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Can men talk about problems with weight? The therapeutic implications of a discourse analytic study
Author(s) -
Gillon Ewan
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
counselling and psychotherapy research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.38
H-Index - 32
eISSN - 1746-1405
pISSN - 1473-3145
DOI - 10.1080/14733140312331384598
Subject(s) - distress , psychology , accountability , body weight , discourse analysis , sociology , social psychology , epistemology , psychotherapist , political science , medicine , law , philosophy , linguistics
This paper discusses the implications for counsellors of a discourse analytic study examining men's talk about body weight. It is argued that research in the area of problems with body has neglected the growing pressures on men to manage body as a feature of self. This research perpetuates the dominant discursive construction of men's relationship to body as unproblematic — a construction that may present many barriers to men in seeking help for any distress encountered. An analysis of men's talk is discussed in terms of the expectation that body is not problematic and the observable downplaying of any concerns acknowledged. The accountability of body as a site of regulation also emerges within the extracts presented. It is argued that this property within the accounts resonates with work highlighting the growing pressures on men to exercise control over body. The contradictions between the two discourses identified are discussed in terms of their therapeutic implications. It is postulated that male distress emerging from the growing pressures to maintain body weight may be neglected within primary care and therapeutic domains if discourses formulating such difficulties as not relevant to men remain dominant.