Therapy culture? Attitudes towards emotional support in Britain 167

The relationship between formal and informal emotional support
Furedi (2004) identifies a profound antagonism between therapeutic culture and
informal relations and support. Indeed, as he puts it:

...the greatest hostility of therapeutic culture is reserved for the sphere
of informal relations. Indeed […] the disorganisation of the private
sphere is probably the main accomplishment of therapeutic culture.
(Furedi, 2004: 21)

There are limits to the extent to which we can test this thesis. Ideally, one would
map the level and pattern of use of both formal and informal support over time
and establish whether, as Furedi suggests, the former is on an upward and the
latter on a downward trajectory. In the absence of time-series data, however,
only more tentative analyses are possible. If Furedi is right, we might expect to
find evidence that informal relationships and support are ceasing to play a major
role in contemporary emotional life. But, like other recent studies (see, for
example, Park and Roberts, 2002; Pahl and Spencer, 2006), our data suggest
that webs of informal emotional support continue to play a major role in the
lives of the majority of the population. There are several clear indicators of this.
First of all, when asked how often in the last year they have spoken to a friend
or relative “because you were feeling especially worried, stressed or down”,
around half (47 per cent) say they have done so at least once a month. Among
those in relationships, a slightly larger proportion (56 per cent) say they have
talked to their spouse or partner with the same frequency. Of course, to some
extent these figures may simply reflect need: in other words, many people may
not have found themselves in situations in which they wanted such support. So
an alternative hypothetical measure is how likely people would be to talk to
those close to them if they found themselves facing emotional difficulties. Fully
two-thirds of those in a relationship (67 per cent) say they would be “very
likely” to talk to their spouse/partner if they were feeling “especially worried,
stressed or down”, while a further 24 per cent say they would be “fairly likely”
to do so. Four in ten (43 per cent) say they would be very likely to talk to a
close friend or relative, and 39 per cent that they would be fairly likely to do so.
On both our actual and hypothetical measures of informal emotional support,
women were markedly more likely than men to show a willingness to turn to
those close to them. Among those in relationships, for example, two-thirds (66
per cent) of women said they had sought support from their partner at least once
a month over the past year, compared with just under a half (47 per cent) of
men. By contrast, a quarter of men (25 per cent) said they had never sought
support from a close friend or relative, compared with only 10 per cent of
women.
Whether in a relationship or not, most people – both male and female –
continue to have other people around them to whom they say they could and
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