In Your Experience, What Changes Men's Minds About Therapy?

Question: Thank you for your article on men's attitudes to asking for help. I have seen males, young and old being badgered into counselling and agree with Mr Avisar that this is generally not helpful. Can you say more about how we can support men during a difficult time, especially when they are resistant to getting professional help. In your experience, what changes men's minds about therapy? Marianne, wife, and mother of two adult sons

Answer (1) Despite its delusional qualities, men are still by and large socialised to assume an air of emotional independence, self sufficiency, confidence and competence. This once may have served a purpose but under present circumstances, it's rather inappropriate and anachronistic. Most men are slaves to their roles in society but don't seem to be consciously aware of it. Men who cry in sad movies and prefer to play with their children, instead of going to the pub with the boys, or bellowing drunkenly on the sidelines of a football match, are still considered by many, to be a bit limp and suspect. "Real men" don't discuss their emotions or inadequacies with others and particularly with other men, with whom we are taught to be rivalrous and competitive. It's much safer to just crack a lame joke and have another beer. It is left to women to negotiate and fill in for us, the gaps in our abilities for emotional connectedness, tenderness and empathy.

Nowadays, many women resent having to do all the feeling work for the emotionally cut-off boyfriends, husbands and sons but the alternatives are few and the consequences of not doing so, are often dire. There are also many women who, though claiming to want more emotionally connected and responsive men in their lives, rapidly become irritated and contemptuous of them, because of their own conditioning as to how "real men" should be. "It's like be married to my best girlfriend" one young woman told me. I doubt if there is any quick fix to the above dilemma. Unlike in the case with women, I think it'll be an even slower evolutionary change for men, because in some ways it would fly in the face of the very fabric of our society: If men suddenly began to believe that it was much more important to live a quiet life at a relaxed pace, concerned mainly with enjoying family and friends. That it was better to forgo the 25 years of back breaking work and worry to pay off the three quarters of a million dollar mortgage, just for the house in noisy, polluted suburbia. Acknowledging the need to forgo a lot of the so called conveniences we presently take for granted, the bottom would drop out of our economy as we know it. On the other hand, we would all probably live longer, happier and more fullfilled lives as a result. Like it says in the shampoo ad. It wont happen over night but it will happen.

Answer provided by David White, Psychotherapist

Answer (2) I personally don't agree with the popular view that it is all about "social role" we men are conditioned to take. I believe that it is intrinsic to our biological makeup, to our testosterone, that we present our selves as 'strong' and 'in control' so that we can compete with other men, particularly when they come to attack our women and children. So, in order to "sell" the idea of counselling we need to tap into this image men hold. For example, we can say that counselling is like consultation... as you consult a leader, only that in this case it is about how to lead one's life to one's goals. So, it is not about how to be kind to your family but about how best to achieve what is important to you. To my understanding, it is essential to acknowledge that for most men SELF comes before others while for most women it is the other way around. It is neither good nor bad, it is just how human nature is. We all benefit from the tension created by these two types of energies.

Answer provided by Guy Avisar, Psychologist

Answer (3) It is frustrating sitting with a partner and co-parent when they show few signs of seeking the assistance we think they need. In my experience, including my own, people only seek help when they have exhausted their own attempts to control a situation which is imposing more negatives than positives upon their lives. Once they accept the need to get help and want to change, they only act when convinced they are capable of change and believe they know how they will do this. In the meantime, supporting a person who is not ready to change is fine. This role need not and should not prevent you supplying realistic feedback on how their stance impacts on you and the rest of the family. Otherwise their view of the situation is unchallenged by external reality. Getting some support for yourself in a group or individual counselling setting is worth considering.

Answer provided by John Hunter, Counsellor

Answer (4) The big picture can change minds. Putting it down to small picture men's 'resistance to getting help' is the same problem in critical thinking as why boys don't do as well at school as girls (one of the first public places where they could learn the use of help). Still high school boys tend to do the science experiment and the girls write it up. Despite the attempts at gender equity, any teacher is more likely to give unasked for attention to a boy in the class than a girl who is asking. Girls are the dominant client group of health services, boys of prisons.

One of the problems here is that we ask what is wrong with boys, why don't they get it - rather than explore how we have built education and health systems that are not boy friendly, but judicial, military and prison systems which are. In the first instance after using bloke language rather than girl talk to lay out the problem and the assistance on offer to your son's, the second line of support is political. If we can infiltrate security and police services into foreign, closed groups it's not a big step to infiltrate the pub, the club and the work place with health, education and social services. Social role or biological change (if it's useful as an explanation at all) will take many generations but some of the billions of dollars spent on armaments (boys toys) and so called foreign aid (intelligence gathering), the last Year2K bug and the next bird flu threat could be diverted to designing boy friendly education and health systems, first in our own back yard. There are increasing numbers of men friendly web sites - xyonline - and dull men's sites - dullmen - covering the problems of grass and rust, and well funded social services in the community that work. They can be used as a model to think outside the square of what if anything, ails the disposable gender with the genetically exhausted Y chromosome.

Answer provided by Peter Fox, Clinical Psychologist