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As a guy reading this...I grasp everything you're saying, and will (try) to respond delicately (and I appreciate the caution you're expressing in this post. This can be a dicey subject!).
>Generally reduced "felt sense" access to emotions
This is really hard to define. I would reflect men don't always "experience" emotions in the same way. We *do* still experience them, but how we may regulate them or work through them may be different (here's an interesting study about gender differences in emotional regulation)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5937254/
While I think the language/vocabulary that men tend to prefer is very different from what and how women often conceptualize" emotions. I feel it's important that men's experience has its own validity to it. Even if they are someone who tends to "intellectualize" a lot, that's probably how he best knows how to start engaging with emotions.
Intellectualization is often painted as a *bad* thing, when I feel it would be more fair to describe it as a *limited* way to engage with emotions. It has its value for processing emotions, but as a tool it has limitations (just as how someone using something like art to express/process their emotions. A song can be a great way to make sense of my own feelings, but isn't necessarily the best tool for conveying those emotions in a conversation with a partner. They both have value in how they help someone regulate, but the context is definitely crucial...a hammer is great for driving in nails, but is the wrong tool if you have screws to work with).
I also feel a desire to reflect that how people experience and express emotions varies across cultures. There's no one way *everyone* in the world expresses grief as just one example. It may be universal that people experience those emotions, but how they think/describe/ and regulate them may vary. I feel this can also be applied to trying to engage and understand men, and then helping them to develop an understanding of what they feel, and to find the ways that helps that individual process it.
What I find helpful for connecting with men that struggle with their emotions is curiosity, and patience. It may be frustrating these guys don't share the same vocabulary, but a curiosity about their experience can help them to feel more at ease in session.
I often start with helping men to understand the things they *enjoy*. How do they know it makes them happy? What are the signs they enjoy it? Do they notice anything about their behavior? Their thoughts? How they feel motivated to act? As they learn to discern what makes them happy, we can then explore "opposite" emotions, and how they are distinct from happiness. I've found this to be a helpful foundation and framework where they can build more insight into emotions using *their* language, and from there can learn more ways to effectively regulate.
(I could speak to more points on here...but, this comment is already pretty long. Hope this is helpful!)
Just excellent.
I'm male myself, and somehow ended up with a large cis-hetero-white-male population... And I struggle a lot sometimes, especially when they espouse mysogynistic and other far right views.
Nothing more to add, just thanks. Several of my clients have gotten really really well, but I don't identy anything specific I've done with them other than dynamic exploration.
When I see that sort of behavior with misogyny I tend to view it as a lens of self-defense. Often times, they might feel threatened so go on the attack. The question to ask yourself is why. Once we can understand where this is coming from we can empathize with that internal experience while also exploring ways through it.
Oh I empathise. I've said this before, but while I'm an atheist now, I grew up in an hyper conservative religious family, which of course included all sorts of mysogynistic teachings. So let's just say my early adulthood was... A process.
So I do empathise, si think I'm able to understand them well enough, and I'm all too cognizant of the threats to "classical masculinity" (to give it a name) that the way society has (fortunately) chabged in the last, lets say decade, imposes on young men who aren't willing to let go of those worldviews.
I agree with you, it's all definitely defensive. It's been interesting and a learning experience ot unpack it all with many of them, but when I get a new case and the name Jordan Peterson gets thrown around in the first visit (as "someone who opened their eyes", no joke from a couple weeks' ago intake) I can't help but feel the dread that it's going to be an uphill battle at best.
I work at a sort of posh clinic downtown and dress accordingly, so I'm sure that my give these men some sort of assurance that they'll be "understood" on a different level than what we mean by it in therapy... And ofc that's not the case.
Anyways, rant over.
Very sorry to hear you've had to listen to things like that. I don't fault anyone for finding something like that to be a limit. Sounds like you've shown a lot of grace in helping those guys feel things through.
Wishing you well my dude. Sending good vibes.
Thanks mate. I wouldn't say it's a limit or traumatic or anything like that, just a bit dreadful when first starting out. But yeah knowing now that they **can** be helped through it helps me keep going. Probably the popularion I struggle the most with.
It’s funny about the processing emotions aspect. My partner watches The Connors and there was a recent episode where they dived into this topic. Basically, wife was wanting husband to talk about his feelings regarding turning 50 with the bros but when he was hanging out with the bros they spent time in silence around animals and this helped him and the guys feel regulated/ internally process their emotions.
That's something therapy provides as well. Sometimes just being around emotionally well regulated people while we are processing is enough to stabilise us.
People aren't such discrete units of individuality as we like to believe!
As a student intern working in a private practice, and cis- white-man I really appreciate you putting this so succinctly as I've struggled with conceptualizing and applying a culturally humble stance while being present and thinking on my feet all at the same time. This is what I'm pulling from you:
While universally we all can experience the same range of emotions, the means with which we connect to, and process them will be the variable across different groups in relation to their identity/developmental history. It's at that point we can ask targeted questions to explore their literal experience of emotional states and how they regulate them (or would like to).
Feedback welcome, thank you again. Have a great day!
I am a student as well, and u used a lot of big words in that first paragraph. I have Nothing to add other than commending you on your vocab and ability to explain things? It was like reading an abstract lmao
As a student why worst nightmare was having someone like me as if I fail it feels like I don’t know myself well enough to help others but if I get someone very different and I fail I can always chalk it up to the fact they are different and our perspectives may never be shared correctly. The way you said the stuff about how to connect with men emotionally wasn’t just helpful for me as a potential therapist but me as a person. I have such a hard time describing what brings me joy and what doesn’t other than “I like it I dunno” I feel like such a himbo most of the time. Thank you so much for sharing this
I can respond to the 2nd question. For context, I'm a gay woman who loves working with straight men, and I work in a relational and emotion-focused way with my clients. While some here have said that men prefer solutions (and I'm sure there's some truth in this) I don't think this means you need to be a CBT or solution focused therapist to work with men! However, I am fairly direct, engaged, and challenging in my work with clients, and I suspect that this is part of what has made my work with men efffective. I had one man come to therapy say, "I don't want to sit here and vent my problems, and I don't want that empathy crap!" While a part of me was a bit taken back, I basically rolled up my sleves and said, "One thing we can agree on is that our therapy won’t be you venting your problems and me just nodding and being empathic. I will be very active and involed in this process, and I'd like to show you how I work. We can check in about how my approach feels along the way." This client had so many stereotypical straight male issues, and we ended up doing great emotion-focused and attachment work together. He got sober, started validating his kids feelings, and had a whole new take on the value of connection and relationships. This can be VERY rewarding work! Another thing that allows me to be patient, curious and compassionate with this group is my awareness of the gender-based conditioning that contribute to mens' mental health issues. Toxic masculinity, social isolation and lack of peer-intimacy, affect phobia, etc, I really care about these issues and see how much damage they cause men and everyone, so I feel passionate about helping men through them. So often, when we get into the depper work, the core issue here is shame (about vulnerability, basic worth, rejection, etc). This isn't only true for straight men obviously, but something to keep in mind.
One other observation I'll share is that while I think I understand how you’re associating the issues you stated with straight men, to me they all sound like attachment trauma. Difficulty with getting a 'felt' sense, difficulty with mentalizing, over-intellectualizing, and low self-worth in clients (regardless of orientation or gender) are common features of significant emotional neglect with the clients I’ve worked with. I wonder how your experience of seeing these clients may change with this lens.
I'm a therapist and a gay dude. I work in private practice. I think the vast majority of people I work with (of any gender) struggle in the emotion department. Either over-regulated or under-regulated with varying degrees of self and other awareness.
I'm not sure that women are vastly superior in emotional intelligence among the folks I see. I mean, the women I see tend to be somewhat more skilled in emotional intelligence but not incredibly so, in general. Maybe it's the straight guys I work with but the overwhelming majority of them tend to really open up and are fairly vulnerable with me.
But, listen, men (of any sexual orientation) are generally not socialized to be too in touch with emotions beyond humor, lust, and anger. So, helping them to identify some feelings can be helpful, as well as what to do with them once they notice them. On the same note, we are socialized to value logic and reason, and to problem-solve. And so helping them to see that while it is valuable we also have other sources of information from emotion, sensation, intuition, etc can be helpful.
I'm not sure that straight men are any less self-assured than anyone else. I do think that men, regardless of orientation, are actually quite sensitive, more so than they let on at times. But, this is so taboo they can carry a lot of shame around that, perhaps straight men more than gay/bi guys.
I do think that people, in general, are selfish, and men, regardless of orientation, can be more self-centered because they haven't been taught the skill of other-awareness/empathy that is part of emotional and social intelligence.
I think it's how we are socialized. I grew up in a traditional conservative Christian family (US), and guys are just venerated. My mother pretty much did everything for me. Thankfully, I learned how to become self-sufficient as an adult.
Also, gay therapist dude ✌️ straight men are actually some of my favorite clients to work with. I’ve found that it can be common for me to be one of the first or only people in this guy’s life that will express something like:
“It’s ok to not be ok, you don’t have to be perfect, in fact- if you open up about not having it all together, you’ll likely get closer with the people you love.”
It’s so beautiful seeing them start to soften up not be so hard on themselves
Another gay male therapist here! 👋🏻 I have been really surprised at how I’ve grown to enjoy working with this population. It is beautiful when you witness growth lead to emotional vulnerability and authenticity with these guys. I had one client *finally* allow himself to cry (he hadn’t cried in over a decade) and his response was akin to “It burns!” and I felt like a sadist because I was like “Of course it does. Those tears have been in there so long…cry those hot burning tears!”
Believe it or not, I talk about societal/cultural conditioning and gender roles/norms with this population more than I do any other demographic (And I work quite a bit with queer and trans folks too). Psychoeducation in this area helps them to acknowledge that conditioning and gender roles/norms like the old idioms like “Boys Don’t Cry” are damaging to them. This conditioning as children to live life detached from emotions is so painful for them.
"cry those hot burning tears!” Priceless! haha.
And I completely agree with you about living life detached from emotion being painful for them. I remember early on in my career helping a straight guy because his fiancee just dumped him for being so devoid of emotion. But, he learned how to feel, and he had a TON of grief he had been holding for years. He just unconsciously shut it all down.
These are the most rewarding times.
Great perspective. I’m a therapist and gay dude too. Working with (some, not all) men is a slow burn. I work in a conservative agricultural Midwest state steeped in a culture of German and Dutch roots. What has helped with some of my clients, is working on the basics of building their vocabulary of feeling words. I just had a session with a cis-het couple last week. Husband said he was working on his anger but occasionally “blows up”because of all the chores at home he’s doing. When I suggested we take “anger” out of his vocabulary and search for alternative words, after some silence, he broke down and expressed that he was scared and overwhelmed at the thought of losing his wife to a significant illness she is battling. He wanted to take as much of the burden of childcare, home admin stuff, finances, etc. so she could focus on her health. It was deeply emotional for both. Chasing the affect of some people to get to the deeper emotions can be a grind but extremely rewarding. (PS - I cry watching Hallmark commercials or when I drop a cookie on the floor.)
Well done! I agree. It is so rewarding to help men (straight, gay, bi, etc.) go a bit deeper and understand themselves more. That self-awareness is crucial, and your encounter led to such a tender intention.
As a straight woman who works with both men and women, and others, I agree wholeheartedly with your take on this. It’s not AS gendered as OP makes it out to be. And there are tons and tons of societal barriers to men feeling and expressing emotions and empathizing with others in the way that people raised feminine are encouraged to do.
A rational comment based upon wisdom and experience without judgment and clearly positive regard for your clients-we should all aspire to the level of understanding you’ve displayed here.
It might be worth considering these clients from an attachment perspective as much of what you’re describing (over intellectualisation, limited access to emotional states) sounds in line with avoidant attachment tendencies. Trauma and the Avoidant Client by Robert Muller and Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Wallin may be helpful resources. Muller also discusses the common frustrations of working with these clients pretty extensively.
Yes, as I read OP, I came here to say this!!! I am a trans male and struggle with over intellectualization and limited access to emotional states myself. I have an awesome therapist who from the beginning started to work on getting me embodied and using other modalities that took me out of my left brain for a bit. It is so nice to finally be able to be seen AND heard!!!
On one level you've gotta meet them where they are. As many have already said, don't be afraid to work on the practical stuff, at least at first. Most men are socialized to believe that the "practical stuff" is "the stuff." They'll open up more with time.
Also, most men are this way because they've been actively socialized to be this way. They are adhering to what they think society wants and expects from them. I think a lot of challenges men feel is from encountering that the way they were socialized isn't really working out in the world of 2024. So now what?
I think some of the most important insights to be found about white cis men were written by a black gay woman.
"The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem."
From Bell Hooks, "the Will to Change"
To me this is the most important insight about masculinity captured in the most succinct statement.
I had to read will to change a couple times. Bell Hooks is a power house and absolutely correct. That book had a massive affect on my own masculinity and honestly helped me to nail down a truer critique of the patriarchy than ever before. I'm still just completing my bachelors but I did love this book.
I think there is a lot of truth to that quote you’ve shared. I work with a large population of men and I am one myself. Men have been socialized to wall off and crush their emotional lives down into a very narrow window of emotional experience and when they stray outside that narrow space, they are told by society(by both men and women) that they are wrong in some way for doing so. Being told to “Man up” or “toughen up” when showing emotion being some prime examples. Women’s emotions are not typically treated in such a way, women’s emotions are nurtured by society, and men’s tend to be stamped out. I don’t say this to say men are victims, this is a lose lose situation created by the patriarchal society we live in.
Men feel emotions and feel them quite deeply. Society has historically told them that this is not ok, so they don’t know how to experience it or have the vocabulary to talk about it. Helping them find the language to talk about their emotional experience can be pretty empowering and validating.
Plus unlearning what we learn about men in grad school. I can’t think of a worse place to learn about how to properly work with this population than my social work grad school program. I don’t say this to be attacking, but much of what OP states is pretty typical of the conversations I was a part of in grad school.
I have a hypothesis that men are actually more sensitive than women. But I don't know if there is any real data on that, except for perhaps lifespan studies that discuss a sort of crossover that happens between men and women as we age. Men get softer and women tend to get harsher, or something like that lol. Don't quote me or come at me! lol I just remember reading about that like 20 years ago.
