• 한국노년학
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• v.38 no.3
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• pp.607-625
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• 2018

This study is on mid-seventies female gamblers who went through Korean modern history. The purpose is to analyze interviews on their life of understanding what their true self is, and to redefine gambling. The concept of 'existential self-regulation' was proposed and the materials were acquired through narrative interviews. The materials were then investigated according to Mandelbaum's framework for analysis of which suggests dimension, turning, and adaptation. The self-narrative revealed that the process of being addicted to gambling is as in the following: compensating her emotional deficiency via money and child's education, getting rid of the emotional deficiency via gambling, becoming free from emotional deficiency. The meaning of gambling has shifted to a comfort to existential vacuum, a source of anxiety ruining life, pastime for boring everyday life. Life events that control the impulse to gamble through 'existential self-knowledge' occurred in the second and the third stage. Based on the results, the study suggests mid-seventies female gamblers to write her autobiography, and proposed the necessity of self-examining programs.