African American Perceptions of and Engagement with Formal and Informal Help-Seeking for their Relationships

Abstract

The literature on couple help-seeking aims to clarify what drives people to seek help for their relationships, and what keeps them from seeking it. While this scholarship is growing, it has yet to fully address couple help-seeking processes in historically marginalized communities. Currently, there is only one article that explores couple help-seeking in African American couples. This is significant, insofar as the article highlights unique barriers that are not present in the broader literature.The research presented here aims to address this gap using a mixed-methods approach. The first study is a quantitative analysis using an existing dataset of newlywed African American couples. Data analyzed were both dyadic and longitudinal, with 350 couples participating in three waves. A mediated logistic Actor Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) was run to explore how religiosity, experiences of discrimination, and racial identity relate to couple help-seeking behavior. The mediator of attitudes toward help-seeking from religious officials was used to identify a possible mechanism for understanding the relationship between the predictors (religiosity, experiences of discrimination, and racial identity) and the outcome variable (couple help-seeking). Results showed the importance of religiosity as a driving factor for African American couples’ help-seeking. The analysis also highlighted the interdependent nature of help-seeking with multiple significant partner paths. The second study employed a qualitative approach informed by grounded theory. Its goal was to better understand African American couples’ help-seeking processes. Eleven (N = 11) participants completed interviews regarding what they did when they felt there was a problem in their relationship and what unique barriers they faced in seeking help. They were also asked about attending couple therapy. Couples who had done this were queried about their specific experiences in therapy. Couples who had not attended couple therapy they were asked about their thoughts/views about participating in such therapy. Five themes emerged from the data. Key takeaways from these themes include the significant role of race, alongside the important roles of religious and informal resources. Collectively these studies provide a variety of significant research and clinical implications. Results support the idea that there are unique barriers that African American couples face when seeking help for their relationships. Findings also highlight potential points of intervention for providers related to religiosity. Partnerships with Black Churches and/or religious leaders may be a meaningful way of increasing African Americans’ engagement with couple therapy.