boat and all the windows are sealed and it's dark inside and all the lights are out and there's a storm raging outside. I can feel it because the boat is being pushed and rocked and the wind is raging. Then it's like the blinds were taken off and I can see out the windows. I can see the storm raging. I can start to navigate the boat through the storm. But now it’s like the weather has changed. I can see where I’m going and the storm is no longer raging. I can see the odd squall but their small storms and I can manage my way through them.” This is in direct contrast to the story he tells us earlier about his father sending him into the wilderness without a compass and that this extended to the way he experience life - as a man without a compass. He now believes that becoming a man is a very different process. He summarizes this well for us, “Boys need to be able to look to our fathers to find out how to be men. Boys need an honest caring loving experience of their fathers and they need to learn the tough masculine stuff. Boys need to learn both from their fathers. This is what turns boys into men.” He continues, “I experienced an imbalance between the cultural expectations that fathers are not supposed to show gentleness to their sons but only show the tough masculine side. But both are necessary for boy’s self-esteem.”
Now he identifies himself as an integration of these two sides of masculinity, “I have become a man who is a warrior and a hunter who wants love hanging in his meat house.”
CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION I have conducted a investigation into the narratives of recovery for men who have been injured in their relationship with their father using the collaborative narrative research method (Arvay, 2003). In this chapter I will contextualize and discuss the research findings of
