Phenomenological analysis of intimacy among Filipino male best friend relationships

• Main Authors: Fabiosa, Bryan, Niebres, Poch, Pangilinan, Joshua
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2000
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/11662
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study focuses on describing the phenomenon of intimacy between male best friends. Four best friend pairs participated in the study that made use of a phenomenological approach. Data was collected via unstructured in-depth interview and was analyzed by interpretative phenomenological analysis. The researchers were able to extract 70 themes of intimacy from the interviews that was later on reduced to 12 superordinate themes. The researchers then came up with a theoretical description of the dynamics of intimacy in best friendships by means grouping together the similarities of the twelve superordinate themes. Implications of the study points to the fact that male friendships are based on intimacy through complementarity, respect of the individuals, measures of intimacy and externally reinforced intimacy. As to the theoretical dynamics of male intimacy presented by the researchers, the results indicate that it is an ever-deepening cyclical process, which goes through three stages. Namely, Intimacy as Foundation of Friendship, Acknowledgement of Friendship and Traits of Friendship.