Browsing by Author "Munira Arshad"

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of Indian Muslim women regarding their marital satisfaction and to understand the perceived quality of their relationships. This qualitative study is the first of its kind to consider marital satisfaction among Indian Muslim women. A semi-structured interview questions reflecting the four research questions were formulated to use in face-to-face in-depth interview among the six Indian Muslim women from Mumbai, India. The four research questions were: (i) what is the lived experience of being married for Indian Muslim women? (ii) what is the perceived quality of the relationship and what does marital satisfaction mean to the Indian Muslim women? (iii) what are the factors influencing the marital satisfaction of Indian Muslim women? (iv) what are the resources and support that the Indian married women utilize to enhance their marital satisfaction? The study analyzed the relevant constructed meanings that emerged from all interviews and clustered them into nine main themes with 19 sub-themes in an attempt to reach an in-depth understanding of the lived marital experiences of the Indian Muslim woman. These themes included their expectation of marriage, in-law involvement during marriage, housekeeping: decisions and divisions, perceived foundation of marital happiness, social factors, religious factors, communication, companionship, unconditional acceptance and resources and support that enhance marital satisfaction. The analysis of the collected data in this study provided a rich description of the Indian Muslim woman’s lived marital experiences and an identification of factors that influence their level of marital satisfaction. The conclusions of the study indicate that the Indian Muslim women were satisfied with their marital life with supportive and understanding husband. The Indian Muslim wife’s reported the husbands to be less traditional in terms of gender role in regards to housekeeping. Overall participants reported influence of religious belief leads to greater faithfulness, higher commitment and made it easier for the participants to compromise and forgive their partners in time of conflict and differences and increase faith in their marriage. An analysis of the data collected provided the basis for future research on this phenomenon as well as some implications for couples, the Islamic religious leaders, and marriage counselors working with this population.

The purpose of the study was to find how age, gender, previous counselling experience, level of education and relationship status are related to attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help. Two hundred Jawaharlal Nehru University Students responded to the Attitude Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ATSPPHS) questionnaire. The ATSPPHS consists of four subscales: Need (recognition of need), Stigma Tolerance (the degree of tolerance against stigma associated with help- seeking action), Openness (interpersonal openness), and Confidence (confidence in mental health professionals). It was hypothesised that Indian University students would have negative attitude towards seeking counselling help. It was further hypothesised that gender, level of education, age, previous counselling experience and relationship status would have significant impact on the attitude towards seeking counselling help as measured by ATSPPHS. The study found that gender and level of education were the major predictors of attitude towards counselling. In particular, female Indian University students and postgraduate students had positive attitude towards seeking counselling. Overall, the study found that Indian University students had a positive attitude towards seeking counselling help. Interestingly, Indian University students were found to have scored high for Need, Openness and Confidence subscales of the ATSPPHS. However, Indian University students had low scores on the Stigma Tolerance subscale, indicating that a barrier still exists. Nevertheless, a unique finding related to this study was that students who have not received previous counselling help reported a significant positive attitude towards seeking counselling help in future compared to those who have had received counselling help previously. The present finding could be due to the present state of counselling services in India with unprofessional or para-counsellor who may not be expert in handling the issues, hence clients may not have benefitted from the sessions or had an unpleasant experience. This finding was contradictory with the past research. Nevertheless, the findings can also be concluded into that the Indian population is ready to overcome the stigma barrier to seek counselling help when the need arises given that counsellors need to be professional and skillful.