I nöd och lust: En studie av individualiseringens påverkan på heterosexuella parrelationer ur ett jämställdhetsperspektiv

For Better or for Worse: The Influence that Individualization has had on Heterosexual Couples from an Equality Perspective. ABSTRACT Author: Julia Sellman Title: For Better or for Worse: The Influence that Individualization has had on Heterosexual Couples from an Equality Perspective. [I nöd och lust: En studie av individualiseringens påverkan på heterosexuella parrelationer ur ett jämställdhetsperspektiv] Supervisor: Åsa Lundqvist Assessor: Hans-Edvard Roos The purpose of this essay was to investigate couple therapists’ views on heterosexual relationships today. More specifically, the intentions were to examine how individualization and our society’s ambitions of equality have influenced the views on relationships in general and how the couple therapists see this influence. As empirical material, four couple therapists were interviewed, using qualitative, semi-structured interviews. The material that was derived from these interviews was analyzed using theories of individualization by mainly Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim and Anthony Giddens. The results of the analysis include, among other things, a portrayal of the effects of losing traditional gender roles in heterosexual relationships, from the therapists’ viewpoints based on their daily work and experience. The analysis also shows which problems and which benefits our society’s increasing individualization has presented for couples today, in the form of increasing demands of self-realization, and being able to uphold a functional relationship at the same time. Other problems that the analysis shows is how notions of self-realization has influenced the general view on relationships in a way so that they are taken more lightly, and are important as long as they present satisfaction for the participants