In the Health section of the April 7, 2009 edition of The New York Times, Benedict Carey wrote an article titled 'When all you have left is your pride'.

This article analysed the impact of the economic downturn on self-concept and the unique survival patterns adopted by people who have lost their jobs. According to the research used for this discussion, it has been observed by counsellors and psycho-analysts that many of the corporate class, whose jobs have left them continue to "fake it" by pursuing the routines that they established while they were employed in the firm or other work sites.

According to Carey, the male Wall Street type gets up every morning after the lay-off and dons his suspenders and leaves home with his bulging briefcase. His female counterpart continues to dress in her cultured pearl necklace and can be seen thumbing on her BlackBerry as she sits in the subway beside the construction worker in his steel-tipped work boots and his protective head gear.

Keep up charade

All these individuals are most probably heading for the same Starbucks coffee shop or bar in Manhattan. At these hangouts, they will keep up the charade while they drown their insecurities in tankards of beer or other forms of booze and caffeine.

Some counselling psychologists encourage their clients to continue this routine. They argue that it helps to maintain good habits of proper grooming, punctuality and organising. It also helps unemployed persons to network rather than staying home and feeling sorry for themselves.

In fact, Carey points out that many psychologists argue that "keeping up appearances" may seem shallow and deceitful to the onlooker, but "to the extent that it sustains good habits and reflects personal pride … this kind of play acting can be extremely effective social strategy, especially in uncertain times".

How to adapt

In this framework, it might be useful for the Jamaican human resource gurus and others who make their living by telling people how to adapt to difficult circumstances to define the meaning of pride in the deep structure of our society.

Jamaicans are oftentimes defined as a strong and proud people. The nature of this strength and pride will not necessarily be equated to the Wall Street individual who must continue to pretend that he or she is at work even when the work leaves him or her.

In a small nation state where people are well known in their particular locale, it would be very difficult to pretend that one is still going to the office or the plant when the entire industry is shut down.

For instance, the Alpart workers who will be without the jobs to which they have left home daily over the years cannot "fake it" in communities such as Nain, Junction, Malvern, Southfield, Mandeville and other bauxite-impacted spaces.

A recent television story detailed one of the initiatives that Alpart has introduced to help their displaced workers. These counselling sessions involve investment and saving seminars given by investment houses and banking establishments. However, many of these workers need more than investment counselling. They also need the kind of intervention that will address their deep-seated fears and unstable self-concepts.

Personal pride in the Jamaican context has to be understood in a historical context where a significant sector of the population has been exposed to both the hidden and overt injuries of caste and class.

Those whose identities are defined exclusively by their jobs have been socialised to believe that their essential humanity is related to their pay cheques and the social currency that goes with being doctor, lawyer, teacher, engineer and comedian, to name a few.

In many rural Jamaican communities, the older folk sometimes mention the young man or woman who is too proud to even say hello to anyone when he or she returns to the community to place a few flowers on the graves of his or her parents in the church cemetery.

In such cases, pride is understood to be related to haughtiness. These are the individuals who cannot afford to lose their jobs unless they have developed alternative 'faking' strategies.

Somewhere along the path of development of the ordinary Jamaican folk, subtle messages of their lack of worth in the overall scheme of things have seeped through.

These messages provide the blueprint for what researcher Jessica Tracey of the University of British Columbia has defined as "hubristic pride". This, she says, "is closer to arrogance or narcissism, pride without substantial foundation". If, indeed, hubristic pride is sustained by the social and financial returns of one's job, then some people who become jobless will definitely need special psychological support to keep their persona intact while they evaluate their situation and find areas in which they can change their methods of earning and surviving the hard times.

Effect of job loss

In the Jamaican context, it might serve us well to ask what effect the loss of a job has on the individual outside of the loss of income. Perhaps there are some people of both genders who need special counselling to keep them from a psychological meltdown. It is well established that men and women have a different set of social and psychological skill that they pull on when the going gets tough and rough.

A case in point was the surprising responses of young women in the Chicago area who lost their jobs in the current crisis. In the March 27, 2009 edition of the Globe and Mail, reporter Karen Hawkins informed her readers that a growing number of university-educated women who are now out of the traditional job stream have turned to stripping and dancing in bars. According to her, "the tough job market is prompting a growing number of women across the country to dance in strip clubs, appear in adult movies or pose for magazines like Hustler".

These women reportedly are attracted to the flexible hours and the fast cash. However, it was pointed out that the transition to this lifestyle is not always smooth and many of these once "decent women" have to turn to alcohol and drugs to get the courage to face the cameras and the crowds.

These real-life situations will force educators, politicians and planners to examine deeply the messages of success and pride that are being passed down from generation to generation.

It is time for us to revisit the wisdom of writer Charleszetta Waddles who said "you can't give people pride, but you can provide the kind of understanding that makes people look to their inner strengths and find their own sense of pride".

Indeed we all must find pride after the fall!

Glenda P. Simms is a consultant on gender. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.