Intervention for the bereaved: Gender differences in the efficacy of two counselling programmes

This article describes an investigation of emotion-focused versus problem-focused intervention for widows (N = 23) and widowers (N = 23) who were suffering elevated levels of distress 11 months after their loss. They were randomly assigned to an intervention condition and improvement (on the General Health Questionnaire) was compared with non-intervention controls (N = 59). Two alternative hypotheses were considered: (1) men, since they focus less on their emotions, would benefit from problem-focused counselling, while women, focusing more on their emotions, would benefit from emotion-focused intervention; (2) each gender, having been comparatively unsuccessful in coping through these usual strategies, would benefit more from intervention directed towards the less familiar strategy. Results supported the second hypothesis: widowers benefited more from emotion-focused, widows from problem-focused interventions. Implications for supporting widows and widowers are discussed.