Psycho-social factors

Personal resources such as self-esteem, self-sufficiency (the feeling of having the skills to succeed at what one takes on and being able to handle what comes one’s way) feeds into self-confidence and contributes to success, happiness and personal satisfaction. Psycho-social resources such as mindfulness and emotional control help bring down the negative impact of stress factors and associated health risks. Our findings show that gay men are notably less equipped in this regard than men in the general population. However these skills can be acquired at any age by participating in trainings and workshops. This is one of the focuses of Dialogai’s work.

Self-esteem is closely correlated with feelings of success, satisfaction and happiness. Around 90% of men in the general male population of Canada have a high or average level of self-esteem versus less than 50% of gay men. This low score representing low self-confidence is very probably linked to the high difficulties in beinghow hard it is to be at ease with and accept ing one’s homosexuality as focus group participants highlighted in 2001.

The self-sufficiency data areis similar to the findings foron self-esteem. More than 50% of gay men have a low feeling of self-sufficiency which shows that they do not feel very capable of organizing their lives to achieve their goals, and they do not feel terribly responsible for their successes and failures or they think that what happens to them is independent from their will. The feeling of self-esteem and other psycho-social resources can be strengthened at any age by experiencing success in professional or private life and by participating in specific training or workshops