevance and inadequacy of outcome measures. The authors stated that there typically was little or no established relationship and rationale among treatment procedures, counseling objectives and outcome measures.

This article examines the systems approaches in guidance. A systems approach is a method for analyzing and realizing the values, goals or policies of a human enterprise. The method makes explicit the structure or organization of an orderly whole, clearly showing the inter-relationships of the parts to each other and to the whole itself. At least three steps are involved in developing a systems approach. First is translating the broad aims of the enterprise into objectives which are explicit and operational. Next is designing the procedures which are intended to accomplish the objectives by identifying the relevant variables which the procedures are intended to order or change. It includes the construction of a model which suggests a priori and consequent relationships among the identified variables. Last is implementing the model and evaluating the results of the innovation in terms of the operationally stated objectives.

This article cites various research regarding the growth in the professional practice of group counseling in the educational setting. Most studies point out that group counseling is considered to include professional attempts to assist non-psychotic clients to examine and modify their values or behavior through small-group interaction. There are various concerns a counselor has in setting up and conducting a counseling group. These are client selection and preparation, outcomes, group interaction, group development, leadership styles and group structure, innovations and suggestions for research.

Thirty pairs of female Ss were administered a questionnaire consisting of 40 factual items. Each S had the option of either answering each question independently or seeking help from her partner. The Ss' performances on the questionnaire yielded two independent variables which were used to predict and account for help-seeking and help-giving behavior in a task-oriented dyadic interaction involving identification of objects on Holtzman inkblots. The dependent variables consisted of explicit or direct requests for help, indirect requests for help, acquiescent responses, rejections of offered help, and unsolicited help-giving. The results indicated that significant portions of the dyadic interactions on the Holtzman task were predictable from the nature of the Ss' help-seeking behavior on the questionnaire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the relationship of help-seeking attitudes to severity of psychological distress; standardized scales were utilized as the measures of severity of psychological problems. Based on previous studies, it was predicted that severity of disturbance and positive help-seeking attitudes would be inversely related. It appears that more disturbed individuals may be less receptive to psychological help. The direction or origin of the causal relationship is unclear, and further delineation of the problem would prove useful.