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After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities

Young men can have an uncomfortable relationship with grief. Socially constructed masculine ideals dictate that men be stoic in the aftermath of loss, most often expressing their sadness and despair as anger. Perhaps because of alignment to such masculine ideals little research has been done to expl...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Creighton, Genevieve, Oliffe, John L., Butterwick, Shauna, Saewyc, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4760764/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23517702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.02.022
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author Creighton, Genevieve
Oliffe, John L.
Butterwick, Shauna
Saewyc, Elizabeth
author_facet Creighton, Genevieve
Oliffe, John L.
Butterwick, Shauna
Saewyc, Elizabeth
author_sort Creighton, Genevieve
collection PubMed
description Young men can have an uncomfortable relationship with grief. Socially constructed masculine ideals dictate that men be stoic in the aftermath of loss, most often expressing their sadness and despair as anger. Perhaps because of alignment to such masculine ideals little research has been done to explore young men’s grief – and chronicle the ways they think about loss, their responses and how they go about describing their identities after a tragic event. Using qualitative individual interviews and photo elicitation methods, we investigated the ways in which 25 men aged 19–25 grieved the accidental death of a male friend. The study was conducted from April 2010–December 2011. Causes of death were diverse, and included motor vehicle accidents, adventure sports, drug overdose and fights. The findings revealed men’s predominant grief responses as emptiness, anger, stoicism and sentimentality. Participants’ description of their grief responses illustrated the ways in which they struggled to reconcile feelings of vulnerability and manly ideals of strength and stoicism. We gained insight into men’s grief practices by looking at the ways in which they aligned themselves with a post-loss masculine identity. These identities, which included the adventurer, father-figure and the lamplighter, revealed gender-specific processes through which men understood and actively dealt with their tragic loss. The results offer novel insights to men’s grief and identity work that may serve to affirm other men’s experiences as well as guide counselling services targeted to young men.
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spelling pubmed-47607642016-02-19 After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities Creighton, Genevieve Oliffe, John L. Butterwick, Shauna Saewyc, Elizabeth Soc Sci Med Article Young men can have an uncomfortable relationship with grief. Socially constructed masculine ideals dictate that men be stoic in the aftermath of loss, most often expressing their sadness and despair as anger. Perhaps because of alignment to such masculine ideals little research has been done to explore young men’s grief – and chronicle the ways they think about loss, their responses and how they go about describing their identities after a tragic event. Using qualitative individual interviews and photo elicitation methods, we investigated the ways in which 25 men aged 19–25 grieved the accidental death of a male friend. The study was conducted from April 2010–December 2011. Causes of death were diverse, and included motor vehicle accidents, adventure sports, drug overdose and fights. The findings revealed men’s predominant grief responses as emptiness, anger, stoicism and sentimentality. Participants’ description of their grief responses illustrated the ways in which they struggled to reconcile feelings of vulnerability and manly ideals of strength and stoicism. We gained insight into men’s grief practices by looking at the ways in which they aligned themselves with a post-loss masculine identity. These identities, which included the adventurer, father-figure and the lamplighter, revealed gender-specific processes through which men understood and actively dealt with their tragic loss. The results offer novel insights to men’s grief and identity work that may serve to affirm other men’s experiences as well as guide counselling services targeted to young men. 2013-02-19 2013-05 /pmc/articles/PMC4760764/ /pubmed/23517702 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.02.022 Text en http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open access under CC BY-NC-ND license
spellingShingle Article
Creighton, Genevieve
Oliffe, John L.
Butterwick, Shauna
Saewyc, Elizabeth
After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title_full After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title_fullStr After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title_full_unstemmed After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title_short After the death of a friend: Young Men’s grief and masculine identities
title_sort after the death of a friend: young men’s grief and masculine identities
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4760764/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23517702
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2013.02.022
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