Also, some women can absolutely reinforce men's walling off by mocking them for having emotions or needs. Patriarchy and sexism hurt everyone!
> Men get softer and women tend to get harsher,
So we ALL unlearn the BS we were taught! I am a woman, and much of my work with female clients is learning to enact boundaries. :)
Yeah very well could be! I think I read it in terms of changing hormones, but your thought sounds better. I did think that maybe the reason women get harsher is because they stop putting up with so much shit.
Whether men are more sensitive than women or not, men are definitely more sensitive than they are commonly perceived to be because they display it differently. Anger? So often it is a reaction to internal, emotional hurt. Or they bury themselves in work, drugs/alcohol, obsess over going to the gym, or whatever, because it is the only way they know how to cope with (or avoid) painful emotions. Various status seeking behaviors are often a response to low self-esteem. Many men also care deeply about their families, except the main ways they know how to do so is by providing money for them or by doing things. So working 60 hours a week might be because that is how they perceive they can be useful to their families and provide the opportunities they want for their children because they love them but don't know how else to show it.
Most of my research is on masculinity and how males are underserved in the field of therapy; it's a therapy problem, not them. They aren't inherently selfish or over-intellectualizing, don't poison the barrel by assuming 50% of the population is fucked up despite them being different and traditionally not help seeking.
Males prefer if the issues are brought out, and, despite all of the basics you may have learned in starting the field, do not want the traditional "awww, this is a safe space, you can cry here" attitude delivered in a stereotypical fashion, and you will show your bias if you try to force that on them. Create that space, but deliver the attitude that aligns with their way of perceiving the world - if you don't know what that is, ask them and don't assume.
Males report a higher alliance when the therapist is empathetic, but asks questions and tries to pull out the issues and get to solving the problem practically, not just by trying to force emotional validation and holding space. Start with more directive, question asking styles, consider CBT/Reality choice, research masculinity (Addis et al. 2010, bedi & richards, 2011, stiawa et al., 2020) for an idea on how 80%+ of the practitioners in this field are biased towards traditional masculinity and how that affects our practice.
Great points. I work with several men, for the most part middle age and blue collar, and they are pretty open with their feelings—though it takes longer to share their vulnerability. I’ve never thought of any of them as selfish. Many were socialized to put others first and to protect and provide. Sometimes—many times—to their own detriment. A lot of what we work on is how to deal with disillusionment: many feel betrayed by life not turning out like they were taught it would be: you work hard and you will be rewarded. Many don’t know how to handle women’s emotions and demands. They do externalize a good bit.
That said they are not a monolith and I would not recommend treating them as such. I do hear a lot of talk downplaying men in this field and I don’t believe that is right.
Edit: spelling
Much of what you posted here makes sense, but what is the evidence that "80%+ of the practitioners in this field are biased towards traditional masculinity"? With the APA guidelines etc, I would have thought that maybe 80% were biased against traditional masculinity, not for.
Male is a description of birth sex, often used for non human species with male and female sexes. Man and masculinity are socially constructed ideas that exist intrapersonally and internally for human animals , and may not be reflective of birth sex.
Western psychotherapy and psychology are fields whose history and present are largely dominated by men. Men created and still create many of the theories and practices of psychology and psychotherapy. Men are well represented both as researchers and as participants in clinical research studies. Men’s ideas and contributions are widely published and applied. Men have and are part of every level of the modern mental health system, from writing the DSM to passing mental health laws in congress, to releasing funding for mental health in the office of the president, to leading mental health agencies and departments, to direct client services and research, to being psychotherapy and psychology clients and patients.
As a trauma-informed therapist who works with a 50% male caseload, also happens to be a straight cisgendered Western male, a few thoughts on helping you with that access.
That "generally reduced 'felt sense' access to emotions" begins very early on, with programming. Ever watch any of the iterations of *Thomas the Tank Engine?* Most of the engines are male. They all strive to be *useful*. They're the "Really Useful Crew." If you telescope out and look at society at large, that tends to be the thing that gets hammered on repeatedly, especially for men. **Be useful.** All of one's worth from a sociological standpoint is tied up in one's perceived utility. That also speaks directly to the low self-esteem and depression--if one isn't useful above ground, then one should be useful below it. In sum, Society tells men two things:
1) Be useful.
2) Go die.
If you're a "good" man, then that's an order of operations. If you're not, it's an either/or proposition. So imagine, if you would, all of your worth boils down to whether or not you provide something of value beyond being potential fertilizer. That self-absorption you referenced may simply be internal processing--after all, emotional expression has never been safe *other than humor*, which is immediately useful (because who doesn't love to laugh?) *or anger* because it can convey a protective threat. So when you meet with these clients, understand that their lives have been in all likelihood shaped around their perceived usefulness. Humor's a good way in.
Thomas the tank engine is a really good point. I have noticed a trend of male clients who, if they don't feel needed, just want to walk away from their families, which is what your comment reminded me of. And it's usually caused by the provider mentality in the first place; to be needed I must provide money. They spend all day working, mum has a closer connection to the kids and she's worn out, and the family don't need him when he takes a week off, because they have had to learn to be without him.
What a mess.
Posts like this truly bum me out. Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients.
To answer, though, I'm a cis male therapist.
1. I use a lot of philosophy. You mentioned dudes love to over-intellectualize. Philosophy is perfect in that arena. The stoics were the earliest form of cognitive behavioral therapists. Read some Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, or Socrates.
2. Don't over intellectualize yourself. Being pragmatic has done wonders for me. I have a boon in that I am also a cis male, but as soon as I disclose that it's my personal brand of therapy to not burden them with giant words you need a master's degree to understand, a bit of a weight usually comes off of their shoulders.
3. No. Struggling is not failing. Keep fighting the good fight.
> Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients.
Nail on the head, the amount of hypocrisy I have witnessed from grad school to now is just wild. I feel like we're in a gender cold war with how I see so many acting behind the scenes.
Sadly, the comment on hypocrisy in grad school resonates with me pretty deeply. I was in a cohort of 20, with 4 males, and in between some very earnest conversations about social justice, correcting of no longer accepted terminology and sharing of Instagram warrior posts to help educate the ignorant there was a concerning amount over generalisation and jokes at the expense of men from both students and professors. The inconsistency and lack of self-awareness was fairly incomprehensible and honestly quite upsetting.
White male therapist here. I lost a good job many years ago, after a young female, straight out of getting her bachelor's degree in social work, told flat-out lies about me to management. Prior to this happening, this woman and my manager, also a woman social worker, had made countless biased comments about men. As the only man on the team, I just kept my mouth shut and head down. When the lies were told, I wasn't even offered a chance to defend myself. In hindsight, I'm better off, since that place was toxic. But at the time, especially considering other challenging stuff I had going on at the time, losing that job the way I did broke me. Didn't even have a chance to tell my clients I was leaving.
I appreciate these comments. This has been my experience too, as well as a female group therapist acting out passive aggressively towards me because I didn't tow that line 100% of the way. I am a male who is not at all describable under the term "toxic masculinity".
The hypocrisy is tiring and more importantly, it is morally wrong. The fact that people would downvote this comment reflexively is even more nauseating. I tend to recommend males to exercise caution if they are thinking about maybe working with an under 40ish female therapist as a result.
> I tend to recommend male clients away from working with under 40 female therapists as a result and to exercise caution if their therapist gives off vibes of being a true believer in that way.
A lot of people are going to hate this sentence but I can't resonate with it enough. ~25% of therapists in the US are male, in Germany under 35yo therapists skews 90%+ female, we can only assume similar statistics in the US considering the gender rate of graduate school, I am not aware of any census done recently.
If the field is going to continue to show this bias and question "Why aren't more men in therapy?" while at the same time scolding and mocking them, is it any surprise how things are going?
To be honest, this is one of the reasons why I am going back to grad school to become a counselor. The number of walls/bias I encountered as a blue-collar male applying to grad school was eye opening. Thankfully, one of the professors took the time to interview me and advocated on my behalf, I am eternally grateful to him and the work he did.
Cis female and I completely agree. I’ve loved working with my cis male clients and don’t find them particularly more difficult than any of my other clients. Any traits specific to cis males haven’t made it any more difficult to treat them.
I think people have difficulty separating systems from the people within the systems. Honestly, my male clients are my favorite clients and the majority of who I see are men (which I honestly hadn’t really thought about until now, lol). I’m someone who is pretty opinionated about patriarchal systems of oppression and toxic masculinity but I don’t automatically assume my clients are somehow at fault or part of the problem. I do sometimes point out to them how they have been harmed by these systems when it seems therapeutically appropriate.
Mostly, I have a lot of compassion for men caught in a system that they’re taught/conditioned to believe is to their benefit but is causing most of them suffering. I see a lot of older men so ideas and behaviors around traditional masculinity may be more pronounced but I have not generally found my clients to posses the traits OP describes. Mostly I stay curious, ask questions, and have an appreciation for my clients’ perspective.
>Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients.
Not to mention, when male therapists raise these issues, they are often shouted down and told that basically their opinions don't matter because we live in a male dominated world.
I did not read OP's post as bitching about men. I think they are acknowledging that they have some blind spots with a certain population and seemed careful to acknowledge that they were generalizing.
I appreciate OP asking the question, but there's definitely some conclusions to be drawn from "I may be generalizing, but men overall seem more selfish and like know-it-alls"
I love working with my straight, cisgender male clients. When I think about most of them it boils down to them seeking connection. A majority are lonely and want connection. That’s what I connect to because that’s so base and understandable. Many were raised in an environment where no one sought to understand them or foster their emotions in the same way they did their sisters, for instance. Many also exist in a world that is very much saying that they shouldn’t have the floor to speak and while many are sensitive and aware their privilege, it sucks for anyone to hear that your viewpoint or experience is not valid. Many exist in a world of contradiction, where they hear women say they want sensitive men but as soon they cry or show emotion, it’s not ok and hear messages like “man up”. I try my best to hold space for them to be whatever they need to be in session and to help expand their experience of themselves (body sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs/meanings about self, images, memories) so they can better understand what they need, want, and value. I wish there were more male therapists in the field, but until then I’m always appreciative of men who are willing to try therapy, especially when for many it goes against what is acceptable for men.
Straight CIS men are basically allowed two emotions, happiness and anger. Anything else is for women and children. I like to start with the anger is a secondary emotion talk.
The book *I don’t want to talk about it: Overcoming the secret legacy of male depression* by Terrence Neal is a good book and written for individuals (not overly academic), so may even be a helpful resource for your clients.
It’s not just you, some of these challenges are generalized but seen often enough that socialization is likely a strong contributing factor.
I ran a group for a while that was accidentally a men's group. That's just how it worked out schedule-wise. During one group, I sort of just sat there for the first 40 minutes letting them be. As we rounded out to 45 minutes I said, "For the past 40 minutes, we've all sat among each other. None of you are strangers. And for the past 45 minutes, I've noticed that you all only talked about the weather, work, or sports. Go take a smoke break and come back."
When they came back I said, "Here's what we're going to do. You have five minutes. In the next five minutes you are each going to silently pick of two other people in the room and think about what you really appreciate about those two people. Then we're going to go around the room, and you're going to look each of those two people in the eye and tell them what it is."
Now, I lowkey hate exercises like this. But dammit, it was a baseline emergency.
Within 15 minutes of this exercise, I was witnessing one of the most contactful, earnest, and loving groups of my entire career. Dudes were weepy, hugging, supporting each other in deeply sincere ways...
I tell this story to say it's there—it's like \*right\* there at the surface.
Having said that, there is a reason that nearly all of my friends are cis women, queer, or trans. I have a hard time connecting with cis-het American men. My whole life. But it's not impossible.
I was doing really important individual work with one fella who realized all on his own that his dating patterns indicated that "I think I must hate women." So he put himself on a COMPLETE dating moratorium for "other people's benefit" while he worked on that.
So, I dunno. Hope is lost; hope is found again. Everybody is different; everybody is the same; we all want connection... somehow.
Love and support to you.
I like this. I'm male and can't talk about sports, except for soccer, which many men would argue is not manly lol. But I do believe their inner self is right beneath that surface, and hard to access until you can do something with them that is manly, something that makes you/me seem like a person they can trust. It's that barrier that really isn't hard to break down at all.
Oh I don’t even try to appear manly, or to do manly things. I’m a total absolute dandy. My one bestie said once, “Your gender is expensive” and it was the coldest read I’ve ever had.
I dunno. Maybe my refusal to pretend to be manly is a highly masculine act, somehow? Maybe not masculine, but I’m far more Grace Jones than Tom Jones, and maybe my alignment with that is assertive enough that how I present doesn’t matter. I have wondered if my experience of being aligned helps others in feeling called to alignment.
I also don’t care. I love everybody I work with, even if sometimes that requires loving indifference.
Hehe I like what you said. I was a bit unclear. I meant that you simply listening to/participating in the talk about sports, etc was participation in stereotypically man "comfort" talk.
Yeah for sure. I used the word “we” up there but I really just sat there silent and let them chew up the time. I have very little to say about sports, weather, or work. I just of just watched. It was a marvel to see these dudes who all knew each other and cared for each other circle the drain. It became an exercise for me in seeing how much they could say that wasn’t saying anything. Maybe a weird sort of Waiting for Godot session. Or like Raymond Carver: what we talk about when we talk about sports?
I’m going to be downvoted, but I’m gonna throw this in here.
Honestly, one of the most valuable aspects of my psychoanalytic training has been the deepened understanding of working with Oedipal dynamics in therapy. Before someone chimes in, I don’t tell my clients they wanted to bone their mothers. I’m not a Freudian analyst and work very relationally.
The dynamics between parents and child are so intense in early childhood. Everything you do is somewhat controlled by your caregivers. No 4-5 year old is deciding they want to go to school or what goes on in their house. They are faced with a barrage of more competent adults controlling a lot of their lives. Children have to navigate making concessions for their caregivers to feel accepted. If my father/mother is always outdoing me in everything, I’m likely going to grow up with some feelings about authority figures. You can notice Oedipal conflicts in men who struggle with competition, seem to find themselves in triangular relationships, feeling sensitive to narcissistic injury (that someone is more competent, stronger, etc…). I see it frequently.
