| Unemployment results in a number of damaging effects to the mental and physical health of the recently unemployed. Men may be particularly vulnerable to these effects due to the primacy of work among the social pressures placed on them. Underutilization of direct coping strategies and social support tend to exacerbate psychological distress. Literature reveals three factors that often prevent these individuals from seeking formal help or informal social support through self-disclosure: alexithymia, shame, and masculine norms. Thus, researchers are calling for interventions that aid recently unemployed men in coping with job loss and the resulting distress. The current study emphasized three goals: to explore the feasibility and acceptability of a brief writing intervention to increase informal help-seeking in recently unemployed men, to examine the relationships among alexithymia, shame, and masculine norms as they relate to informal help-seeking, and to gather qualitative data on men's reasons for and against self- disclosure. Forty-five participants from a career center completed questionnaires related to shame, alexithymia, masculine norms, mood, self-disclosure and help-seeking. They read psycho-educational materials about emotion prior to completing a brief writing intervention. Participants completed one-week and one-month follow-ups. Feasibility results varied but the intervention was well-received. Significant relationships were found among shame, alexithymia, and self-disclosure but not in the hypothesized directions. Of the three masculine norms examined in this study, only emotional control was significantly related to self-disclosure. Men endorsed far more reasons in favor of self-disclosure than against it. Implications and future directions are discussed. |
