Men renewing their male identity

• Main Author: Whitehead, Paul Richard
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/7690

The purpose of this study was to investigate the experiences of four men who felt a significant, positive change in their satisfaction with their self-identity as men. The study begins with a discussion of the personal and social implications of the gender role changes that have occurred over the past half-century and how these have affected men, citing several authors who claim there are a growing number of men who are dissatisfied with themselves as men. Thus the significance of the research participants' positive change in this regard was highlighted, and the research aimed at discovering the deep phenomenological structure of the experience that brought these men to a greater satisfaction with themselves as men. The research participants had all experienced this change through the process of doing an enactment in a psychodrama group therapy workshop. The interviews revealed that they were dealing with their relationships with their fathers and other men. They needed to reconstruct an experience that can be seen as a rite of passage, in which they were able to stand up for their authentic selves and integrate that into their identity as men. This, then, allowed them to reconnect with the experiences of other men as creating a balance of separateness and community that stands as a fundamental structure of human existence and experience in general.