ABSTRACT
John Donne wrote ‘No man is an island entire unto itself, and this is valid for both men and women in our contemporary society. We all need support mechanisms and perhaps the most important areas for these mechanisms are the pragmatic areas of emotional survival, economic survival, and physical survival. Physical survival does not mean, in this context, that we all need help in climbing cliffs, but it does mean that we need help when we are ill or when our children are ill or when other disasters strike. Damage to our houses through inclement weather or from burst waterpipes is in the field of economic survival; and help needed to talk over problems and worries is in the emotional field. The people we choose to listen to our problems (excluding professional listeners - doctors, psychiatrists, priests, and so on) are our closest friends. This is because those friends are unconsciously perceived (correctly or incor rectly) as having a large degree of construct congruence with ourselves (Duck, 1973/1975); and particularly those friends whom we believe to have congru ence of constructs with us about the particular area which is the cause of our worries. Of the thirty women who answered questions about confidantes, only two mentioned their husbands, but this is not altogether surprising since the purpose of the interview was to find out about conditions when the husband or wife was frequently absent. This would tend to make the respondent overlook the most obvious confidante. Another factor was that some people were in regular telephone communication with their husbands and this would mean that the husband in the course of those conversations would be the recipient of ‘confidences’, but where communications were difficult the stay at home partner would need someone to whom they could talk about personal matters. Yet another factor was that the question was sometimes phrased linking friends and confidantes so that, in that context, absentees would be overlooked.
Mrs 14.1
