| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 教育心理與輔導學系在職進修碩士班 === 100 === This study intends to explore the process about how couples seek professional help and the differences of how males and females feel and react when they have couple-related issues.
The approach for this research is based on the methodology of phenomenology and hermeneutics. The researcher obtained six transcripts from several semi-structural interviews with three participant couples.
In this study, Thematic Analysis is adopted to explore the common emotions, attitudes, and responses of the different genders before seeking professional help. The results are as follows:
1.“Although feeling hurt and lacking strength, male participants nevertheless pursue solutions.”:
Male participants have less tendency to express their authentic feelings directly when their inner needs aren’t satisfied. Instead, they deal with relationship dilemmas in their personal ways. However, even in hard times, they courageously confront difficulties and are willing to solve problems.
2.“After being aware of the need to solve problems, male participants seek opportunities to cope with problems in their own ways before turning to professional assistance.”:
Before turning to professional help, male participants tend to confront difficulties with informal resources, inner self resources, and positive actions toward their spouses/partners. Afterwards, they seek professional help for the problems remain.
3.“Although feeling disappointed, female participants expect adequate responses from their spouses/partners.”:
A negative interactive circle emerges when female participants feel discontent with their unsatisfied psychological needs of being accepted, identified, considered, understood, and respected. However, they still look forward to adequate responses from their spouses/partners in extreme disappointment.
4.“Still attached to their spouses/partner, female participants expect to recover the spiritual connection after their emotions are given vent to a third object.”:
Female participants vent, get support, and find ways to adjust themselves through social networking to their relationship difficulties. However, two responsive ways are further revealed because they still expect to restore the relationship. One is to propose seeking professional help or to express their expectations; the other is responding positively to their spouses/partners as they perceive goodwill from their spouses/partners.
In addition, the researcher also analyzed the three cases by time sequence to present the help-seeking process that includes three stages: recognition, decision and action. The researcher then proposed the following discussions:
1.The awareness of couple-related problems comes from individual differences, perception gap, communication difficulties, and unmet needs.
2.Although the responsive ways of different genders before seeking professional help are divergent, male and femal participants may continue to interact in order to prevent the problems from getting worse.
3.The formation of the decision to seek professional help is stimulated by factors such as social supports, resource accessibility, nature of problems, expectations of professional help to improve their relationship, positive experiences of resource usage, attitudes towards the problem, and three interactive modes. On the other hand, it is delayed by factors such as a passive attitude toward problems and doubtfulness about the effects of professional help.
4.The decision to propose seeking professional help may be affected by factors such as “gender role orientation”, family of origin, or positive experiences of resource usage.
5.In this study, the key factors that prompt the three couples to decide to seek professional help in order are: 1) resource accessibility and balanced interaction, 2) affection of harmony and complementary interaction, and 3) positive involvement in relationship.
6.The atmosphere of “tolerance for harmony” is frequently observed in the interaction of the three couples.
Finally, the researcher engaged in introspection of couple-related issues through reviewing similar personal experiences, and proposed further academic and practical suggestions for couples, relevent authorities, professionals, and future studies.
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