Therapy culture? Attitudes towards emotional support in Britain 165

ill health and/or lower mental well-being. To some extent this is true; a half of
those in the lowest income quartile (household income less than £12,000) have
used formal sources of emotional support at some point, compared with 38 per
cent of those in the highest income quartile (household income of £38,000 or
more). But these differences are not as great as we might expect, even once we
take account of age; and there is no difference at all in relation to levels of use
of more overtly talk-based therapies (such as psychology, psychiatry and
counselling). By contrast, poorer people are much more likely to have
experience of using prescription medication to deal with emotional problems.
We asked:

At times when you may have felt especially worried, stressed or down,
have you ever used prescribed medication, for example, anti-
depressants, sedatives or sleeping tablets?
2


Three in ten (31 per cent) of those in the lowest income quartile had used
medication of this sort, nearly double the rate found among the most affluent
quartile (17 per cent). This does not appear to be driven by higher levels of
need. Looking only at the experience of those with the lowest mental well-being
scores, use of medication stood at 42 per cent in the lowest income quartile,
compared with 27 per cent in the highest. Consequently, it seems that among
the poorest sections of British society there may be a substitution of a
pharmaceutical for a talk-based response to emotional problems.
Potential demand for formal emotional support
We also examined the extent to which there is hidden demand for formal
support, by asking:

Have there ever been (any other) times when you were feeling
especially worried, stressed or down when you thought about talking
to any of the people on this card but didn't actually do so?

Responses to this question allow us to assess whether there is widespread
potential demand for such services over and above the level of use we have
already found. Overall, around one person in five (22 per cent) indicated that
there had been at least one previous occasion on which they had considered
contacting some kind of formal support but had not actually done so. Those
with previous experience of this sort of support were twice as likely as those
without to say they had considered talking to a professional but had not actually
done so (31 per cent compared with 16 per cent). It is particularly striking that
among those who had ever talked to a psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist or
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