“I Knew These Marvelous People”: Gay Men’s Experiences of Long-Term HIV/AIDS Survival

<p>The gay and bisexual men who were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS before the pharmaceutical breakthroughs of the mid-1990s were given what was expected to be a death sentence. Instead, the majority of those who began the newly available treatments outlived not just their initial prognoses but their lovers, friends, and community members who had already perished. This study used grounded theory analysis of semi-structured interviews with a sample of 10 self-identified gay men who are long-term HIV/AIDS survivors to explore experiences of trauma, loss, and mourning in relation to current psychological wellbeing. Qualitative thematic analysis indicated that despite demographic variance among this group of men, they reported common formative traumas related to both minority stress and grief, as well as common joys. Participants described a robust range of experiences with regards to whether and how they mourned their losses as well as the ways they relate to the past, revealing a broad spectrum of underlying emotional defenses. Those who exhibited the broadest range of defensive styles and orientations toward the past exhibited the greatest psychological wellbeing in terms of flexibility and emotion tolerance. Their experiences shed light on psychological processes that are both universal to the human experience and specific to this population.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2022

Author dc:creator

• Sichel, Ilana J

Contributors dc:contributor

• Elliot Jurist
• Lissa Weinstein
• Max Cavitch

• HIV/AIDS
• mourning
• older gay men
• homophobia
• defense mechanisms
• nostalgia
• Clinical Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cc_etds_theses/1015

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:academicworks.cuny.edu:cc_etds_theses-2092