painful symptoms. Moreover, an individual can interpret particular
symptoms as a number of different types of illness. For example, a
woman in her mid forties may interpret the loss of her menstrual cycle as
either the onset of menopause or a sign of pregnancy. Thus, differing
interpretations affect both an individual's response to symptoms and one's
subsequent choices of care providers. Given how these multiple factors
can affect an individual's response to illness, help-seeking behavior is
often difficult to study ( Mechanic, 1968).

To better understand the help-seeking framework, it is, therefore,
critical to examine how individuals define their condition and then seek
out care. Moreover, their definitions are important in successfully finding
appropriate care providers. Mechanic ( 1968: 164 ) notes that "the success
of the doctor-patient relationship is in large part attributable to the extent
that doctor and patient share common frames of reference." The more
knowledge individuals have, and the firmer their definitions, the more
likely they are to have successfully selected providers with a similar
definition. If the client's and provider's definitions clash, those
individuals with highly stable definitions are more likely to try to find
providers with similar definitions, while those with less stable definitions
will either accept the provider's definition and practices or seek out
different providers only after they have gained more knowledge, both
about their situations and about the different providers' roles and
ideologies. In either case, individuals form their definitions through a
process of learning. In short, educated consumers are more likely to
choose compatible providers.

The "appropriateness" of a provider is often related to the goals of
those seeking health care in a specific instance as well as the images of
caregivers held by the lay population. When various caregivers are
deemed appropriate, then the success of the relationship can be measured
by how satisfied the individual is with the type of care received. When
individuals are satisfied, they continue to endorse this provider as
appropriate. This aspect of help-seeking behavior, public support for a
profession's jurisdiction, is also a tenet of professionalization.

The process of professionalization has three basic elements:
development of formal knowledge, elimination of competition, and public
support for their jurisdiction ( Abbott, 1988). These three elements work
interactively to maintain control over who can provide services and how
those services are rendered. For instance, since a profession's claim to
abstract knowledge is cognitive, it is legitimated only if the public
recognizes it as legitimate ( Abbott, 1988). Moreover, public support

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