creativity and artistry; group therapy; spirituality and religion; aging, loss, and grief; Italian American culture; mentoring; and #MeToo in her clinical and research work and publications. She is the coauthor of Daughters, Dads, and the Path through Grief: Tales from Italian America, as well as articles integrating Springsteen and psychology.
Donna Luff is a British-born writer and sociologist, an educator at Boston Children’s Hospital, and faculty at Harvard Medical School. She has published on gender, sexuality, and health care innovations and taught widely on qualitative research practice. She is author of several personal essays, as well as articles on Springsteen, and coauthor of a prior chapter on Springsteen’s women fans.
They applied the “Page 99 Test” to their new book, Mary Climbs In: The Journeys of Bruce Springsteen's Women Fans, and reported the following:
“Who am I? How did I come to be who I am? What am I meant to do and to be in life?” (McAdams, 2013). Those are the central questions raised on page 99, as part of a narrative psychologist’s view of how it is people figure out who they are and what the meaning and purpose of their life might be, what Dan McAdams calls the autobiographical author approach to constructing one’s identity. Figuring that out, becoming the author of one’s own life, is a developmental process that involves the culture, one’s history, the present, and the future, and is especially important during emerging adulthood although it can continue throughout the life span. For some women, their fan relationship with Springsteen and his work are highly intertwined with this process of figuring out who they are and how to make meaning in their life. The words “spiritual expedition” open the page and signal the depth of Springsteen’s meaning.Learn more about Mary Climbs In at the Rutgers University Press website.
Page 99 dives deeply into the psychology behind our book, the emphasis on spiritual, psychological, and personal growth and identity. But the heart and soul of our book are the words of women fans who responded to our two surveys through Backstreets.com, a Springsteen fan website. And that is what is missing on this page. So, while it doesn’t fully represent the book, it does hint at some critical elements of it. We showcase women fans’ journeys through life as interwoven with Springsteen and his work, and psychology helps us to understand those processes. These themes, taken from page 99, underscore our message:The concepts of personal growth and development underlie our work, but the most essential parts are the responses from women fans: the emotions, honesty, thoughtfulness, faith, and love they share.
- "Some women see Springsteen as mirroring their own struggles, including how they might grow through them"
- "McAdams emphasizes the importance of the stories that people live by and of authoring one’s own sense of meaning and identity throughout the life span."
- "This developmental process may be occurring with some women fans, and it continues on in life."
Women’s stories illuminate how Springsteen fandom has shaped their lives. The book’s themes, that emerged from their responses to our surveys, are about relationship, meaning-making, healing, personal growth, creating the self and identity, as well as the power of belonging to a fan community. Centrally, we explore how many women experience their fandom as a kind of relationship. Women referred to Springsteen variously as like a close friend or family member, a guide or teacher, or even a therapist. Here are just a couple of examples of their words, from a long-term fan and from a young fan:
“I sure do (have a relationship with him), he is a part of my life as a friend who gives me comfort, makes me happy and ... he just belongs to me! Although I know, he doesn’t know me and doesn’t even know I exist.”
“I feel like he means everything he says, he cares about the issues, and he cares about the E Street Band….it is because of his strong and passionate love that he fights against the injustices in the world, and has the energy and power to do so, thus inspiring me and my family to love more and fight more for what we love.”
--Marshal Zeringue