The Masculinities in Men with Depression

• Main Authors: Liu,Yi-Chuan, 劉宜娟
• Other Authors: Wang,Ya Co
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2009
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47950806843638071846

碩士 === 國立臺北大學 === 社會學系 === 97 === The purpose of this research is to understand the formation and changes of the masculinities in men with depression, as well as their experience of illness. In-depth interview and narrative inquiry were used to explore life stories of six men. The results are summarized as follows: A. The men with depression possess some factors which may fire up the depressive traits in their life experience. 1. Family background: The interviewees came from miserable family, i.e., one of their parents was either sick or deceased, under strained marriage relationship, and that imperceptibly caused their personality toward more pessimistic and negative thinking than those of ordinary boys. As to the relationship with their father, their parent-child role is often obscure. They usually played the role as being a father at home, and prematurely take the responsibility of the house .As to the mother-child relationship, their mother was relatively weak in the family and the society as well. She was also facing important life issues, for example, got sick, unhappy marriage or lost her spouse. These boys always tightly bound with their mother in order to balance the family relationship. Thus they gradually lost themselves. The role function of mother and son are as vague as that of father and son. Moreover, there are three out of the six interviewees are the eldest son in their family. Bearing the unusual dealing with their parents, they all tacitly approve the expectation from their parent that a role of an eldest son should be playing and are willing to take more responsibility. 2. Experience at school: The interviewees apparently show more “obedient” in the choice of entering higher level academy. Their masculinity is obviously weaker, instead of stronger feminity. In addition, we also found that they had accumulated many psychological truma, which includes frustration ofpeer relationships, academic pressure and humiliation from teachers,while they were in the campus. 3. Experience of work: Due to “uncomfortable working experience”, the interviewees had turned their life into downs. There were a lot of being oppressed experiences and suffers from the work requirement which conflicted with personal personality in their careers. In order to play the stereotype role of male, they cannot help but hide their fear. This brought them even higher pressure. 4. About sentiment: The interviewees appeared to be “conservative and passive” when they were pursuing their right person. “Being stumbled through the sentimental road” is a decisive factor to detonate depression, and the worse may even cause commit suicide. Three fathers among those six interviewees felt that the relationship with their children had been quite a distance. After the children grew up, they themselves had some life issues and suffered from depression, started to survey the parent-child relationship and tried to modify themselves. B. Negative and crucial daily life events fired up depression. The research found that the interviewees had encountered many negative daily life events which had something to do with loss and separation. For example, (1) The member of their family or other very important person got sick or passed away, (2) The pressure from academy or work, (3) Other aspects: homosexuality, retirement, immigration, financial problem, as well as extramarital affair. They took a passive approach to deal with the impact arose from those events and rarely sought any help from outside resource. In general, they’d isolate themselves and sobbed or sheltered in religion. Some radical ones may drive themselves to self-mutilate. C. The experience of illness in men with depression. The research found that the man with depression had confronted the self-adjustment and the impact of social perception after they had been falling ill. They went through the emotional changes which they had never had before. They went to a doctor for treatment and tried to find a reasonable explanation to the illness. Yet, they were full of doubtfulness regarding depression and drugs. The research also indicated that they were very concerned about the viewpoints how others looked at the depression and began to care about people around him who had the same depressive problem. Their experience in the illness helped them to have understanding and reflection of major depression disorder.