Comparing Coping Resources for Counseling Center Clients and Non-Counseling Center Clients

The aim of the research is to compare the coping resources of counseling and non-counseling centre clients using the Coping Resources Inventory by Hammer and Marting (1983). It was administered on 96 college going students:48 counseling seeking and 48 normal individuals. Coping resource inventory classify cognitive, social, emotional, spiritual/philosophical and physical resources that are currently available to individuals for managing stress. The scores are interpreted and discussed with two profile, that is, ipsative profile in which it was inferred that the participant scored highest on the emotional coping resource (35.2-46.8) indicating that she is more likely to use this resource in order to deal with harsh or stressful situations, and the normative profile to compare the coping resources of counseling and non-counseling centre clients. It was found that Cognitive t(94) 7.0876, p<0.0001, Social t(94)=9.2974, p<0.0001. Emotional t(94)=6.1020, p<0.0001 and Spiritual t(94)=3.3543, p<0.0001 were statistically significant. However, no significant difference was found on Physical Resources t(94)=1.9430, p<0.0550. This reveals that both the groups utilize all the coping resources, except the Physical Resources, to deal with everyday stress and problems. Also, the scores of Indian and American counseling seeking individuals were compared. The results showed that the Indian group scored higher on the Cognitive, Spiritual and Physical coping resources as compared to the American group.