TPC Journal-Vol 10- Issue 2-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 10, Issue 2 293 participants openly discussed lack of Black people’s knowledge or education about depression as a specific barrier to treatment. They shared their perceptions of the lack of education and discussion about depression within their own community, which they felt presented a specific barrier to treatment for them. Participant 6 stated, “I can’ t overly generalize it, but some people need to know more, ’cause they don ’t understand, because sometimes you just need that time and people they don’ t understand that you need it.” However, taking these and the other barriers in this thematic category into account, the prevalence of participants who reported that treatment was effective was three times greater than the prevalence of participants who thought that treatment was ineffective. Coping and Problem-Solving Strategies The third thematic category contained 29 different codes related to problem-solving strategies and behaviors or activities the participants used to cope with depressive symptoms. The participants described various strategies to cope with depression, but the most prevalent was suppressing/hiding thoughts/feelings . There were seven strategies that more than half of the participants reported using as problem-solving strategies and strategies to cope with depression. The positive problem-solving strategies were listening to music , turning to religion/going to church/praying , and talking/spending time with family . The problematic coping strategies reported were using illegal drugs , engaging in self-harm , having sex , and isolating . See Table 1 for codes and results. It is encouraging that 18 out of the 29 codes could be characterized as neutral or positive coping strategies. The other 11 are areas of concern, even if only one participant reported engaging in the behavior. Participant responses overlapped and participants reported coping and problem-solving strategies that might be characterized as both positive and negative. In addition to contrasts in the specific codes and types of behaviors, contrasts in the percentages of participants who reported negative behaviors compared to positive behaviors were noted. For example, participants reporting the negative problem-solving strategy of engaging in self-harm as a way to cope often went into detailed narrative descriptions. This strategy was more frequently reported than any of the positive or neutral coping and problem-solving strategies. Types of Emotional Support This thematic category addressed the types of emotional support that the participants received during their experiences with depression. Four distinct subthemes of codes were identified: peers ; family ; school (teachers); and helping professionals such as hospitals, managed care facilities, and therapists. Each of the four subthemes contained codes that were sorted as either positive or negative. A lack of support or refusal of support was considered a negative, and similar to other categories, participants shared multiple overlapping experiences. Negative support from peers was the only theme to have 100% prevalence; every participant mentioned that peers had negatively affected them through a lack of emotional support during their experience with depression, including Participant 2: “ They didn ’t believe me at first, but later they just seem like they don’t care.” Half of the participants expressed that they had also received positive emotional support from their peers during their experience with depression. In the family group, equal percentages of participants (60%) reported receiving positive support from family and experiencing a lack of support from family. The participants were similarly split regarding their perceptions of receiving positive (50%) and negative (50%) emotional support from teachers at school . The greatest proportional difference in negative and positive emotional support was within the category of helping professionals. In this subtheme, four times as many participants (40%) reported that they had had positive emotional support from mental health care providers in a hospital, halfway house, or therapeutic community than participants reporting negative emotional support from mental health care providers (10%).