Just Telling Men to "Open Up" Is Not Enough
Men’s Mental Health: An Ongoing Conversation
This year I’ve taken part in a few online talks, including one with Kate Mabbett from Man Up Man Down Campaign on Noods Radio, and overall, these talks have helped to cement my ideas on men and mental health, somewhat.
So, in an effort to summarise those thoughts on International Men’s Day 2019, I’d like to talk about them here, and to do so with frankness.
Some Men Need A Different Mental Health Approach
My experience working with young people in mental health services over the last ten years is that, for whatever reason, a large proportion of men just don’t engage standard counselling and psychotherapy approaches, and even mental health services in general, as much as women do. The ratio when it comes to such engagement is usually 70% women, 30% men. This, frankly, just isn’t good enough when men account for 75% of all suicides. But, what’s going wrong exactly?
Asking Men to “Open Up” is NOT A Silver Bullet
In the last ten years, I can’t count how many times I’ve seen mental health services call on men to “open up”, only to see their services continue to maintain poor engagement ratios with men. I mean, yes, it’s good to make it clear that men can express their feelings too, if they want to. But, this doesn’t seem to be working as a silver-bullet approach, so what else can we do? Well, simple: instead of asking men to change for mental health services, by asking them to open up to standard, intensively emotional and relational approaches to mental health, perhaps we can think about changing mental health services to better meet the unique needs of men.
“Ah, yes,” I hear you say…. “But…”
“But, What Do Men Want?”
This one would be easy to avoid, and in a sense it would be right to. I mean, we don’t yet fully understand what men want and need from mental health services, and so we need to ask them, which is what OTR Bristol, myself, and others are beginning to do:
But we’ve a long way to go.
And, at the same time, there are some services that are already having some success in engaging men, such as JourneyManUK, Empire – Fighting Chance, and ProRealVR. Though on the surface these services are very different from each other, they do show us some of the ways we can work that increase the chances of men engaging support.
Here, I’ve identified three:
Less Emotional/Relational Approach
Firstly, some men do not wish to engage in direct, one to one, emotional work. Many men seem to gravitate towards other formats: group tasks, exercise, or a VR/gaming-style environment. Such men will still explore emotionally intense stuff, but the method will not be primarily emotional/relational.
For example, I’ve worked with young boys who found it easier to play around in ProReal’s 3D, minecraft-like environment, and show me what their family is like, by placing down objects and people. They would have found it far more uncomfortable just to talk to me, and probably never would have worked with me in the first place if this had been required of them. Which these alternatives, they don’t have to look directly at me. They can look at a screen, a fire, a task, where things aren’t so intense.
ProReal – avatar-based software for supporting mental health
Mentorship
Secondly, some men seem to gravitate towards mentoring relationships, relationships within which they build trust, learn a task, and look up to another person, usually an older male that models qualities and skills that they would like to learn themselves. This might explain the prominence of online male figures like Jordan Peterson, Joe Rogan, and Dr. K (https://www.healthygamer.gg/) amongst young men. These older men offer young men a model to live to. These can be physical skills, like boxing or bush-craft, but also psychological skills, like empathising and emotional regulation.
This is where Empire - Fighting chance excels, by helping men to practice key character traits and psychological skills, like commitment, respect, and communication, while teaching boxing. Again, as above, it’s less relationally intense, and also, here, has a mentoring aspect, in the trainer.
Externally-Focused
Finally, I think there is something in a task-focused approach that these services embrace that suggests many men like something pragmatic, physical, and external to them, something outside themselves that they can focus on – something to do together. It seems many men are more comfortable at least starting with external and action/task focused activities.
This is something that JourneyMan UK is really focused on, as they create rites of passage rituals for young men, and use the group to perform key practical tasks, through which young men, and their old male mentors, learns interpersonal skills and find a sense of purpose.
Empire – Fight Chance: using boxing and mentoring to help young men.
Next Steps for Men and Mental Health
So, I think we’re faced with a choice, going forward.
We can continue to bash away at the “open up” approach, which will have good, but limited results. Or, as well as continuing to offer men that option, we also focus, as some have, on starting where some men very much already are – by offering supportive services that involve task-orientated activities, mentoring relationships, and approaches that are less primarily emotional/relational in their format. In this way, we might meet more men where they are at, and in so doing, support the men who often most need it.
Note: Not all men are the same, and some men will continue to seek out more relational approaches, and that is great. It’s just, given the above, we need to expand the diversity of our offer if we are going to reach all men who are struggling with their mental health. And that means services, not men, will need to change.)
But, what do you think? How can we best support men? What do you think men need in terms of mental health support? Do you agree or disagree with what I’ve said?
Feel free to let me know in the comments below, or tag me on the following social media platforms!
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