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KMID : 0608020120200020253
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Korean Journal of Family Therapy
2012 Volume.20 No. 2 p.253 ~ p.274
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Narrative Inquiry of Couple Identity Among Middle-Aged Men and Women
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Kim Kyung-Hee
Chung Hye-Jeong
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Abstract
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Objectives: This study explored the narratives of middle-aged men and women in order to reconstruct the identity of couples.
Methods: Through in-depth interviews, field texts were constructed with three men and three women in the empty nest period. The texts were explored and analyzed in terms of continuity and interaction, based on a frame of three-dimensional narrative inquiry. Couple identities were reconstructed through participants’ telling of their stories naturally and spontaneously, and as a process by which they could create their own meaning from their experiences.
Results: The results of this study are made up of three research texts. The first text was composed chronologically, adopting symbolic seasonal periods to study the continuity of the participants’ narratives. The second research text, which consisted of the couple identity, comprised psychological relationships and sociocultural contexts. These contexts were then, in the third text, metaphorically symbolized with ginkgo-tree and surrounding scenes.
Conclusions: A complete sense of couple identity was composed by combining all three texts into what was conceptualized as a “scene of gingko trees arrayed along a street.” This scene symbolized the journey of married life, in which participants could look back on their past lives and project their future lives, giving them an opportunity to pursue the meanings, wishes, and aims of their marriages.
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KEYWORD
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middle-aged couples, couple identity, narrative, narrative inquiry, social constructionism
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