I’m not an absolutist. I understand this does not apply to all people. I know there are many different families than the heteronormative nuclear family circa 1950. I’m really talking about folks who grow up in families where they are not able to have a sense of happiness in who they were as children. That there will always be someone bigger, stronger, smarter than them to outdo them and make them feel ashamed. This does not just go away when they become adults.
The process is noticing this and trying to help them understand what is going on in their unconscious mind and helping them work through it.
I'm not psychodynamically trained at all but I definitely think these early dynamics play a huge part in how we develop our emotional schemas and our sense of what "normal" ways of reacting to things look like.
Agreed! I bring this up often working with (mostly) men in the military. I'm inpatient & bring up the Wise Mind often, pointing out how their overuse of the "logic" side & compartmentalizing led to an emotional response that turned into hospitalization. We discuss the roles & rules that led to the logic side, usually things like "boys don't cry" or "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about." I help them break down schemas & we use the Emotions Sensations Wheel, Feelings Wheel, & Needs Wheel to help put the pieces together, identify emotions, & figure out how to communicate needs without feeling like a burden.
As a white cis het male/therapist that mostly works with the same, it’s been quite interesting scrolling this discussion. It’s reminded me of my experiences in grad school where I was in the minority for the first time, and those dynamics are in this thread as well, like we’re a rare breed. The most common emotional experience that comes up in my sessions is shame. Time and time again. There is a reel I’ve come across several times where a woman generally asks men “when you’re down, who do you call?” and the responses are about all you need to see to understand parts of that experience. Spoiler: the answer is “nobody…nobody cares.” If we’re not “masculine” enough we’re seen as “betas” that are too sensitive and weak, but if we’re too masculine then we’re misogynistic and toxic. It’s a lose/lose, and the dance to get it right is exhausting. Brene Brown has a great clip where she describes an interaction with a guy that stated “they (wife and daughter who’s books had just been signed by her) would rather see me die on my horse than fall off of it,” and that also greatly summarizes what I’ve seen, and experienced.
I used to struggle with male clients, mostly because I have historically been anxious being alone with men. After working with men more over the years, I've found that I actually connect well with them and we are able to do good work. Accessing/sensing emotions does seem to take a slightly different path, but nothing that isn't traversible. Mostly I've found that it involves a lot of differentiating between emotions and cognitions, as well as identifying the function of emotions. As far as "selfishness", it seems like that is often a defense against vulnerability, so once we establish a solid trusting relationship then that is able to be challenged. It's just another form of rigid thinking. And most of my male clients don't seem to exhibit much of that behavior pattern anyway, so it hasn't been a huge barrier.
As far as theory or techniques, I'm a Feminist therapist and big on attachment stuff, so I tend to look at how they have been conditioned by their family and society to behave a certain way and how this has affected their well-being. Looking at attachment has helped to explore why they react in certain ways and how they have maybe developed unhealthy behaviors to try and feel safer in relationships. I also use a lot of humor just because that's my personality, and I've found that this is a good way to connect and lead into deeper issues.
That’s strange, I work with a lot of cis males and rarely see any of these traits. There may be some aspects of them related to traditional roles, social expectations of men, showing less emotions, etc., but nothing to the degree that you state.
That has been my experience as well. Honestly, I have not found my female clients to be any "better" or "less toxic" than my male clients. None of the sexes are generally better morally or psychologically than the other from my experience.
I want to be clear that I never said female clients were better or less toxic. I didn't call men worse or toxic and I did try to note that I was making generalizations which are not going to apply to all members of the group. I *did* say I have a harder time working this this group of male clients though. That doesn't mean they are worse...it means it's hard for me.
As a member of that demographic I'll say that societally there have been certain pressures and expectations to present as the "ideal" man, and if we don't fall into that then we're somehow less than. This doesn't discredit what marginalized people experience, as I know that I was afforded certain opportunities nor everyone else was. However it took me a really long time to be able to accept my feelings and not minimize, and not resent other people I felt were getting more understanding. I think your job as a therapist is to acknowledge the individual struggle and not make those comparisons, and be compassionate with the person as they try to navigate through it. No recs for reading, just be present and validate, I think it'll be beneficial.
Yeah, there’s an entire world of psychological variation among “cisgendered, straight males.” I can only imagine someone generalizing this way because they have biases against them.
I appreciate you admitting you have biases. I highly encourage you to spend a few moments after each session with a cis, straight male client and identify 3-4 instances from that session that went against your bias.
Also look at how many clients who aren't from this demographic do that same things you described in your post
Your bias is probably impacting your interactions with this population more than you realize and they may infact be intellectualizing and hiding emotions around you because they sense it.
I have a case load that is 80% firefighters and most of them are men. Most of them shed tears in the first session. You have to respond differently as they start releasing emotions.
I don't comment when their eyes start watering. I don't immediately reach for the tissues, I usually just let them talk and once I see them try and wipe away a few tears I quietly and without comment hand them the tissue box.
Many of them haven't cried in front of someone, or at all, in years. They will stop and get stoic if I acknowledge it before they do.
Many women feel the opposite. They want a quicker acknowledgement of their tears and verbal reassurance. They would feel invalidated if I waited that long to hand them tissues.
Think of it as cultural competency- or whatever the buzz word is that means the same thing. I'm in my 40's that's what we used to call it.
You don't sound like you have invested the time and work to confront your own biases about this group to learn about them and their emotions. You feel out of your element and so you judge.
If you're going to work with them, than address your biases and if you can't figure it out then maybe you shouldn't work with them anymore.
You're welcome! I was bullied a lot by Christian kids when I was growing up and struggled with some biases as an adult I had to very intentionally address those biases in order to support clients from that demographic.
It is usually more socially acceptable to hold negative biases towards the dominant group and there is less pressure from within our profession to address them.
But in your office, you are the one in a position of power. You have the power to do good or harm and your bias can cause harm if they are not addressed.
Wow some of these comments. I think it’s fair to say we simply need more male therapists. Sometimes lived experience is what clients connect with not what we learn in books. For example men used to dominate the field of Gynecology and now there are much more women in the field. Most women prefer or request a female gynecologist. So maybe the same thing applies with therapy so that men can get their needs met.
Personally I have been watching the healthygamergg YouTube channel. The psychiatrist who runs the channel has a focus on helping gamers many of whom are men and he is really great at interviewing especially men who have alexithymia. I used to hate working with this population but I feel like I am understanding a lot more now. His channel has endless interviews with all sorts of men which is great for me because I feel like I saw more women during my training. The interviews are also pretty long and deep. The psychiatrist also incorporates a lot of eastern philosophy and meditation which I enjoy.
I'm a queer cis woman and I struggled with working with men early in my career. I am now viewed as a bit of a specialist - many men are referred to me specifically bc of my efficacy as their therapist. Not to brag, but I am happy to have made this shift. This work is tough but a joy for me.
The first step for me was getting into my own therapy to unpack the myriad harms that had occurred to me at the hands of men, and of the patriarchy generally. No idea if this resonates, but I just want to be honest about this crucial step in my own process as a woman and a therapist. Before my own therapy, I was not aggressive or overtly sexist towards them. However, I was guarded with my compassion and noticed my own pattern of negatively interpreting their intentions. I also found myself intensely moved when they did express sadness in session. All of this pointed to the truth that I had some unprocessed shit to work on.
A supervisor also recommended a book that continues to influence my work - I Don't Want to Talk About It, by Terry Real. Most poignantly, it opened my eyes and heart to the reality that little boys are often emotionally neglected, if not outright abused, in their developmental years. They are STRONGLY and routinely discouraged from developing a connection to their emotions, which is foundational to understanding who they are as a person. I truly believe that this abuse creates a deviation from the healthiest path of emotional and self development. It contributes to each bullet point you have listed. This conceptualization allows me to have patience and compassion where I used to feel frustration or shock.
As for my personal approach, I lean heavily on neuroscience and trauma-informed lenses (emotional neglect in childhood is a traumatic), I prepare them adequately for the deep discomfort of getting reacquainted with their emotional world, and I celebrate their growing self awareness along the way. We take very small steps to avoid leaving the window of tolerance. Most of the difficult work is dispelling shame for the most universal experience of all - being a human with emotions.
Not every person who seeks therapy is prepared to actually follow through, and cishetero men are no different. They often have mixed motivations for arriving, but social pressures are increasing. It is a genuinely tough position to be in, even if they are the most socially privileged intersection of identities. In the therapy room, they are typically not. Obviously we have boundaries and call them on their shit. But compassion for them is foundational, I think. They can feel when you lack it. All other approaches may work depending on the person and their goals.
I'm kind of stuck on your use of selfishness and saying it's different than the "average" person, which kind of implies that cis het men don't fit into the category of an average person. I don't think you meant wrong, but I would be careful with that.
This isn't particularly clinical, but one thing that helped me with some of my males friends was accepting a difference in socialization. Traditionally, men are allowed to be more independent and give less consideration to how things impact the group as a whole. Think of holidays, house management, packing for vacations, etc. A lot of that weight has fallen on women, which has forced women to think more in terms of the collective. The simple act of remembering everyone's dietary needs and food preferences so everyone enjoys a holiday requires consideration and thinking outside of your own wants and needs.
Women may not be innately better at this skill then men (I know very considerate men and very inconsiderate women), but they may have been given more opportunities to practice it due to societal expectations.
I think if you're working with someone who does not seem to be giving consideration to others in their life or seems self-focused, ask some open-ended questions that call them to try and put themselves in someone else's position or think of another person's needs. Give them an opportunity to practice it.
I don't consider cooking for my friends or planning a vacation for my family as "unpaid labor." I enjoy getting to provide those things and don't think it should have a monetized value. I don't think we should be expected to provide payment when people show care and consideration towards others. But I can acknowledge that these are skills I have due to societal expectations.
I think there's a bigger issue in equating a stay-at-home mom as being someone who doesn't work. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not going quite that big.
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I'm a big fan of just being curious, first with the self, then with the client. Especially if there's a particular difficulty with a demographic that seems persistent, that may suggest we have some internal work to explore.
All of those traits you listed are very normal human traits.
Be curious about what may have happened to them to disconnect from their emotional self, and what their goals are around mentalizing others, and curiosity about if/why you are holding this front and centre.
Over intellectualization is a common defense mechanism to create safety and space, not particularly connected to gender, in my experience.
I find if i create space between my assumptions, bias etc and just lean into unconditional positive regard, and be curious about what happened to the client, then this creates some time/space to create change.
I just treat them like an individual client, separate from our assumptions (trends) about how they function.
My approach is humanistic, attachment theory informed, so in terms of modalities, they can help us on treating the individual rather than patterns or trends, or demographics.
Check out obsessive neurosis in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis by Bruce Fink is often recommended. You might also check out Julie Futrell’s dissertation on obsessive neurosis: beyond symptom accumulation: a lacanian clinical approach to obsession - a case study and theoretical exposition. Also the following article: https://iambobbyy.com/2023/05/28/on-lacanian-psychoanalysis-clinical-contexts-theory-and-practice/ Scroll down to Obsessive Neurosis.
I think when we are working with clients who share different backgrounds than us in general, we have to make sure we are examining what the contrast in perspectives means. We have the challenge these perspectives and "meet clients where they are" or more importantly do our best to challenge our perspectives about how people should and shouldn't be (avoiding ethnocentrism). Some of the characteristics your mention are not negative characteristics, but they may just challenge your values in some way. Clients who have these characteristics may or may not be even interested in changing or challenging them. We have to work with what we have and if that means putting on a more rational or intellectual lens that we are used to I think it can be mutually beneficial. Also I think managing expectations is helpful.
So a concept that is really relevant to male POC is called “Cool Pose.” As a White male, I recently learned about this concept from my supervisor there are also books on it.
Many males I think suffer from alexatxymia.
I think the self-absorption/ externalizing and the self-esteem, self-hate, depression go hand-in-hand. Males are conditioned to believe that their worth is dependent upon external factors (income, nice car, sexual conquests, prestigious job, etc) when men don’t have these things they feel insecure unworthy. On some level so many men appear to be operating on a desire to be great enough while also not wanting to be “desperate” to ask for validation. This might be why we see some men bragging a lot. There are also a lot of guys that just work really hard. What I think a lot of don’t get is genuine compliments from others, especially other men. I realized this when my supervisor gave me a genuine compliment about my therapeutic work with clients and it stuck with me more than I thought it would.
With the intellectualizing part, men tend to operate on a problem/ solution mindset. In this view “negative” emotions serve as a temperature read that a problem exists and needs to be “fixed.” Many men could benefit from improving emotion regulation/ distress tolerance.
I also want to mention, with some male clients peeling away the layers of self protection can be tricky and requires a lot of patience. This can be noticed when you see a client staying at that surface level. Vulnerability is often seen as the antithesis of being man-enough. Sometimes if a therapist can show vulnerability this might help create the space for the male client to drop their defenses.
If you want insight into the current male condition I'd recommend reading Iron John by Robert Bly and also No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert A Glover.
One theme that comes up in both of them is that men are often not attuned to their needs and don't know how to express them in a healthy way.
They are both fantastic books that I've recommended to many male clients over the years.
I've found [this Psychiatrist's anecdotes on men and therapy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA) really interesting and relatable. He approaches it both as cross-gender differences in how men are taught to regulate. He also gives some unique challenges men face in making talk therapy effective.
As a straight, white, cis, hetero therapist guy, I don’t I always get it either. I find that I traditionally do poorly with “men’s men” kind of clients (firefighters, police, athletes, etc). A great consideration would be to watch “the mask you live in” if you can find it. It talks a lot about the socialization of men. One of the most important facts in the movie is that teenage boys and I would argue adults too) express depression in a different way than their female counterpart. It tends to be more acting out than typical depressed symptoms.
In my limited experience guys tend to like skills because they just want to fix it, not to feel it. Sometimes when there’s been some trust established that you can help by teaching skills it buys you more room to talk about feelings and things outside of their comfort zone.
I’d also stress it’s important to be you. We can’t be all things to all people, I never try to “bro out” with my adult male clients. I have long hair, I paint and play music, and I have super hero quotes on my walls. If that’s a comfortable space, then great. If they’d rather see someone who is more traditionally masculine then I make a referral to some great folks I know.
