A Study on the Developing and Searching for Specific Mission in Life of Taiwanese Gay Men Born in 1960s

• Main Authors: TING, LI-HENG, 丁李衡
• Other Authors: KUO, LI-AN
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2019
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/qmyqk6

碩士 === 國立臺北教育大學 === 心理與諮商學系碩士班 === 107 === A Study on the Developing and Searching for Specific Mission in Life of Taiwanese Gay Men Born in 1960s Abstract This study is aimed to understand the life course of Taiwanese gay men born in 1960s and makes a thorough inquiry to their experience of developing and searching for specific mission in life. The “narrative inquiry method” has been applied to interview 5 gay men born in 1960s to portray their life experience with individual analysis and discussion concluded after the interview. In this research, the concept regarding specific mission in life was originally proposed by Viktor E. Frankl who adopted Specific Mission in Life to concretize Meaning of Life. He pointed out that everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life, and based on that the meaning and value of life is then presented. The findings of this study include that Taiwanese gay men born in 1960s have been constantly under the sexual minority stress ever since childhood, they solitarily realized their sex orientation via the unrequited love towards heterosexual men and unattraction towards women, and due to repression from internalized heterosexism, they wasted at least 10 youth years delaying the integration of their love and sex. In the path of recognizing their sex orientation, they had to lead double life to protect themselves and their families, and their families’ attitude towards gay people affected their decisions of coming out. While they were willing to carry the responsibility of nourishing their parents, they refused to enter heterosexual marriage for carrying on their ancestral lines. Moreover, they gradually accepted their sex orientation and were definite at their 40’s to 50’s where they started to live for themselves and wished to extend their support to the others. It is also the find of this study that the specific mission in life for Taiwanese gay men born in 1960s is “to responsively learning and implementing sexual identity”. And while they were developing and searching for specific mission in life, “love longing and pursuing” is the common motivation, and “connecting to people” is the common approach. At last, this study provides suggestions for Taiwan society, counselors and future studies.