The Influence of Childhood Therapy on Current Attitudes Towards Seeking Mental Health Services

Objective: This study aimed to investigate the relationship between childhood therapy and current attitudes towards seeking mental health services. Childhood therapy is defined in this study as any exposure to therapy or counselling under the age of 18. It also looked to find a link between child therapy and resilience later in adult life. Gender was investigated in relation to positive attitudes towards seeking mental health services. Attitudes and stigma are the main barriers that prevent people from seeking professional psychological care and mental health services. The Inventory of Attitudes Towards Seeking Mental Health Services was used to record the attitudes of 94 participants. The Resilience Appraisal scale was also used to measure the level of resilience a person had. There was no significant difference found for IASMHS scores for those who went to child therapy and those who did not. Resilience was also not significantly different between the two groups. This study was voluntary and those who engaged with this research may have already had positive attitudes toward seeking mental health services