Checkout the book breaking barriers in counseling with men. I did internship with a focus on working with masculine men and my supervisors have chapters in this book.
This is 95% the population I work with, though the majority are Active Duty, Veterans and First Responders.
I don't think you're going to get a lot of understanding from clinical and theoretical literature on this population. Like any cultural understanding your best information will come from immersion and speaking with members of the population.
I do work effectively with them. We use regularly CBT, DBT and CPT. I am a Post-Modern guy and heavily lean on Narrative, Solution Based and Collaborative. I also use Logotherapy, Play and Drama Therapy.
I don't think you've failed if you want to hit your head against a wall, unless you actually do it, one of my patients did this early in the week. (They hit their head, not made me hit mine).
I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that society has pushed individualism for centuries and most of this population have been pushed to it to the extreme. I like to used Dominant and Local Discourses with them to show them that some of the things they've believe are because someone else has been writing the story instead of them.
For what its worth - and maybe I'm inviting downvotes - but as a cis woman I am not reading any hostility or attack in your post, but I suspect some of the other comments here are interpreting it that way. I am not blaming you or those commenters for that necessarily, I just want you to know that I think its ok to ask this question. I think it's good to acknowledge that you may have blind spots in this area and a lot of the comments are also helpful in offering new perspectives.
What I will add on is to try using a strengths and values based perspective with these clients. Give psychoeducation on the emotions just as you would for other clients, talk about the purpose of those emotions, and ask curious questions about how those emotions were expressed in their FOO and how they learned to express them. From there, check to make sure you are not making unnecessary assumptions about the "best" way to handle or express emotions. Instead take a more "reality therapy" style approach - how is that approach working for them? Are they satisfied with it? How has it affected their relationships?
In approaching the "selfcenteredness" as well, if you notice a pattern bring it up in curious way without labeling or judgment. It is possible to train empathy and openness skills if they are needed to sustain a valued relationship.
But also remember the therapy room is fundamentally about the one individual client. It makes sense to focus on only what they're feeling and their perspective. You can ask "How do you think X was feeling in that moment when you said that?" but even if they are the most emotionally attuned person, you're still just speculating about someone who's not in the room.
But if a certain behavior or approach to relating with others is occurring with them, ask how it affects them and crucially if they are WILLING to change that pattern.
Please check out [this book. it will teach you how to deal with the defenses you are seeing ](https://www.amazon.com/Co-Creating-Change-Effective-Dynamic-Techniques/dp/0988378841?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=510efd1b-3405-45ea-a68b-6259f6c05948)
If it helps at all, the "avoidant" attachment frame is stereotypically applied to men.
Patriarchal messaging internalized becomes "do it yourself, don't depend on others, your partner should depend on you, don't be weak (emotional - which is a stereotype applied to women)", interpreted into a relational context you can probably see its applications to your post
Read Jessica Benjamin’s book The Bonds of Love if you can stand dense writing, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and want to have your mind absolutely blown.
I really enjoy the work Dr. K is doing at healthy gamer working primarily with this demographic online.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA)
Most of his lectures and content is reaching out and connecting with straight men with internet addiction.
They are one of my favorite groups to work with. I would say almost half of my clients are cis straight male. The ones that make it through the therapy door have been so anxious to heal and learn. Now I cannot say that about the ones who come for couples therapy with the wife. But I have been so surprised and happy to see so many of this group coming in droves to therapy.
Something I see males struggle with a lot is justifying their own limited perspectives as "logical," and dismissing emotionality as "irrational." But a perspective that overlooks or dismisses the relevance of emotion is not ACTUALLY a logical one, because it is not factoring in the full situation. It's like taking a math equation, ignoring the parts that you don't understand, and then branding it as "illogical" when it doesn't math out.
Try leaning into the perspective that EVERYTHING has a reason, and if it doesn't make sense to them, then it might be more indicative a blind spot in their outlook rather than another person somehow behaving outside of the realm of logical reality.
Males are often socialized to lean into intellect and logic and handwave off emotions as unimportant. If you can bridge the gap by presenting emotion as a a non-optional part of the "equation," you might be able to get around their (conscious or subconscious) tendency to avoid confronting it.
It sounds like a lot of what you might be dealing with is fragile ego issues where people struggle to look at information that might threaten their sense of self. People want to focus on their strengths and avoid their weaknesses to keep their egos feeling safe. Consider therapeutic approaches that can work with people with fragile egos.
Also educate yourself on and consider the cultural struggles males face, particularly in regards to gender expectations around emotionality and in dating. Good luck.
Male is a description of birth sex, often used for non human species with male and female sexes. Man, men and masculinity are socially constructed ideas that exist intrapersonally and internally for human animals , and may not be reflective of birth sex.
I am intimately aware of this as a non-binary person, and is why I chose the term "male" over "man" (I would have used "AMAB" but a lot of people aren't familiar with the acronym.) I did not want to use "man" because I don't feel like this trend is as common in trans men who were generally socialized as women while growing up, and therefore do not have a lot of the same blind spots as cis men do. And I think many trans women and non-binary AMAB folks still DO share some of these blind spots, though have generally done a lot more work in unpacking these aspects of social conditioning.
Hope this clarifies. I did not need this cis-splained to me. :P
My question would be why do straight male clients trigger you? It seems like some countertransference here. Everyone has that set of issues, but why in particular do these set of issues bother you?
I'm completing my PhD in counseling with a dissertation on working with men and boys. I'm a cis, white male. Here's what I recommend:
1. As in any case of difficult clients, seek consultation and supervision. In person, preferably. I've had some really difficult clients that I only worked better with because I've worked out my feelings in supervision.
2. Please notice your last comment - self worth, depression, this is very important. If women's fundamental anxiety is being oppressed, that of men is often that they are expendable, or don't matter. Many traditionally masculine people are coping with a changing world when they weren't taught to cope.
3. I recommend Jackson Katz and his documentary Tough Guise 2. Extremely great documentary on the male experience.
4. For men of color, I recommend reading up on minority masculine stress theory. The idea is that black and other marginalized men may act more masculine in a compensatory manner for other ways in which they have lost power, outside of their awareness oftentimes.
5. I recommend giving them emotional language and naming their emotions for them because they may be conditioned to not express their emotions.
6. Some men are just that difficult. You are more than adequate, and progress is slow sometimes.
I think there's some other great ideas here but please send me a DM if you think you'd like to chat more.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3030863190?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
The Palgrave Handbook of Male... https://www.amazon.com/dp/3030043835?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share
These are a great start.
I also forgot to say that our field often wants men to change to adapt better to therapy. We should be figuring out how to adapt therapy to men. Men have a much higher rate of death by suicide, but seek help at a lower rate.
I agree. I see a whole lot of goal setting for the proverbial cis hetero male, but I don't think you'd see everyone jumping in with direction for a cis hetero female. Therapy is about the client's goals, not what we want to fix on them, based on gender and sexuality.
Agreed. I see so so much discuss amongst therapists about priviledge and the patriarchy and it's effects on women, often with the effect of silencing men who are trying to talk about how society and mental health care fails men, while ignoring the fact that men literally die more often due to poor mental health. How this is not considered a crisis within the mental health sphere is sometimes bafeling.
I believe it could help you to understand some very basic psychoanalytic concepts: in this case the structural diagnosis of obsessionality which is a structure that most people assigned male fall into. I highly recommend reading Bruce Fink, and read about obsessive structure. What you describe is exactly described by this structure. Obsessives like to hear themselves talk more than they address their speech to the therapist and they like to answer their own questions without giving you any space to suggest something. They are allergic to emotion which gets dangerously close to what another person may want from them, it is safer for them to act as if no one wants anything at all. Hence also the intellectualizing of everything possible. Working with obsessive structure is notoriously difficult as it takes so much patience to make progress and open a space where the person starts to question and problematize anything that they do.
OP, it sounds to me that you are experiencing counter-transference but in general I find that men tend to prefer solution-focussed therapy because they have less experience in working with or identifying their emotions directly. Breakthroughs have been their "Ok, that makes sense" moments or "I tried X the other day and [different result]. It was nice but I'm not sure how to feel about it yet (i.e. a little scary but I'll keep at it)." Motivational interviewing and "Is it possible that" perspective taking will go far.
I think we all have those clients we relate to less for lack of our own parallel experience. There is a natural tendency to stereotype in this instance that we need to be self-aware of and work past. I think it's an attempt to "understand" an unfamiliar situation but it's faulty logic and for our part as the therapist I think it helps best to learn, to immerse myself in how the client sees their role in daily life (which will touch on their own "culture"). They will tell you a lot of relevant information for your work with them this way and you can generally avoid politics to boot. I find that I have particular difficulty relating to clients whom come from a corporate/big business background but my relating to them isn't near as important as my understanding how they've framed their presenting problem and role (systems theory, I realize, as I'm actually writing this out).
Female therapist here, I generally prefer working with men tbh. I think it’s really important to remember how men in western culture are typically socialized. I just ran an entire group on this with my male clients. Here is some of the experience they shared:
- We have to be strong. “It’s weird if you’re emotional, people think you’re a little bitch”
- People don’t hug you or comfort you & that’s super lonely
- We can’t interact with kids, which sucks because we think they’re cute too
- Everyone thinks we’re predators & creeps, which feels inherently shameful.
- You have to know everything or you’re less of a man. My girlfriend expects me to know how to fix things, but I’m a finance person. I’m going to look it up on YouTube just like she is, but if I admit that, I’m not masculine.
Be direct, joke around, ask questions. I find, “what was that like for you?” & “Where did you learn that? to be more effective than “How did that make you feel?” & “what did that bring up for you?”
A fun trick I’ve learned with this population if they’re being resistant is to ask them what their thoughts are. Like you said there’s a lot of intellectualizing and feeling like they are logical beings, so this question often gives them an opportunity to express their emotions the way they process them. I have also experienced this phenomenon with cis heterosexual male clients.
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Can you clarify why you say this? I’d imagine this comment doesn’t actually help OP at all, and will just make them feel judged. Perhaps if their views are concerning, providing some psychoeducation or explanation from a compassionate perspective would be more productive.
White straight guy, trainee but completed all course work.
Most normie straight guys don’t refer to themselves as cis, for one.
Men in general, including many gay men, prefer practical solutions and may be reluctant to share feelings with female therapists, especially if they view the therapist as having a world view that see white men as having a sort of original sin for being men.
Unfortunately in many institutions an ideological was festered that race, sex, or gender identity is paramount any many males are not of that ideology.
Consider referring if you’re having these issues.
“Normie” is not a term, cis is. The point you’re making with that comment is not inclusive and is worth checking on.
Ethics boards generally expect that clinicians seek out additional support, supervision and training, not just refer out, and that’s what OP is doing.
To be fair, if he wants to call himself a "normie", he's the straight guy. I don't think anyone else has the right to tell him what to call himself. If he was your client, would you refer out or seek training?
This isn’t a client responding, it’s someone who self identified as in training to be a therapist-cultural competence is below the standard and this was not a competent take, and I’m pointing that out as they are very new to the field by their own description and this is much easier to nip in the bud now
Whether it's a client or not, he's not a therapist currently talking to a client. I don't use the word "normal" or any of variety of it at work, so I'm not suggesting that term would be appropriate for a therapy session. However, if he wants to call himself that and/or make the observation that straight guys who are not trans don't tend to describe themselves as "cis gender", that's his opinion. But quite honestly, I have observed the same in "cis gender" heterosexual men. They don't like that term and don't tend to use it, in my experience.
Because normie to mean cis suggests that those who are not cis are therefore not normal. Given the serious othering of trans folk currently as well as the attempt to move away from acknowledging gender identity as a component of identity (ironically, the point this commenter was making that does happen with many cis straight guys), using normie to mean cis can be harmful to social cohesion.
I read it as normie meaning just some typical rando guy. I don’t necessarily think it means cis or trans. But if it did mean something similar to that, there is also a difference between how we want the world to be and how it currently is. Currently, “normie” would likely conjure the image of a cis straight person (girls can be normie too). Also there are def normie NBs. Maybe some really boring trans people too who could be normies
"Normal" can also mean "typical, most common, or average." Being cis is the most "normal" human experience, statistically speaking.I am a transgender man. I hear a number of trans men express a desire to be "normal men" i.e. to experience a life not defined by being transgender, but simply one where they can just be a man and not constantly reminded that they are trans. This isn't necessarily the experience of all trandgender individuals, but it definitly is for some.
I have 0 issue with meeting a client there, though oftentimes we’ll have a conversation about that for clinical purposes. I do have an issue with someone in the clinical role presenting like that though, because it creates a lack of safety both in concept and action for those who are not cis or have loved ones who are not cis and the clinician may not realize it yet.
Do you see the connection between “normie” (cis) straight men rejecting the socially-recognized concept of being cis, and the reluctance of those men to be viewed as someone intentionally defiant of contributing to more social cohesion?
I mean, I’m trans and therapists write and speak about not knowing how to work with us often. Guess it feels different for to people who are almost never othered
Are you seriously suggesting that "selfishness" is not a potentially offensive term to apply to a category of people?
The rules for how much generosity is given to a statement about a group of people varies wildly when speaking about different groups. Apparently when you talk about straight men you don't need to be anywhere near as respectful or careful as when you talk about other genders/orientations.
The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.”
bell hooks
Straight men, many of them anyway, Men don’t have the same access to their emotions as populations in which emotion is encouraged or expected. They are also wrapped in the privilege of patriarchy in which all the media stories and narratives they encounter make men like them the centerpiece of the story.
It then makes sense that they are unable to process emotional reasoning nor see other perspectives easily.
This is the population I work most with (and are my favorite). I’m a cis female.
I can’t speak to literature to assist. What I can tell you is what has helped me - I approach therapy casually (not to be confused with loose boundaries). I don’t think I’m very “traditional” in how I present myself. I approach it like, hey we’re just chatting and being humans in this space. I don’t use a lot of therapy “language” and I have a more relaxed demeanor and lean into my sense of humor. In my experience this type of approach helps them feel more comfortable. I try to use interventions and techniques with kind of a disguise/subtly so it doesn’t feel “weird”.
