Therapy confessions of Britons revealed
A study by the world’s largest online therapy and coaching platform has brought to light the top ten issues and conditions people in the UK would like to seek the help of a counsellor for, with stress, anxiety and general depression topping the list.
www.mentaline.com, a recently launched webcam-based counselling service, polled a sample of 2,162 people across the UK to find out whether or not they felt the need for professional help for a mental health issue and, if so, what the issue was.
57% of the respondents claimed they would like to talk to a counsellor or psychologist for something and, when asked why, 12% of these said the issue was ‘affecting their day-to-day life’ whilst a third, 34%, just wanted to ‘put their mind at rest’.
Mentaline.com asked the respondents who claimed to want to see a counsellor, what issues they felt they needed help with. The top ten answers were as follows;
1. Stress – 21%
2. Anxiety – 19%
3. General depression – 17%
4. Abuse (sexual/physical/mental) – 11%
5. Relationship break-ups – 9%
6. Bereavement – 6%
7. Phobias – 5%
8. Obsessive disorders – 3%
9. Sexuality issues – 1%
10. Anger management – 1%
The remaining 7% of people that wanted help for an issue they were dealing with selected ‘other’ and, when asked to specify what their problem was, issues varied from paranoia, childhood issues and parenting to low self-esteem, addiction and personality disorders.
8% of the respondents claimed to have had professional help in the past for an issue they were dealing with.
Mentaline.com works by users searching for a therapist or coach on the website, after which they pick the one most suited to them and pay for the sessions with a credit or debit card. The money is not taken from the users’ account until the session is completely smoothly and all professionals associated with Mentaline.com are verified through the organisations of which they are a member.
The site offers One2One sessions via phone or web-cam, Masterclasses for those not quite ready to speak to a professional directly and support forums in which professionals and fellow users are active. Access to the forums is free and there are also free pre-sessions available for those wishing to try the service before they choose to have a full session.
Jesper Buch, founder of Mentaline.com, commented on the findings;
“Since launching Mentaline, we’ve already had several hundred professionals sign up to the site who help people with issues just like those mentioned in the list every day. It was quite surprising to see that more than half of respondents felt as if they needed to talk to somebody and, in reality, that’s quite worrying.
Only 8% said they had spoken to a professional in the past about an issue, suggesting there are many people out there who really need to talk to someone right now. With a recent call for waiting lists to be reduced for therapists and counsellors, I’d hope that a service such as ours can offer these very people the immediate help they might need.”
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