162 BRITISH SOCIAL ATTITUDES

likely to be aware that therapy/counselling is not only for those with serious
problems, to say they know something about it and that they would know how
to find a therapist or counsellor. For example, 51 per cent of graduates would
feel comfortable talking to a therapist or counsellor, and 62 per cent would
know how to find one. This compares with figures of just 35 and 48 per cent
respectively among non-graduates. While such a finding is not unexpected, it
nevertheless could signal a degree of cultural resistance to the idea of therapy or
counselling among groups who may actually have significant need of such
services. This suggests that the simple expansion of provision may not be
enough without work to change prevailing attitudes and awareness.
Agreement with the statement, “If I had seen a counsellor or therapist, I
wouldn’t want anyone else to know” is also clearly related to awareness and
understanding. In other words, those whose responses suggest they know or
understand more about therapy/counselling are less likely to be concerned about
the idea of anyone else knowing about it.
Use of formal emotional support
In Therapy Culture, Furedi (2004) refers to research suggesting that, by the turn
of the 21
st
century, around 80 per cent of the American public had experienced
some form of therapeutic intervention. While acknowledging that therapy is
sometimes depicted as an American eccentricity, he goes on to assert that “the
impact of therapeutic intervention on British society is no less significant”
(2004: 9). It is not entirely clear whether he means to suggest that levels of
‘therapeutic intervention’ are at a similar level in the UK – what is striking,
however, is that he offers no evidence from studies of the general population in
the UK in support of this general assertion.
So what do our data tell us about how many people are actually accessing
formal emotional support in the UK? It needs to be remembered that – unlike
most previous studies which have focused on service user populations – this is
based on a nationally representative sample of the British adult population. We
asked:

Again thinking specifically about times when you have felt especially
worried, stressed or down, have you ever actually talked to any of the
people on this card about how you were feeling?

We then showed respondents the list of people shown in Table 7.4. As the table
shows, there is little evidence of current widespread reliance on professionalised
or formal emotional support in Britain. A substantial minority of all adults, two-
fifths, have certainly discussed their emotional lives at some point with a health
professional or one of the other people listed in the table. Indeed, around a
quarter have done so within the past year. But it is also clear that this contact is
overwhelmingly associated with GPs rather than involving more explicitly
‘talk-based’ forms of therapy or counselling. Three in every ten people have
discussed their emotional lives with their GP at some point, nearly double the
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