What do people really think about grief counseling? Examining community attitudes

Abstract

To understand why bereaved people who are highly distressed significantly underutilize grief counseling and therapy, we surveyed adults (N = 156) to investigate community attitudes toward grief counseling. Overall attitude was positive and women reported a significantly more positive attitude than men; there were no associations between attitude and age, country of birth, previous counseling, or bereavement experience. After controlling for gender, beliefs and affects explained attitudes toward grief counseling; behavioral responses did not. Targeting beliefs about grief counseling may promote positive attitudes so that people most likely to benefit from intervention will be more likely to seek it.

Acknowledgments

We thank Professor David L. Vogel and Ms Rachel E. Brenner for comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

Lauren J. Breen is supported by the Australian Research Council [DE120101640]. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the remaining authors.