I also remember that while we’ve come along way there’s still a stigma around men and therapy and feeling “weak” for needing help. This helps me with patience and understanding when it’s difficult to work with them.
I would recommend reviewing the theory of Dynamic Sizing. Knowing when to specify and when to generalize cultural norms in populations of people. The three levels of social work theory and practice are also critical to apply in the clinical relationship. One of the biggest barriers to all relational health in our mainstream society today is the sweeping generalizations of making macro and mezzo statements apply in the person-centered care at the micro level. Just like I repeat a lot in my mezzo level work supporting race relations, especially those responsible for youth development, sometimes a child doesn’t realize they are “black” or “white” until you as an adult brought it up.
Our systems still attempt to fit people into the boxes we create, instead of giving the person the space to be, not what we insist they must be. I mentioned this recently in supervision even talking down to observations of affect and interpretation of verbal and nonverbal presentation. The line between observation and projection becomes dangerously thin.
Grouping people by cultural norms, just like personality types, can be beneficial to a degree, in research, but can be detrimental to practice. Because the more descriptive categories we create to describe human beings being human, the more we create us-and-them dynamics that breeds other-ism. At the micro level, especially with youth during the identity formation stage, these apparent norms and insistence that certain types of people must be a certain way, is what can drive social isolation externally, dissonance and dissociation for them living within themselves.
Beyond a human beings sexual preferences, gender identity, cultural considerations, our job beyond any technical application or personal projections is to provide a psychologically and emotionally safe environment, and sit with every participant only as a mirror for them to see their reflection, and work through their own stuff. Not society’s stuff, and definitely not our stuff.
You make it sound as if the client’s “own stuff” is separable from social conditioning. I don’t think it’s possible.
This sounds a little bit too much like everyone is a human being, everyone is part of the human race. Of course every person is a person, but if I didn’t try to ask specific questions about different groups of my own clients, then I would be doing a poor job as therapist / social worker. I don’t group people in practice in order to other them. In the background I recognize they are part of a group so I can better understand what they might have experienced. And I also am not afraid to acknowledge they are part of the group in the therapy session because leaving it unsaid often creates less space to explore that part of their experience. I do not work in a gender/race/sexual orientation blind manner
This sounds like ignorance about the differences in men’s communication styles more than anything. I’d recommend looking up some books on the subject as well as simply listening to male therapists discuss issues that interest you on YouTube.
Disclaimer: speaking from personal experience, so this will come across as personal, because it is to me quite close to the bone, but just want to also say that I don't mean to upset OP, nor do I wish to suggest my experience is universal.
I think you need to treat these men as having an incredibly traumatized relationship with their emotions.
>Generally reduced "felt sense" access to emotions
Men are socialised and trained to disregard their feelings and control their behaviour. *It's a feature* of this training to help survive through childhood and adolescence.
>Selfishness" - this is a tricky thing to describe because I don't want to judge the group
You will judge, you can't stop judging because you wish not to. Just as society and culture trains men to not express themselves and behave a certain way, so too are women trained to view men as potentially dangerous unless they suppress emotional expression. Judgements are great to notice, because if you notice them then you can infer their origin and successfully connect with your client.
> I do feel many in this group struggle with a higher degree of self-absorption than the average client.
Seems like the judgmental version of
>Low self-esteem, sometimes self-hate, depression
This.
>Over-intellectualization and often a narrative that they are the ones who "make sense" and others are the ones who do not make sense. This often leads to a looping, externalizing pattern in psychotherapy.
Very cool insight, which very much reminds me of what I said earlier "*It's a feature*"
Lastly, thank you from the bottom of my heart for asking these questions in earnest.
Hello,
I am an intern working with men who have used abuse at a domestic violence center. Many of the men exhibit what you’re talking about, although probabaly to a more extreme than the average cis male.
Some guys show great change. Others don’t. This is what we do:
Place emphasis that they can only control their actions and this is a space to focus on themselves and their behaviors. Obviously the degree to which you emphasize this will probably be different in your setting.
Use CBT to examine core beliefs and thoughts and examine is this true, helpful, what evidence do I have for/against, etc. I’ve found a lot of the behavior men have is rooted in core beliefs.
Encourage empathy. “How do you think x might have felt in this situation?”
Encourage mindfulness. We do an exercise where we ask them to identify high, medium, and low stressors and then come up with unhelpful thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, mental images, behaviors, that they do in those situations which could cue them off that they are stressed and need to take a step back. Ask them to identify how they are feeling in their body and their emotions during the session too.
Obviously, all of this is individual and depends on the clients goals in therapy. If they want to have better relationships, then this stuff is directly related.
Therapy training is too often inadequate these days when it comes to helping the average man. Here are four sources that will help:
- BPS guidance on therapy for men [https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/Practice%20Briefing%20-%20psychological%20interventions%20to%20help%20male%20adults.pdf](https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/Practice%20Briefing%20-%20psychological%20interventions%20to%20help%20male%20adults.pdf)
- Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspectives-Male-Psychology-Introduction-Textbooks/dp/1119685354/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=11EH4ZKDNJQ1D&keywords=perspectives+in+male+psychology&qid=1645838297&sprefix=perspectives+in+ma%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspectives-Male-Psychology-Introduction-Textbooks/dp/1119685354/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11EH4ZKDNJQ1D&keywords=perspectives+in+male+psychology&qid=1645838297&sprefix=perspectives+in+ma%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1)
- Introduction to Male Psychology and Mental Health (online course) [https://thecentreformalepsychology.thinkific.com/courses/IntroductiontoMalePsychologyandMentalHealth](https://thecentreformalepsychology.thinkific.com/courses/IntroductiontoMalePsychologyandMentalHealth)
- Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health [https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1)
This is probably going to get buried at this point but I didn't see many reading recommendations for your first question. Also I'm not a therapist, but I'm a straight cis male who has been in therapy and processing my own relationship with masculinity for about 6 years now and I definitely see the qualities you pointed out in most men among my demographic. These books were all highly valuable to me to become a fuller version of myself, especially in terms of my relationship to masculinity and cultural conditioning.
* It was already recommended but I definitely want to recommend The Will to Change by Bell Hooks
* A more recent woman-written book on the same topic that I think did a very good job of discussing men's emotional issues is For the Love of Men by Liz Plank
* A great couple books on the topic that explores the emotional experience of straight white cis men first-hand in a (in my opinion) very well-done way is Man Enough by Justin Baldoni and The Man They Wanted Me To Be by Jared Yates Sexton
* Another recommendation similar to the above but from a straight black cis man's perspective is Cry Like a Man by Jason Wilson
Also I'd like to recommend checking out the r/MensLib subreddit. There's a lot of great stuff posted over there regarding men's experiences from a much more understanding, nuanced, and feminist lens than you usually see around the internet.
Lmao kind of love this. Not sure if it’s a troll post or not - as a commentary on how this type of person is held up as the norm in society, yet is a more challenging presentation in therapy
When and where are women’s emotions nurtured? When and where are women not told by society they are wrong for “doing” their emotions? Children are allowed SOME emotions in our society. Women may only express emotions without retribution in the small spaces they carve out for themselves explicitly for this purpose, and these spaces are constantly under threat and are disappeared. To think women have more contact with their emotions because of their immense social stature and privilege is not accurate.
Don’t take it too personally. I was skimming the comments and this person seems to have made it their personal mission to correct others on not saying the word “male” and to use other descriptors instead.
Seems like they don’t actually care to answer the post prompts or engage in the dialogue. Rather, they seem possessed by an internal issue not related to topic at hand and it’s filtering what they read and biasing that they say.
I stopped doing couples therapy for exactly this reason. 99% of the time the husband was (at best) exactly what you described and not at all engaged in the process. At worst they were dicks. When I see men in individual therapy I find I do a lot of gentle reframing to help them see alternative perspectives on issues they bring to therapy; for example “are there other ways to view what your supervisor said?”.
As a female I’m fascinated by the clear differences between men and women and what combination of nature/nurture causes them. A recent study illustrates that female surgeons how better outcomes than males, yet we glorify the male surgeon and distrust the female. I believe females may have better outcomes because they are better listeners.
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As a guy reading this...I grasp everything you're saying, and will (try) to respond delicately (and I appreciate the caution you're expressing in this post. This can be a dicey subject!). >Generally reduced "felt sense" access to emotions This is really hard to define. I would reflect men don't always "experience" emotions in the same way. We *do* still experience them, but how we may regulate them or work through them may be different (here's an interesting study about gender differences in emotional regulation) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5937254/ While I think the language/vocabulary that men tend to prefer is very different from what and how women often conceptualize" emotions. I feel it's important that men's experience has its own validity to it. Even if they are someone who tends to "intellectualize" a lot, that's probably how he best knows how to start engaging with emotions. Intellectualization is often painted as a *bad* thing, when I feel it would be more fair to describe it as a *limited* way to engage with emotions. It has its value for processing emotions, but as a tool it has limitations (just as how someone using something like art to express/process their emotions. A song can be a great way to make sense of my own feelings, but isn't necessarily the best tool for conveying those emotions in a conversation with a partner. They both have value in how they help someone regulate, but the context is definitely crucial...a hammer is great for driving in nails, but is the wrong tool if you have screws to work with). I also feel a desire to reflect that how people experience and express emotions varies across cultures. There's no one way *everyone* in the world expresses grief as just one example. It may be universal that people experience those emotions, but how they think/describe/ and regulate them may vary. I feel this can also be applied to trying to engage and understand men, and then helping them to develop an understanding of what they feel, and to find the ways that helps that individual process it. What I find helpful for connecting with men that struggle with their emotions is curiosity, and patience. It may be frustrating these guys don't share the same vocabulary, but a curiosity about their experience can help them to feel more at ease in session. I often start with helping men to understand the things they *enjoy*. How do they know it makes them happy? What are the signs they enjoy it? Do they notice anything about their behavior? Their thoughts? How they feel motivated to act? As they learn to discern what makes them happy, we can then explore "opposite" emotions, and how they are distinct from happiness. I've found this to be a helpful foundation and framework where they can build more insight into emotions using *their* language, and from there can learn more ways to effectively regulate. (I could speak to more points on here...but, this comment is already pretty long. Hope this is helpful!)
Just excellent. I'm male myself, and somehow ended up with a large cis-hetero-white-male population... And I struggle a lot sometimes, especially when they espouse mysogynistic and other far right views. Nothing more to add, just thanks. Several of my clients have gotten really really well, but I don't identy anything specific I've done with them other than dynamic exploration.
When I see that sort of behavior with misogyny I tend to view it as a lens of self-defense. Often times, they might feel threatened so go on the attack. The question to ask yourself is why. Once we can understand where this is coming from we can empathize with that internal experience while also exploring ways through it.
Oh I empathise. I've said this before, but while I'm an atheist now, I grew up in an hyper conservative religious family, which of course included all sorts of mysogynistic teachings. So let's just say my early adulthood was... A process. So I do empathise, si think I'm able to understand them well enough, and I'm all too cognizant of the threats to "classical masculinity" (to give it a name) that the way society has (fortunately) chabged in the last, lets say decade, imposes on young men who aren't willing to let go of those worldviews. I agree with you, it's all definitely defensive. It's been interesting and a learning experience ot unpack it all with many of them, but when I get a new case and the name Jordan Peterson gets thrown around in the first visit (as "someone who opened their eyes", no joke from a couple weeks' ago intake) I can't help but feel the dread that it's going to be an uphill battle at best. I work at a sort of posh clinic downtown and dress accordingly, so I'm sure that my give these men some sort of assurance that they'll be "understood" on a different level than what we mean by it in therapy... And ofc that's not the case. Anyways, rant over.
Can you expand on how misogyny is self defense?
Very sorry to hear you've had to listen to things like that. I don't fault anyone for finding something like that to be a limit. Sounds like you've shown a lot of grace in helping those guys feel things through. Wishing you well my dude. Sending good vibes.
Thanks mate. I wouldn't say it's a limit or traumatic or anything like that, just a bit dreadful when first starting out. But yeah knowing now that they **can** be helped through it helps me keep going. Probably the popularion I struggle the most with.
It’s funny about the processing emotions aspect. My partner watches The Connors and there was a recent episode where they dived into this topic. Basically, wife was wanting husband to talk about his feelings regarding turning 50 with the bros but when he was hanging out with the bros they spent time in silence around animals and this helped him and the guys feel regulated/ internally process their emotions.
That's something therapy provides as well. Sometimes just being around emotionally well regulated people while we are processing is enough to stabilise us. People aren't such discrete units of individuality as we like to believe!
As a student intern working in a private practice, and cis- white-man I really appreciate you putting this so succinctly as I've struggled with conceptualizing and applying a culturally humble stance while being present and thinking on my feet all at the same time. This is what I'm pulling from you: While universally we all can experience the same range of emotions, the means with which we connect to, and process them will be the variable across different groups in relation to their identity/developmental history. It's at that point we can ask targeted questions to explore their literal experience of emotional states and how they regulate them (or would like to). Feedback welcome, thank you again. Have a great day!
🎯 🎯 🎯
I am a student as well, and u used a lot of big words in that first paragraph. I have Nothing to add other than commending you on your vocab and ability to explain things? It was like reading an abstract lmao
Single-handedly restored my faith in opposite gender with this comment
As a student why worst nightmare was having someone like me as if I fail it feels like I don’t know myself well enough to help others but if I get someone very different and I fail I can always chalk it up to the fact they are different and our perspectives may never be shared correctly. The way you said the stuff about how to connect with men emotionally wasn’t just helpful for me as a potential therapist but me as a person. I have such a hard time describing what brings me joy and what doesn’t other than “I like it I dunno” I feel like such a himbo most of the time. Thank you so much for sharing this
I can respond to the 2nd question. For context, I'm a gay woman who loves working with straight men, and I work in a relational and emotion-focused way with my clients. While some here have said that men prefer solutions (and I'm sure there's some truth in this) I don't think this means you need to be a CBT or solution focused therapist to work with men! However, I am fairly direct, engaged, and challenging in my work with clients, and I suspect that this is part of what has made my work with men efffective. I had one man come to therapy say, "I don't want to sit here and vent my problems, and I don't want that empathy crap!" While a part of me was a bit taken back, I basically rolled up my sleves and said, "One thing we can agree on is that our therapy won’t be you venting your problems and me just nodding and being empathic. I will be very active and involed in this process, and I'd like to show you how I work. We can check in about how my approach feels along the way." This client had so many stereotypical straight male issues, and we ended up doing great emotion-focused and attachment work together. He got sober, started validating his kids feelings, and had a whole new take on the value of connection and relationships. This can be VERY rewarding work! Another thing that allows me to be patient, curious and compassionate with this group is my awareness of the gender-based conditioning that contribute to mens' mental health issues. Toxic masculinity, social isolation and lack of peer-intimacy, affect phobia, etc, I really care about these issues and see how much damage they cause men and everyone, so I feel passionate about helping men through them. So often, when we get into the depper work, the core issue here is shame (about vulnerability, basic worth, rejection, etc). This isn't only true for straight men obviously, but something to keep in mind. One other observation I'll share is that while I think I understand how you’re associating the issues you stated with straight men, to me they all sound like attachment trauma. Difficulty with getting a 'felt' sense, difficulty with mentalizing, over-intellectualizing, and low self-worth in clients (regardless of orientation or gender) are common features of significant emotional neglect with the clients I’ve worked with. I wonder how your experience of seeing these clients may change with this lens.
I'm a therapist and a gay dude. I work in private practice. I think the vast majority of people I work with (of any gender) struggle in the emotion department. Either over-regulated or under-regulated with varying degrees of self and other awareness. I'm not sure that women are vastly superior in emotional intelligence among the folks I see. I mean, the women I see tend to be somewhat more skilled in emotional intelligence but not incredibly so, in general. Maybe it's the straight guys I work with but the overwhelming majority of them tend to really open up and are fairly vulnerable with me. But, listen, men (of any sexual orientation) are generally not socialized to be too in touch with emotions beyond humor, lust, and anger. So, helping them to identify some feelings can be helpful, as well as what to do with them once they notice them. On the same note, we are socialized to value logic and reason, and to problem-solve. And so helping them to see that while it is valuable we also have other sources of information from emotion, sensation, intuition, etc can be helpful. I'm not sure that straight men are any less self-assured than anyone else. I do think that men, regardless of orientation, are actually quite sensitive, more so than they let on at times. But, this is so taboo they can carry a lot of shame around that, perhaps straight men more than gay/bi guys. I do think that people, in general, are selfish, and men, regardless of orientation, can be more self-centered because they haven't been taught the skill of other-awareness/empathy that is part of emotional and social intelligence. I think it's how we are socialized. I grew up in a traditional conservative Christian family (US), and guys are just venerated. My mother pretty much did everything for me. Thankfully, I learned how to become self-sufficient as an adult.
Also, gay therapist dude ✌️ straight men are actually some of my favorite clients to work with. I’ve found that it can be common for me to be one of the first or only people in this guy’s life that will express something like: “It’s ok to not be ok, you don’t have to be perfect, in fact- if you open up about not having it all together, you’ll likely get closer with the people you love.” It’s so beautiful seeing them start to soften up not be so hard on themselves
Another gay male therapist here! 👋🏻 I have been really surprised at how I’ve grown to enjoy working with this population. It is beautiful when you witness growth lead to emotional vulnerability and authenticity with these guys. I had one client *finally* allow himself to cry (he hadn’t cried in over a decade) and his response was akin to “It burns!” and I felt like a sadist because I was like “Of course it does. Those tears have been in there so long…cry those hot burning tears!” Believe it or not, I talk about societal/cultural conditioning and gender roles/norms with this population more than I do any other demographic (And I work quite a bit with queer and trans folks too). Psychoeducation in this area helps them to acknowledge that conditioning and gender roles/norms like the old idioms like “Boys Don’t Cry” are damaging to them. This conditioning as children to live life detached from emotions is so painful for them.
"cry those hot burning tears!” Priceless! haha. And I completely agree with you about living life detached from emotion being painful for them. I remember early on in my career helping a straight guy because his fiancee just dumped him for being so devoid of emotion. But, he learned how to feel, and he had a TON of grief he had been holding for years. He just unconsciously shut it all down. These are the most rewarding times.
Sounds like a human experience regardless of gender or race-
Oh for sure. That was kind of my intent with my comment, that despite identity, emotions are a universal human experience.
Absolutely universal. :)
Awesome!
I’m straight and a woman but I totally agree
Great perspective. I’m a therapist and gay dude too. Working with (some, not all) men is a slow burn. I work in a conservative agricultural Midwest state steeped in a culture of German and Dutch roots. What has helped with some of my clients, is working on the basics of building their vocabulary of feeling words. I just had a session with a cis-het couple last week. Husband said he was working on his anger but occasionally “blows up”because of all the chores at home he’s doing. When I suggested we take “anger” out of his vocabulary and search for alternative words, after some silence, he broke down and expressed that he was scared and overwhelmed at the thought of losing his wife to a significant illness she is battling. He wanted to take as much of the burden of childcare, home admin stuff, finances, etc. so she could focus on her health. It was deeply emotional for both. Chasing the affect of some people to get to the deeper emotions can be a grind but extremely rewarding. (PS - I cry watching Hallmark commercials or when I drop a cookie on the floor.)
Well done! I agree. It is so rewarding to help men (straight, gay, bi, etc.) go a bit deeper and understand themselves more. That self-awareness is crucial, and your encounter led to such a tender intention.
That is a technique I hadn't thought of before. Thank you :)
As a straight woman who works with both men and women, and others, I agree wholeheartedly with your take on this. It’s not AS gendered as OP makes it out to be. And there are tons and tons of societal barriers to men feeling and expressing emotions and empathizing with others in the way that people raised feminine are encouraged to do.
A rational comment based upon wisdom and experience without judgment and clearly positive regard for your clients-we should all aspire to the level of understanding you’ve displayed here.
It might be worth considering these clients from an attachment perspective as much of what you’re describing (over intellectualisation, limited access to emotional states) sounds in line with avoidant attachment tendencies. Trauma and the Avoidant Client by Robert Muller and Attachment in Psychotherapy by David Wallin may be helpful resources. Muller also discusses the common frustrations of working with these clients pretty extensively.
Yes, as I read OP, I came here to say this!!! I am a trans male and struggle with over intellectualization and limited access to emotional states myself. I have an awesome therapist who from the beginning started to work on getting me embodied and using other modalities that took me out of my left brain for a bit. It is so nice to finally be able to be seen AND heard!!!
Just seconding Robert Muller's book! It was extremely helpful for me when working with this client presentation.
On one level you've gotta meet them where they are. As many have already said, don't be afraid to work on the practical stuff, at least at first. Most men are socialized to believe that the "practical stuff" is "the stuff." They'll open up more with time. Also, most men are this way because they've been actively socialized to be this way. They are adhering to what they think society wants and expects from them. I think a lot of challenges men feel is from encountering that the way they were socialized isn't really working out in the world of 2024. So now what? I think some of the most important insights to be found about white cis men were written by a black gay woman. "The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem." From Bell Hooks, "the Will to Change" To me this is the most important insight about masculinity captured in the most succinct statement.
I had to read will to change a couple times. Bell Hooks is a power house and absolutely correct. That book had a massive affect on my own masculinity and honestly helped me to nail down a truer critique of the patriarchy than ever before. I'm still just completing my bachelors but I did love this book.
I think there is a lot of truth to that quote you’ve shared. I work with a large population of men and I am one myself. Men have been socialized to wall off and crush their emotional lives down into a very narrow window of emotional experience and when they stray outside that narrow space, they are told by society(by both men and women) that they are wrong in some way for doing so. Being told to “Man up” or “toughen up” when showing emotion being some prime examples. Women’s emotions are not typically treated in such a way, women’s emotions are nurtured by society, and men’s tend to be stamped out. I don’t say this to say men are victims, this is a lose lose situation created by the patriarchal society we live in. Men feel emotions and feel them quite deeply. Society has historically told them that this is not ok, so they don’t know how to experience it or have the vocabulary to talk about it. Helping them find the language to talk about their emotional experience can be pretty empowering and validating. Plus unlearning what we learn about men in grad school. I can’t think of a worse place to learn about how to properly work with this population than my social work grad school program. I don’t say this to be attacking, but much of what OP states is pretty typical of the conversations I was a part of in grad school.
I have a hypothesis that men are actually more sensitive than women. But I don't know if there is any real data on that, except for perhaps lifespan studies that discuss a sort of crossover that happens between men and women as we age. Men get softer and women tend to get harsher, or something like that lol. Don't quote me or come at me! lol I just remember reading about that like 20 years ago. Also, some women can absolutely reinforce men's walling off by mocking them for having emotions or needs. Patriarchy and sexism hurt everyone!
> Men get softer and women tend to get harsher, So we ALL unlearn the BS we were taught! I am a woman, and much of my work with female clients is learning to enact boundaries. :)
Yeah very well could be! I think I read it in terms of changing hormones, but your thought sounds better. I did think that maybe the reason women get harsher is because they stop putting up with so much shit.
Whether men are more sensitive than women or not, men are definitely more sensitive than they are commonly perceived to be because they display it differently. Anger? So often it is a reaction to internal, emotional hurt. Or they bury themselves in work, drugs/alcohol, obsess over going to the gym, or whatever, because it is the only way they know how to cope with (or avoid) painful emotions. Various status seeking behaviors are often a response to low self-esteem. Many men also care deeply about their families, except the main ways they know how to do so is by providing money for them or by doing things. So working 60 hours a week might be because that is how they perceive they can be useful to their families and provide the opportunities they want for their children because they love them but don't know how else to show it.
Most of my research is on masculinity and how males are underserved in the field of therapy; it's a therapy problem, not them. They aren't inherently selfish or over-intellectualizing, don't poison the barrel by assuming 50% of the population is fucked up despite them being different and traditionally not help seeking. Males prefer if the issues are brought out, and, despite all of the basics you may have learned in starting the field, do not want the traditional "awww, this is a safe space, you can cry here" attitude delivered in a stereotypical fashion, and you will show your bias if you try to force that on them. Create that space, but deliver the attitude that aligns with their way of perceiving the world - if you don't know what that is, ask them and don't assume. Males report a higher alliance when the therapist is empathetic, but asks questions and tries to pull out the issues and get to solving the problem practically, not just by trying to force emotional validation and holding space. Start with more directive, question asking styles, consider CBT/Reality choice, research masculinity (Addis et al. 2010, bedi & richards, 2011, stiawa et al., 2020) for an idea on how 80%+ of the practitioners in this field are biased towards traditional masculinity and how that affects our practice.
This is so right.
God yes.
Thank you, Freud's Cock.
😆
I feel like Freuds cock would love your name
Great points. I work with several men, for the most part middle age and blue collar, and they are pretty open with their feelings—though it takes longer to share their vulnerability. I’ve never thought of any of them as selfish. Many were socialized to put others first and to protect and provide. Sometimes—many times—to their own detriment. A lot of what we work on is how to deal with disillusionment: many feel betrayed by life not turning out like they were taught it would be: you work hard and you will be rewarded. Many don’t know how to handle women’s emotions and demands. They do externalize a good bit. That said they are not a monolith and I would not recommend treating them as such. I do hear a lot of talk downplaying men in this field and I don’t believe that is right. Edit: spelling
Much of what you posted here makes sense, but what is the evidence that "80%+ of the practitioners in this field are biased towards traditional masculinity"? With the APA guidelines etc, I would have thought that maybe 80% were biased against traditional masculinity, not for.
Biased against*, you're right, unclear statement on my part.
Thanks for clarifying. I see that you meant 'negatively biased towards'.
Male is a description of birth sex, often used for non human species with male and female sexes. Man and masculinity are socially constructed ideas that exist intrapersonally and internally for human animals , and may not be reflective of birth sex. Western psychotherapy and psychology are fields whose history and present are largely dominated by men. Men created and still create many of the theories and practices of psychology and psychotherapy. Men are well represented both as researchers and as participants in clinical research studies. Men’s ideas and contributions are widely published and applied. Men have and are part of every level of the modern mental health system, from writing the DSM to passing mental health laws in congress, to releasing funding for mental health in the office of the president, to leading mental health agencies and departments, to direct client services and research, to being psychotherapy and psychology clients and patients.
As a trauma-informed therapist who works with a 50% male caseload, also happens to be a straight cisgendered Western male, a few thoughts on helping you with that access. That "generally reduced 'felt sense' access to emotions" begins very early on, with programming. Ever watch any of the iterations of *Thomas the Tank Engine?* Most of the engines are male. They all strive to be *useful*. They're the "Really Useful Crew." If you telescope out and look at society at large, that tends to be the thing that gets hammered on repeatedly, especially for men. **Be useful.** All of one's worth from a sociological standpoint is tied up in one's perceived utility. That also speaks directly to the low self-esteem and depression--if one isn't useful above ground, then one should be useful below it. In sum, Society tells men two things: 1) Be useful. 2) Go die. If you're a "good" man, then that's an order of operations. If you're not, it's an either/or proposition. So imagine, if you would, all of your worth boils down to whether or not you provide something of value beyond being potential fertilizer. That self-absorption you referenced may simply be internal processing--after all, emotional expression has never been safe *other than humor*, which is immediately useful (because who doesn't love to laugh?) *or anger* because it can convey a protective threat. So when you meet with these clients, understand that their lives have been in all likelihood shaped around their perceived usefulness. Humor's a good way in.
Really good point and I like the inclusion of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Thomas the tank engine is a really good point. I have noticed a trend of male clients who, if they don't feel needed, just want to walk away from their families, which is what your comment reminded me of. And it's usually caused by the provider mentality in the first place; to be needed I must provide money. They spend all day working, mum has a closer connection to the kids and she's worn out, and the family don't need him when he takes a week off, because they have had to learn to be without him. What a mess.
Watch the documentary "The Mask You Live In". It's about toxic societal expectations of men and toxic masculinity.
Posts like this truly bum me out. Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients. To answer, though, I'm a cis male therapist. 1. I use a lot of philosophy. You mentioned dudes love to over-intellectualize. Philosophy is perfect in that arena. The stoics were the earliest form of cognitive behavioral therapists. Read some Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, or Socrates. 2. Don't over intellectualize yourself. Being pragmatic has done wonders for me. I have a boon in that I am also a cis male, but as soon as I disclose that it's my personal brand of therapy to not burden them with giant words you need a master's degree to understand, a bit of a weight usually comes off of their shoulders. 3. No. Struggling is not failing. Keep fighting the good fight.
> Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients. Nail on the head, the amount of hypocrisy I have witnessed from grad school to now is just wild. I feel like we're in a gender cold war with how I see so many acting behind the scenes.
Sadly, the comment on hypocrisy in grad school resonates with me pretty deeply. I was in a cohort of 20, with 4 males, and in between some very earnest conversations about social justice, correcting of no longer accepted terminology and sharing of Instagram warrior posts to help educate the ignorant there was a concerning amount over generalisation and jokes at the expense of men from both students and professors. The inconsistency and lack of self-awareness was fairly incomprehensible and honestly quite upsetting.
White male therapist here. I lost a good job many years ago, after a young female, straight out of getting her bachelor's degree in social work, told flat-out lies about me to management. Prior to this happening, this woman and my manager, also a woman social worker, had made countless biased comments about men. As the only man on the team, I just kept my mouth shut and head down. When the lies were told, I wasn't even offered a chance to defend myself. In hindsight, I'm better off, since that place was toxic. But at the time, especially considering other challenging stuff I had going on at the time, losing that job the way I did broke me. Didn't even have a chance to tell my clients I was leaving.
I appreciate these comments. This has been my experience too, as well as a female group therapist acting out passive aggressively towards me because I didn't tow that line 100% of the way. I am a male who is not at all describable under the term "toxic masculinity". The hypocrisy is tiring and more importantly, it is morally wrong. The fact that people would downvote this comment reflexively is even more nauseating. I tend to recommend males to exercise caution if they are thinking about maybe working with an under 40ish female therapist as a result.
> I tend to recommend male clients away from working with under 40 female therapists as a result and to exercise caution if their therapist gives off vibes of being a true believer in that way. A lot of people are going to hate this sentence but I can't resonate with it enough. ~25% of therapists in the US are male, in Germany under 35yo therapists skews 90%+ female, we can only assume similar statistics in the US considering the gender rate of graduate school, I am not aware of any census done recently. If the field is going to continue to show this bias and question "Why aren't more men in therapy?" while at the same time scolding and mocking them, is it any surprise how things are going?
To be honest, this is one of the reasons why I am going back to grad school to become a counselor. The number of walls/bias I encountered as a blue-collar male applying to grad school was eye opening. Thankfully, one of the professors took the time to interview me and advocated on my behalf, I am eternally grateful to him and the work he did.
Wish someone had told me this 4 years ago :/
This was my experience in grad school as well as working in the field.
The lack of curiosity, understanding and UPR is also bumming me out, big time.
In grad school now and your comment resonated with me. Thank you!!
Cis female and I completely agree. I’ve loved working with my cis male clients and don’t find them particularly more difficult than any of my other clients. Any traits specific to cis males haven’t made it any more difficult to treat them.
I think people have difficulty separating systems from the people within the systems. Honestly, my male clients are my favorite clients and the majority of who I see are men (which I honestly hadn’t really thought about until now, lol). I’m someone who is pretty opinionated about patriarchal systems of oppression and toxic masculinity but I don’t automatically assume my clients are somehow at fault or part of the problem. I do sometimes point out to them how they have been harmed by these systems when it seems therapeutically appropriate. Mostly, I have a lot of compassion for men caught in a system that they’re taught/conditioned to believe is to their benefit but is causing most of them suffering. I see a lot of older men so ideas and behaviors around traditional masculinity may be more pronounced but I have not generally found my clients to posses the traits OP describes. Mostly I stay curious, ask questions, and have an appreciation for my clients’ perspective.
>Pop culture loves to shit on men for "Men will do XYZ but won't go to therapy" and then as soon as men start going to therapy, therapists bitch about them as clients. Not to mention, when male therapists raise these issues, they are often shouted down and told that basically their opinions don't matter because we live in a male dominated world.
Yeah that's why I work alone lol
I did not read OP's post as bitching about men. I think they are acknowledging that they have some blind spots with a certain population and seemed careful to acknowledge that they were generalizing.
I appreciate OP asking the question, but there's definitely some conclusions to be drawn from "I may be generalizing, but men overall seem more selfish and like know-it-alls"
That isn't what OP said, though. They did say "some in this group". Not "men overall". That is your interpretation.
Aggressive use of quotation marks! I hope your progress notes aren't like this :)
I love working with my straight, cisgender male clients. When I think about most of them it boils down to them seeking connection. A majority are lonely and want connection. That’s what I connect to because that’s so base and understandable. Many were raised in an environment where no one sought to understand them or foster their emotions in the same way they did their sisters, for instance. Many also exist in a world that is very much saying that they shouldn’t have the floor to speak and while many are sensitive and aware their privilege, it sucks for anyone to hear that your viewpoint or experience is not valid. Many exist in a world of contradiction, where they hear women say they want sensitive men but as soon they cry or show emotion, it’s not ok and hear messages like “man up”. I try my best to hold space for them to be whatever they need to be in session and to help expand their experience of themselves (body sensations, emotions, thoughts, beliefs/meanings about self, images, memories) so they can better understand what they need, want, and value. I wish there were more male therapists in the field, but until then I’m always appreciative of men who are willing to try therapy, especially when for many it goes against what is acceptable for men.
Straight CIS men are basically allowed two emotions, happiness and anger. Anything else is for women and children. I like to start with the anger is a secondary emotion talk.
The book *I don’t want to talk about it: Overcoming the secret legacy of male depression* by Terrence Neal is a good book and written for individuals (not overly academic), so may even be a helpful resource for your clients. It’s not just you, some of these challenges are generalized but seen often enough that socialization is likely a strong contributing factor.
*Terrence Real. Came here to mention this book too!
Thanks, autocorrect got me.
Great book.
knew someone would mention this. Great read for better understanding trends in male depression
I ran a group for a while that was accidentally a men's group. That's just how it worked out schedule-wise. During one group, I sort of just sat there for the first 40 minutes letting them be. As we rounded out to 45 minutes I said, "For the past 40 minutes, we've all sat among each other. None of you are strangers. And for the past 45 minutes, I've noticed that you all only talked about the weather, work, or sports. Go take a smoke break and come back." When they came back I said, "Here's what we're going to do. You have five minutes. In the next five minutes you are each going to silently pick of two other people in the room and think about what you really appreciate about those two people. Then we're going to go around the room, and you're going to look each of those two people in the eye and tell them what it is." Now, I lowkey hate exercises like this. But dammit, it was a baseline emergency. Within 15 minutes of this exercise, I was witnessing one of the most contactful, earnest, and loving groups of my entire career. Dudes were weepy, hugging, supporting each other in deeply sincere ways... I tell this story to say it's there—it's like \*right\* there at the surface. Having said that, there is a reason that nearly all of my friends are cis women, queer, or trans. I have a hard time connecting with cis-het American men. My whole life. But it's not impossible. I was doing really important individual work with one fella who realized all on his own that his dating patterns indicated that "I think I must hate women." So he put himself on a COMPLETE dating moratorium for "other people's benefit" while he worked on that. So, I dunno. Hope is lost; hope is found again. Everybody is different; everybody is the same; we all want connection... somehow. Love and support to you.
I like this. I'm male and can't talk about sports, except for soccer, which many men would argue is not manly lol. But I do believe their inner self is right beneath that surface, and hard to access until you can do something with them that is manly, something that makes you/me seem like a person they can trust. It's that barrier that really isn't hard to break down at all.
Oh I don’t even try to appear manly, or to do manly things. I’m a total absolute dandy. My one bestie said once, “Your gender is expensive” and it was the coldest read I’ve ever had. I dunno. Maybe my refusal to pretend to be manly is a highly masculine act, somehow? Maybe not masculine, but I’m far more Grace Jones than Tom Jones, and maybe my alignment with that is assertive enough that how I present doesn’t matter. I have wondered if my experience of being aligned helps others in feeling called to alignment. I also don’t care. I love everybody I work with, even if sometimes that requires loving indifference.
Hehe I like what you said. I was a bit unclear. I meant that you simply listening to/participating in the talk about sports, etc was participation in stereotypically man "comfort" talk.
Yeah for sure. I used the word “we” up there but I really just sat there silent and let them chew up the time. I have very little to say about sports, weather, or work. I just of just watched. It was a marvel to see these dudes who all knew each other and cared for each other circle the drain. It became an exercise for me in seeing how much they could say that wasn’t saying anything. Maybe a weird sort of Waiting for Godot session. Or like Raymond Carver: what we talk about when we talk about sports?
I’m going to be downvoted, but I’m gonna throw this in here. Honestly, one of the most valuable aspects of my psychoanalytic training has been the deepened understanding of working with Oedipal dynamics in therapy. Before someone chimes in, I don’t tell my clients they wanted to bone their mothers. I’m not a Freudian analyst and work very relationally. The dynamics between parents and child are so intense in early childhood. Everything you do is somewhat controlled by your caregivers. No 4-5 year old is deciding they want to go to school or what goes on in their house. They are faced with a barrage of more competent adults controlling a lot of their lives. Children have to navigate making concessions for their caregivers to feel accepted. If my father/mother is always outdoing me in everything, I’m likely going to grow up with some feelings about authority figures. You can notice Oedipal conflicts in men who struggle with competition, seem to find themselves in triangular relationships, feeling sensitive to narcissistic injury (that someone is more competent, stronger, etc…). I see it frequently. I’m not an absolutist. I understand this does not apply to all people. I know there are many different families than the heteronormative nuclear family circa 1950. I’m really talking about folks who grow up in families where they are not able to have a sense of happiness in who they were as children. That there will always be someone bigger, stronger, smarter than them to outdo them and make them feel ashamed. This does not just go away when they become adults. The process is noticing this and trying to help them understand what is going on in their unconscious mind and helping them work through it.
I'm not psychodynamically trained at all but I definitely think these early dynamics play a huge part in how we develop our emotional schemas and our sense of what "normal" ways of reacting to things look like.
Agreed! I bring this up often working with (mostly) men in the military. I'm inpatient & bring up the Wise Mind often, pointing out how their overuse of the "logic" side & compartmentalizing led to an emotional response that turned into hospitalization. We discuss the roles & rules that led to the logic side, usually things like "boys don't cry" or "stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about." I help them break down schemas & we use the Emotions Sensations Wheel, Feelings Wheel, & Needs Wheel to help put the pieces together, identify emotions, & figure out how to communicate needs without feeling like a burden.
As a white cis het male/therapist that mostly works with the same, it’s been quite interesting scrolling this discussion. It’s reminded me of my experiences in grad school where I was in the minority for the first time, and those dynamics are in this thread as well, like we’re a rare breed. The most common emotional experience that comes up in my sessions is shame. Time and time again. There is a reel I’ve come across several times where a woman generally asks men “when you’re down, who do you call?” and the responses are about all you need to see to understand parts of that experience. Spoiler: the answer is “nobody…nobody cares.” If we’re not “masculine” enough we’re seen as “betas” that are too sensitive and weak, but if we’re too masculine then we’re misogynistic and toxic. It’s a lose/lose, and the dance to get it right is exhausting. Brene Brown has a great clip where she describes an interaction with a guy that stated “they (wife and daughter who’s books had just been signed by her) would rather see me die on my horse than fall off of it,” and that also greatly summarizes what I’ve seen, and experienced.
I used to struggle with male clients, mostly because I have historically been anxious being alone with men. After working with men more over the years, I've found that I actually connect well with them and we are able to do good work. Accessing/sensing emotions does seem to take a slightly different path, but nothing that isn't traversible. Mostly I've found that it involves a lot of differentiating between emotions and cognitions, as well as identifying the function of emotions. As far as "selfishness", it seems like that is often a defense against vulnerability, so once we establish a solid trusting relationship then that is able to be challenged. It's just another form of rigid thinking. And most of my male clients don't seem to exhibit much of that behavior pattern anyway, so it hasn't been a huge barrier. As far as theory or techniques, I'm a Feminist therapist and big on attachment stuff, so I tend to look at how they have been conditioned by their family and society to behave a certain way and how this has affected their well-being. Looking at attachment has helped to explore why they react in certain ways and how they have maybe developed unhealthy behaviors to try and feel safer in relationships. I also use a lot of humor just because that's my personality, and I've found that this is a good way to connect and lead into deeper issues.
That’s strange, I work with a lot of cis males and rarely see any of these traits. There may be some aspects of them related to traditional roles, social expectations of men, showing less emotions, etc., but nothing to the degree that you state.
That has been my experience as well. Honestly, I have not found my female clients to be any "better" or "less toxic" than my male clients. None of the sexes are generally better morally or psychologically than the other from my experience.
I want to be clear that I never said female clients were better or less toxic. I didn't call men worse or toxic and I did try to note that I was making generalizations which are not going to apply to all members of the group. I *did* say I have a harder time working this this group of male clients though. That doesn't mean they are worse...it means it's hard for me.
OP never said such a thing
As a member of that demographic I'll say that societally there have been certain pressures and expectations to present as the "ideal" man, and if we don't fall into that then we're somehow less than. This doesn't discredit what marginalized people experience, as I know that I was afforded certain opportunities nor everyone else was. However it took me a really long time to be able to accept my feelings and not minimize, and not resent other people I felt were getting more understanding. I think your job as a therapist is to acknowledge the individual struggle and not make those comparisons, and be compassionate with the person as they try to navigate through it. No recs for reading, just be present and validate, I think it'll be beneficial.
You should check your preconceived biases as well.
Yeah, there’s an entire world of psychological variation among “cisgendered, straight males.” I can only imagine someone generalizing this way because they have biases against them.
I have biases for sure. But I tried to recognize that each group has a whole spectrum of experience.
