Past research on help-seeking behaviour and compliance among the mentally ill has mainly been focused on the examination of individual and structural determinants, while the impact of the socio-cultural context has been largely neglected. To examine this impact, we conducted a representative survey among German citizens who were eligible to vote. By means of vignettes describing different mental disorders we recorded the lay public's preferences for various treatment methods, together with their subjective reasons for voicing these particular preferences. While we found that psychotherapy was generally held in high esteem by the lay public, psychopharmacotherapy was rejected by the vast majority of respondents. This pattern was observed for all of the mental disorders included in our survey. While the public's image of psychotherapy is largely determined by popular views on psychoanalysis, public opinion about psychotropic drugs is strongly influenced by characteristics associated with tranquillizers. Among the different psychotherapeutic approaches, psychoanalysis is the preferred method among respondents in the western part of Germany, while the lay public in the eastern part tends to endorse group therapy. Finally, our research showed a considerable difference between the conceptions held by the lay public and those of psychiatric experts with regard to the adequate treatment of mental disorders. This, in turn, should not be without consequence for help-seeking behaviour and patient compliance.
