The emotional experiences of men over 40 in therapy
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Exploring the emotional experiences of men over 40 in therapy for problematic substance use. An interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study.
IRAS ID
229816
Contact name
Roger Duncliffe
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Regent's Unversity London
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 6 months, 31 days
Research summary
Working within the field of substance use for the past year I am aware that clients, both male and female, do not always want to explicitly discuss their drug or alcohol use during therapy sessions. It is apparent how some of my clients once comfortable with the context of therapy wish to explore the difficulties in other areas of their lives such as relationships, anger issues and loneliness. This has led me to consider what it must be like for them to now confront the emotions they may have been managing using avoidant strategies such as alcohol and substance use.
Gender role socialisation is purported to have more troublesome consequences for men as they are less likely to come to therapy and have greater difficulty expressing their emotions due to the perception men must be strong and always in control. Recent figures from ONS reveals the mature male age demographic is struggling with significantly high substance misuse and growing suicide rates. With considerable quantitative research conducted on the relationships between men’s help seeking, normative gender roles and masculinity a qualitative research exploring men’s subjective lived experiences can provide further insight into the emotional lives of men, in this case men aged over 40.This older group of men may have been exposed to stronger gender role socialisation resulting in more maladaptive and avoidant coping strategies leaving them at an elevated risk of suicide. This provides a strong rational for conducting research with a population that is often overlooked and who are currently engaging in definitive measures to eliminate their distress.
The emotional experiences of men who sought help through therapy will be explored using IPA with the proposed research aiming to understand how these men’s emotions are now being experienced.
REC name
Wales REC 7
REC reference
17/WA/0235
Date of REC Opinion
30 Aug 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion