Mental distress is common in adolescent ages, because this age bracket is closely tied with multiple changes and stress. In this master’s thesis we will focus on what mental health is and how it differs from mental and emotional distress. The main focus is emotional distress in adolescents’ and the role of school counselors in dealing with this distress. The work of school counselors is quite vast, particularly in regards to help-seeking which includes factors, such as recognizing mental distress, contact and relationship with an adolescent, working with emotional distress, the position of the school counselor on the spectrum between closeness and distance and others.
In effort to better understand the work of school counselors in regard to emotional distress of high schoolers, we conducted three interviews with three different school counselor workers from three different high schools. We found out what counselors do, what role they play in dealing with emotional distress of students and how they cooperate with the parents of students with emotional distress. We also asked school counselor workers if they believe high school students trust school counselors and how common they think emotional distress among students is.
We were able to learn more about emotional distress through a study, where we took three classes of first year students and three fourth year students from three high schools and asked them about their relationship with school counselors, about past and present experiences with emotional distress and about their willingness to seek help from their school counselors. We did this by conducting a survey. Based on the answers we learned that first-year students seem to trust school counselor workers more than fourth year students and would seek help more often than forth year students. We were able to collect data that showed us that the majority of adolescents do not experience emotional distress. We also found out, that emotional distress is more common in girls than boys and that there are statistically important differences between boys and girls, when it comes to seeking help from school counselors. Girls trusted school counselors less than boys, however were more inclined to seek help from their school counselors.
We were able to collect and analyse data, that helped us learn more about the emotional distress among high school students, about the role of school counselors in dealing with emotional distress and about the process of helping young people with emotional distress.
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