Coping patterns of law enforcement officers in simulated and naturalistic stress

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Abstract
Three-thousand questionnaires were distributed to students on campus to identify a sample of actual telephone counseling center users and their ratings of the effectiveness of the help received and of the counselor. Ratings of help received and impact of counseling on life as it is today were considered for sex of caller and counselor across type of problem. A sample of 66 actual callers was identified who had used the service for personal problems at least once. Of male callers, 67% reported that telephone counseling helped at least somewhat, while 80% of female callers reported favorable results of telephone counseling. Female callers who talked with male counselors reported a significantly greater impact on their life than did the callers in any other caller/counselor sex interaction. Only one average rating of counseling effectiveness by problem type fell below the neutral rating. Results are presented as evidence for the effectiveness of paraprofessional counselors. During the last decade the increasing need for mental health care and the concomitant lack of highly trained professionals to meet this need (Albee, 1967), along with the increasing social-moral conscience of the young, has resulted in the establishment of literally hundreds of community-based telephone counseling centers across the United States, staffed by paraprofessional volunteers (Brennan, 1972), The provision of mental health services over the telephone by nonprofessionals has raised fundamental questions about the ability of these volunteers to deliver effective mental health services. Some investigators have argued that the performance of paraprofessionals manning telephone counseling centers is less

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