Browsing by Author "Carpelan, Anselmi Joakim"

Aim: Self-concealment is a trait-like tendency that relates to an individual’s willingness to disclose intimate, painful, or otherwise sensitive personal information. This paper examines the connection between self-concealment and help-seeking considering the much-discussed service gap phenomenon which affects most individuals with mental disorders. Methods: Relevant studies were identified by searching the Google Scholar, APAPsycNet, and ScienceDirect databases. The search was conducted by specifying the term “self-concealment” with other search terms all relating to an individual’s help-seeking attitudes, intentions, and behavior. Since most of the identified studies relied on samples of college students, ethnic minorities, or non-western populations, the general discussion on help-seeking was contextualized accordingly. Conclusions: Self-concealment emerges as having a two-fold connection to help-seeking. On one hand, it increases psychological distress, which in turn increases help-seeking intentions; on the other hand, it has a negative connection to help-seeking attitudes. In fact, high self-concealment might be best understood as creating a kind of approach–avoidance-conflict. Additionally, studies show that certain ethnic minorities appear to have a higher propensity for self-concealment in contrast to their majority counterparts. Finally, the actual impact of self-concealment on help-seeking is brought into question. Although help-seeking attitudes have a relatively impressive correlation with self-concealment, they may not be a sufficient indicator of help-seeking intentions or actual behavior. Self-concealment might ultimately have a negligible role in explaining help-seeking intentions and behavior.