Ideally, any person experiencing a problem would feel comfortable seeking counseling. However, this is often not the case. Although 1 in 4 (26.2%) Americans experience a mental health issue in a given year (Kessler, Chiu, Demler, & Walters, 2005), only 11% seek mental health services (Andrews, Issakidis, & Carter, 2001). The number of individuals who experience concerns but do not seek counseling represents a mandate for counselors to better understand the factors involved in the help-seeking process in order to improve interventions that encourage people to seek help when experiencing psychological distress. Self-concealment, the active concealment of personal, distressing, or negative information from others (Larson & Chastain, 1990), has recently become a focus of research on help-seeking attitudes and behaviors. Cramer (1999) introduced a model in which self-concealment is related to help seeking through its relationships with social support, distress, and attitudes toward help. However, several aspects of the model have not been examined, such as (a) its relevance for those currently experiencing a problematic issue, (b) its applicability across diverse treatment issues, and (c) the role that different types of support play in the model.
College is generally a stressful life period, and college students are experiencing more psychological, academic, and career-related concerns than they have in the past (Benton, Robertson, Tseng, Newton, & Benton, 2003). From a clinical standpoint, it is important to differentiate between individuals who are experiencing a problem and those who are not. It is also important to distinguish whether current models of help seeking will differ depending on the current issue a person is facing. For this reason, we sought to evaluate the applicability of the key aspects of Cramer's (1999) model for individuals who identified as experiencing a current psychological, academic, or career-related concern. We also examined the applicability of Cramer's model across different types of