TY - JOUR
T1 - “I Feel Abused by My Own Mind”
T2 - Themes of Control in Men’s Online Accounts of Living With Anxiety
AU - Drioli-Phillips, Phoebe G.
AU - Oxlad, Melissa
AU - Feo, Rebecca
AU - Scholz, Brett
AU - LeCouteur, Amanda
N1 - Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The first author acknowledges funding from the Freemason’s Foundation Centre for Men’s Health.
Funding Information:
The author disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The first author acknowledges funding from the Freemason?s Foundation Centre for Men?s Health.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020.
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - Men’s experiences with anxiety are under-researched and poorly understood. Existing research gives little indication of how men talk about anxiety in situ, and little is known about how men describe their experiences of anxiety. Online discussion forums provide an opportunity to conduct naturalistic observations of how men describe their experiences with anxiety without the influence of a researcher. Thematic analysis, informed by principles of discursive psychology, was used to examine 130 opening posts to an online anxiety discussion forum. One superordinate theme, where anxiety is constructed as a loss of control, was identified. Analysis of this overarching theme generated three themes relating to how posters described a loss of control: (a) anxiety as an immobilizing force, (b) anxiety as an independent entity, and (c) anxiety as a dualist construction of the self. Our analysis has clear implications for developing and improving interventions for men experiencing anxiety.
AB - Men’s experiences with anxiety are under-researched and poorly understood. Existing research gives little indication of how men talk about anxiety in situ, and little is known about how men describe their experiences of anxiety. Online discussion forums provide an opportunity to conduct naturalistic observations of how men describe their experiences with anxiety without the influence of a researcher. Thematic analysis, informed by principles of discursive psychology, was used to examine 130 opening posts to an online anxiety discussion forum. One superordinate theme, where anxiety is constructed as a loss of control, was identified. Analysis of this overarching theme generated three themes relating to how posters described a loss of control: (a) anxiety as an immobilizing force, (b) anxiety as an independent entity, and (c) anxiety as a dualist construction of the self. Our analysis has clear implications for developing and improving interventions for men experiencing anxiety.
KW - Australia
KW - discursive psychology
KW - masculinity
KW - mental health and illness
KW - men’s health
KW - psychological issues
KW - psychology
KW - qualitative
KW - thematic analysis
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85088424535&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1049732320942147
DO - 10.1177/1049732320942147
M3 - Article
C2 - 32706300
AN - SCOPUS:85088424535
SN - 1049-7323
VL - 30
SP - 2118
EP - 2131
JO - Qualitative Health Research
JF - Qualitative Health Research
IS - 13
ER -