The four types of courage introduced by Rollo May include physical, social, creative, and moral courage. The different types of courage present a reformation of the concept of a courageous person to identify specific efforts and overcoming an individual faces when doing a courageous act. Thus, the concept allows closely inspecting the cases to define a particular type of courage involved in the act. However, from my personal experience, the manifestation of the only type of courage can also involve the interaction of various kinds of courage.
My experience with physical courage occurred during childhood, but I still remember it. For a short period of time, my father had trouble with alcohol abuse. Thus, he used alcohol to cope with personal failures, and during that time, he was more aggressive and even violent. While alcohol was not the source of domestic violence in my case, the alcohol abuse significantly affected my father’s behavior, and he physically assaulted my mother. One time, he tried to slap me because I cried too loudly during their quarrel with my mother. Then, my mother showed physical courage in protecting me from the hit with her body.
Physical courage is often associated with the manifestation of physical strength, even though the concept also includes acts commonly acknowledged as moral courage. Thus, continuously experiencing pain in physical training or undergoing a painful dental procedure are also examples of physical courage. Therefore, by protecting me from the attack, my mother showed physical courage because she accepted the idea of getting hurt to save me from danger. At the moment when my father swung his hand to slap me, she quickly hugged me so that the slap landed on her back. Moreover, she blocked my view and showed no signs of feeling the hit, which made me feel safe. Seeing this, my father calmed down and left the room, and after that incident, he stopped drinking alcohol.
Therefore, in evaluating the effect that my mother’s courageous act had on me and my father, I suggest that there was more than physical courage involved in the act. Firstly, moral courage presents the individual’s ability to proceed with his actions without knowing what the consequences of this act may entail later. For example, my mother’s act could make my father even angrier, but she was sure that my safety was her priority. Thus, her act can also be perceived as a manifestation of moral courage.
Next, I think that the social type of courage was also involved in my mother’s deed. Even though courage is not associated with a specific gender, overcoming gender inequality practices, such as showing resistance to a man in a position of power, requires social courage. Moreover, I think that by showing courage only when the parental conflict directly involved me, my mother showed her position as a person who protects the child. Thus, it is possible that the change in parental relationship dynamics made my father change for the better.
In conclusion, exploring my personal experience with my mother’s act of courage displayed the close connections between different types of courage. Because all kinds of courage form a single concept, it is possible that the manifestation of one specific type of courage also involves other types. Thus, physical courage is often connected with moral courage in the motivational basis of the act. Lastly, I think that my mother’s act also involved social courage because in showing resistance to her husband, she rejected gender norms.