Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—Young men's embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality

Introduction

Mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety with interlinked suicidality, are the leading cause of health-related disability among young men. Knowledge of the interaction between emotional, bodily, social and gendered mental health processes in young men is limited and therefore needed.

Aim

This study aimed to explore young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality, and to conceptualise these by integrating affective–emotional, physiological, social and gendered processes.

Methods

Semistructured individual interviews were conducted with 13 young men who had sought professional help for mental disorders and suicidality. Grounded theory (GT) was used with a social constructivist perspective.

Results

The results comprise one core category—Living (dys)regulated and alienated young masculinity—with related categories “battling with the emotional body,” “suffering in social silence” and “balancing embodied darkness and distress.” The GT illustrates how young men navigate and manage their embodied and emotional suffering in a context of “regulative” masculine and social norms alongside insufficient social support.

Conclusion

Our results suggest that young men's lived embodied experiences of mental disorders and suicidality can be understood as a dynamic process of internal and external “(dys)regulation and alienation.” The generated GT provides a broad tentative explanation model, contributing to theory development, and serves as a basis for gender-sensitive interventions—in both psychotherapy and physiotherapy—integrating body, mind and the social context.     

Functions of the Black Church in a Global Society: A Du Boisian Approach

Globalization's impact on local communities is a topic that religious congregations should address as a means of moral and socioeconomic well-being. This is especially important for the Black Church if it hopes to continue supporting the socioeconomic outcomes of its congregants and community members, as it has in the past. Using Du Boisian assessments of the functions of the Black Church, this study assessed how today's congregations can serve similar functions as the congregations that Du Bois studied, while exploring contemporary concerns. With an explanatory sequential research design, this study surveyed Philadelphia-based congregations (N = 108) to assess their understanding of and engagement with the impact of globalization on future generations, paired with subsequent interviews (N = 15) for deeper analysis. The survey included clergy members and youth leaders of various races and religious traditions. With an eye toward equity and considering Philadelphia's diverse demographics, the in-depth semistructured interviews centered on Black churches in Philadelphia. The core findings highlight that clergy members in Philadelphia recognize the importance of prioritizing global issues as a means of social betterment and that a special lens toward race should be considered when looking to solve socioeconomic global issues.     

Therapeutic Encouragement as Conceptualized by South Korean Youth Counselors

This study explored counselors’ conceptualization and use of encouragement as a therapeutic tool. Responses to two questions from 100 South Korean youth counselors were analyzed using consensual qualitative research–modified. As a result, six categories emerged under each domain. Implications for counseling and future studies are discussed. Este estudio exploró la conceptualización y el uso del apoyo como herramienta terapéutica por parte los consejeros. Usando el método modificado de investigación cualitativa consensual, se analizaron las respuestas proporcionadas a dos preguntas por 100 consejeros surcoreanos que trabajan con jóvenes. Como resultado, surgieron seis categorías bajo cada dominio. Se discuten las implicaciones para la consejería e investigaciones futuras.     

It's not just what you say,it's how you say it too. Adolescents' hostile attribution of intent and emotional responses to social comments

A highly prevalent and relevant situation in which adolescents have to interpret the intentions of others is when they interact with peers. We therefore successfully introduced a new paradigm to measure hostile attribution bias (HAB) and emotional responses to such social interactions and examined how it related to youth's aggressiveness. We presented 881 adolescents (M_age = 14.35 years; SD = 1.23; 48.1% male) with audio fragments of age-mates expressing social comments that varied in content (e.g., what the person says) and tone of voice (e.g., how the person says it). Participants' peers also reported on their aggressiveness. In general, added negativity of content and tone was driving the youth's intent attribution and emotional responses to the comments. In line with the Social Information Processing model, we found more hostile attribution of intent and more negative emotional responses of aggressive youth to ambiguous stimuli. Aggression was also related to more hostile intent attributions when both content and tone were negative. Unlike most studies on HAB, the aggression effects in the current study emerged for girls, but not boys. Implications of these results and future use of the experimental paradigm are discussed.     

Navigating Social Class Roles in Community Research

This paper describes the first author's attempt to collect data in a homeless shelter without attending to her role in the social class hierarchy of the organization. The author's egalitarian approach towards the homeless clients, and her lack of involvement in "staff-only" activities, transgress the social class norms within the organizational structure. While the author is successful in gaining the trust of the homeless clients, her approach alienates shelter staff, especially those in the higher echelons of the social hierarchy. The concepts of classism, world views, and Social Identity Theory, are utilized to discuss the dilemma faced by researchers who want to challenge, or work outside, a setting's status quo.     

Critical issues in the prevention of violence-related behavior in youth

Violence prevention programs with varying degrees of scientific support have proliferated in the United States and elsewhere. This paper previewed a broad range of programs involving youth, families, or systems that aimed to prevent or reduce violence-related behavior. The purpose of the review was to address critical issues concerning (1) target level of programming, (2) theory-driven versus problem-driven conceptualization, (3) cultural considerations, (4) developmental considerations, (5) intervention fidelity, and (6) outcome and impact assessment. Conclusions about these issues address tendencies and trends across programs.     

Pathways to adulthood and their precursors and outcomes

Norway has an extensive welfare system which may provide adolescents with many options and high levels of flexibility in terms of pathways to adulthood. This study aimed to describe Norwegian developmental pathways to adulthood, including changes in role statuses (such as living situations, education, work, marriage/cohabitation and parenthood) from 16 to 30 years of age, and their precursors and outcomes. Repeated measures latent class analysis of longitudinal data from 998 Norwegian individuals indicated three main pathways to adulthood among women and men. In both sexes, most individuals undertook a long period of education and postponed family formation. However, some individuals started working early, a group of women established families with partners and children early, and a group of men remained primarily single between 16 and 30 years of age. Furthermore, the results show that pathways to adulthood in Norway are surprisingly similar to pathways in other countries such as the US, UK and Finland. The results indicate that pathways to adulthood are influenced by social reproduction factors in a country with high levels of welfare benefits as well. In addition, the results suggest that pathways involving living with a partner and either higher education or work are associated with high life satisfaction at age 30.