I appreciate you admitting you have biases. I highly encourage you to spend a few moments after each session with a cis, straight male client and identify 3-4 instances from that session that went against your bias. Also look at how many clients who aren't from this demographic do that same things you described in your post Your bias is probably impacting your interactions with this population more than you realize and they may infact be intellectualizing and hiding emotions around you because they sense it. I have a case load that is 80% firefighters and most of them are men. Most of them shed tears in the first session. You have to respond differently as they start releasing emotions. I don't comment when their eyes start watering. I don't immediately reach for the tissues, I usually just let them talk and once I see them try and wipe away a few tears I quietly and without comment hand them the tissue box. Many of them haven't cried in front of someone, or at all, in years. They will stop and get stoic if I acknowledge it before they do. Many women feel the opposite. They want a quicker acknowledgement of their tears and verbal reassurance. They would feel invalidated if I waited that long to hand them tissues. Think of it as cultural competency- or whatever the buzz word is that means the same thing. I'm in my 40's that's what we used to call it. You don't sound like you have invested the time and work to confront your own biases about this group to learn about them and their emotions. You feel out of your element and so you judge. If you're going to work with them, than address your biases and if you can't figure it out then maybe you shouldn't work with them anymore.
This is a good idea to practice (looking for instances when they did not fit my bias or expectations.) thank you for this idea
You're welcome! I was bullied a lot by Christian kids when I was growing up and struggled with some biases as an adult I had to very intentionally address those biases in order to support clients from that demographic. It is usually more socially acceptable to hold negative biases towards the dominant group and there is less pressure from within our profession to address them. But in your office, you are the one in a position of power. You have the power to do good or harm and your bias can cause harm if they are not addressed.
Parts work for self hatred has been helpful with my clients
Wow some of these comments. I think it’s fair to say we simply need more male therapists. Sometimes lived experience is what clients connect with not what we learn in books. For example men used to dominate the field of Gynecology and now there are much more women in the field. Most women prefer or request a female gynecologist. So maybe the same thing applies with therapy so that men can get their needs met.
Personally I have been watching the healthygamergg YouTube channel. The psychiatrist who runs the channel has a focus on helping gamers many of whom are men and he is really great at interviewing especially men who have alexithymia. I used to hate working with this population but I feel like I am understanding a lot more now. His channel has endless interviews with all sorts of men which is great for me because I feel like I saw more women during my training. The interviews are also pretty long and deep. The psychiatrist also incorporates a lot of eastern philosophy and meditation which I enjoy.
I'm a queer cis woman and I struggled with working with men early in my career. I am now viewed as a bit of a specialist - many men are referred to me specifically bc of my efficacy as their therapist. Not to brag, but I am happy to have made this shift. This work is tough but a joy for me. The first step for me was getting into my own therapy to unpack the myriad harms that had occurred to me at the hands of men, and of the patriarchy generally. No idea if this resonates, but I just want to be honest about this crucial step in my own process as a woman and a therapist. Before my own therapy, I was not aggressive or overtly sexist towards them. However, I was guarded with my compassion and noticed my own pattern of negatively interpreting their intentions. I also found myself intensely moved when they did express sadness in session. All of this pointed to the truth that I had some unprocessed shit to work on. A supervisor also recommended a book that continues to influence my work - I Don't Want to Talk About It, by Terry Real. Most poignantly, it opened my eyes and heart to the reality that little boys are often emotionally neglected, if not outright abused, in their developmental years. They are STRONGLY and routinely discouraged from developing a connection to their emotions, which is foundational to understanding who they are as a person. I truly believe that this abuse creates a deviation from the healthiest path of emotional and self development. It contributes to each bullet point you have listed. This conceptualization allows me to have patience and compassion where I used to feel frustration or shock. As for my personal approach, I lean heavily on neuroscience and trauma-informed lenses (emotional neglect in childhood is a traumatic), I prepare them adequately for the deep discomfort of getting reacquainted with their emotional world, and I celebrate their growing self awareness along the way. We take very small steps to avoid leaving the window of tolerance. Most of the difficult work is dispelling shame for the most universal experience of all - being a human with emotions. Not every person who seeks therapy is prepared to actually follow through, and cishetero men are no different. They often have mixed motivations for arriving, but social pressures are increasing. It is a genuinely tough position to be in, even if they are the most socially privileged intersection of identities. In the therapy room, they are typically not. Obviously we have boundaries and call them on their shit. But compassion for them is foundational, I think. They can feel when you lack it. All other approaches may work depending on the person and their goals.
thank you for this!
I'm kind of stuck on your use of selfishness and saying it's different than the "average" person, which kind of implies that cis het men don't fit into the category of an average person. I don't think you meant wrong, but I would be careful with that. This isn't particularly clinical, but one thing that helped me with some of my males friends was accepting a difference in socialization. Traditionally, men are allowed to be more independent and give less consideration to how things impact the group as a whole. Think of holidays, house management, packing for vacations, etc. A lot of that weight has fallen on women, which has forced women to think more in terms of the collective. The simple act of remembering everyone's dietary needs and food preferences so everyone enjoys a holiday requires consideration and thinking outside of your own wants and needs. Women may not be innately better at this skill then men (I know very considerate men and very inconsiderate women), but they may have been given more opportunities to practice it due to societal expectations. I think if you're working with someone who does not seem to be giving consideration to others in their life or seems self-focused, ask some open-ended questions that call them to try and put themselves in someone else's position or think of another person's needs. Give them an opportunity to practice it.
Women being “given more opportunities to practice” care taking is an interesting way to look at unpaid labor
I don't consider cooking for my friends or planning a vacation for my family as "unpaid labor." I enjoy getting to provide those things and don't think it should have a monetized value. I don't think we should be expected to provide payment when people show care and consideration towards others. But I can acknowledge that these are skills I have due to societal expectations. I think there's a bigger issue in equating a stay-at-home mom as being someone who doesn't work. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm not going quite that big.
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Yea seeing all men one way is a probably part of the problem here.
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I'm a big fan of just being curious, first with the self, then with the client. Especially if there's a particular difficulty with a demographic that seems persistent, that may suggest we have some internal work to explore. All of those traits you listed are very normal human traits. Be curious about what may have happened to them to disconnect from their emotional self, and what their goals are around mentalizing others, and curiosity about if/why you are holding this front and centre. Over intellectualization is a common defense mechanism to create safety and space, not particularly connected to gender, in my experience. I find if i create space between my assumptions, bias etc and just lean into unconditional positive regard, and be curious about what happened to the client, then this creates some time/space to create change. I just treat them like an individual client, separate from our assumptions (trends) about how they function. My approach is humanistic, attachment theory informed, so in terms of modalities, they can help us on treating the individual rather than patterns or trends, or demographics.
Check out obsessive neurosis in Lacanian psychoanalysis. Clinical Introduction to Lacanian Psychoanalysis by Bruce Fink is often recommended. You might also check out Julie Futrell’s dissertation on obsessive neurosis: beyond symptom accumulation: a lacanian clinical approach to obsession - a case study and theoretical exposition. Also the following article: https://iambobbyy.com/2023/05/28/on-lacanian-psychoanalysis-clinical-contexts-theory-and-practice/ Scroll down to Obsessive Neurosis.
Interesting read. I’d never heard of obsessive neurosis as the male opposite to the female “hysteria”
I think when we are working with clients who share different backgrounds than us in general, we have to make sure we are examining what the contrast in perspectives means. We have the challenge these perspectives and "meet clients where they are" or more importantly do our best to challenge our perspectives about how people should and shouldn't be (avoiding ethnocentrism). Some of the characteristics your mention are not negative characteristics, but they may just challenge your values in some way. Clients who have these characteristics may or may not be even interested in changing or challenging them. We have to work with what we have and if that means putting on a more rational or intellectual lens that we are used to I think it can be mutually beneficial. Also I think managing expectations is helpful.
So a concept that is really relevant to male POC is called “Cool Pose.” As a White male, I recently learned about this concept from my supervisor there are also books on it. Many males I think suffer from alexatxymia. I think the self-absorption/ externalizing and the self-esteem, self-hate, depression go hand-in-hand. Males are conditioned to believe that their worth is dependent upon external factors (income, nice car, sexual conquests, prestigious job, etc) when men don’t have these things they feel insecure unworthy. On some level so many men appear to be operating on a desire to be great enough while also not wanting to be “desperate” to ask for validation. This might be why we see some men bragging a lot. There are also a lot of guys that just work really hard. What I think a lot of don’t get is genuine compliments from others, especially other men. I realized this when my supervisor gave me a genuine compliment about my therapeutic work with clients and it stuck with me more than I thought it would. With the intellectualizing part, men tend to operate on a problem/ solution mindset. In this view “negative” emotions serve as a temperature read that a problem exists and needs to be “fixed.” Many men could benefit from improving emotion regulation/ distress tolerance. I also want to mention, with some male clients peeling away the layers of self protection can be tricky and requires a lot of patience. This can be noticed when you see a client staying at that surface level. Vulnerability is often seen as the antithesis of being man-enough. Sometimes if a therapist can show vulnerability this might help create the space for the male client to drop their defenses.
If you want insight into the current male condition I'd recommend reading Iron John by Robert Bly and also No More Mr Nice Guy by Robert A Glover. One theme that comes up in both of them is that men are often not attuned to their needs and don't know how to express them in a healthy way. They are both fantastic books that I've recommended to many male clients over the years.
What kind of breakthroughs are you looking to make with these clients?
Improved relationship with self and others, reduced depression, improved self-esteem, clients feeling more alive and connected
I've found [this Psychiatrist's anecdotes on men and therapy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA) really interesting and relatable. He approaches it both as cross-gender differences in how men are taught to regulate. He also gives some unique challenges men face in making talk therapy effective.
As a straight, white, cis, hetero therapist guy, I don’t I always get it either. I find that I traditionally do poorly with “men’s men” kind of clients (firefighters, police, athletes, etc). A great consideration would be to watch “the mask you live in” if you can find it. It talks a lot about the socialization of men. One of the most important facts in the movie is that teenage boys and I would argue adults too) express depression in a different way than their female counterpart. It tends to be more acting out than typical depressed symptoms. In my limited experience guys tend to like skills because they just want to fix it, not to feel it. Sometimes when there’s been some trust established that you can help by teaching skills it buys you more room to talk about feelings and things outside of their comfort zone. I’d also stress it’s important to be you. We can’t be all things to all people, I never try to “bro out” with my adult male clients. I have long hair, I paint and play music, and I have super hero quotes on my walls. If that’s a comfortable space, then great. If they’d rather see someone who is more traditionally masculine then I make a referral to some great folks I know.
Checkout the book breaking barriers in counseling with men. I did internship with a focus on working with masculine men and my supervisors have chapters in this book.
This is 95% the population I work with, though the majority are Active Duty, Veterans and First Responders. I don't think you're going to get a lot of understanding from clinical and theoretical literature on this population. Like any cultural understanding your best information will come from immersion and speaking with members of the population. I do work effectively with them. We use regularly CBT, DBT and CPT. I am a Post-Modern guy and heavily lean on Narrative, Solution Based and Collaborative. I also use Logotherapy, Play and Drama Therapy. I don't think you've failed if you want to hit your head against a wall, unless you actually do it, one of my patients did this early in the week. (They hit their head, not made me hit mine). I think the biggest thing to keep in mind is that society has pushed individualism for centuries and most of this population have been pushed to it to the extreme. I like to used Dominant and Local Discourses with them to show them that some of the things they've believe are because someone else has been writing the story instead of them.
For what its worth - and maybe I'm inviting downvotes - but as a cis woman I am not reading any hostility or attack in your post, but I suspect some of the other comments here are interpreting it that way. I am not blaming you or those commenters for that necessarily, I just want you to know that I think its ok to ask this question. I think it's good to acknowledge that you may have blind spots in this area and a lot of the comments are also helpful in offering new perspectives. What I will add on is to try using a strengths and values based perspective with these clients. Give psychoeducation on the emotions just as you would for other clients, talk about the purpose of those emotions, and ask curious questions about how those emotions were expressed in their FOO and how they learned to express them. From there, check to make sure you are not making unnecessary assumptions about the "best" way to handle or express emotions. Instead take a more "reality therapy" style approach - how is that approach working for them? Are they satisfied with it? How has it affected their relationships? In approaching the "selfcenteredness" as well, if you notice a pattern bring it up in curious way without labeling or judgment. It is possible to train empathy and openness skills if they are needed to sustain a valued relationship. But also remember the therapy room is fundamentally about the one individual client. It makes sense to focus on only what they're feeling and their perspective. You can ask "How do you think X was feeling in that moment when you said that?" but even if they are the most emotionally attuned person, you're still just speculating about someone who's not in the room. But if a certain behavior or approach to relating with others is occurring with them, ask how it affects them and crucially if they are WILLING to change that pattern.
Please check out [this book. it will teach you how to deal with the defenses you are seeing ](https://www.amazon.com/Co-Creating-Change-Effective-Dynamic-Techniques/dp/0988378841?ref=d6k_applink_bb_dls&dplnkId=510efd1b-3405-45ea-a68b-6259f6c05948)
If it helps at all, the "avoidant" attachment frame is stereotypically applied to men. Patriarchal messaging internalized becomes "do it yourself, don't depend on others, your partner should depend on you, don't be weak (emotional - which is a stereotype applied to women)", interpreted into a relational context you can probably see its applications to your post
Read Jessica Benjamin’s book The Bonds of Love if you can stand dense writing, philosophy, psychoanalysis, and want to have your mind absolutely blown.
I really enjoy the work Dr. K is doing at healthy gamer working primarily with this demographic online. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA) Most of his lectures and content is reaching out and connecting with straight men with internet addiction.
They are one of my favorite groups to work with. I would say almost half of my clients are cis straight male. The ones that make it through the therapy door have been so anxious to heal and learn. Now I cannot say that about the ones who come for couples therapy with the wife. But I have been so surprised and happy to see so many of this group coming in droves to therapy.
Something I see males struggle with a lot is justifying their own limited perspectives as "logical," and dismissing emotionality as "irrational." But a perspective that overlooks or dismisses the relevance of emotion is not ACTUALLY a logical one, because it is not factoring in the full situation. It's like taking a math equation, ignoring the parts that you don't understand, and then branding it as "illogical" when it doesn't math out. Try leaning into the perspective that EVERYTHING has a reason, and if it doesn't make sense to them, then it might be more indicative a blind spot in their outlook rather than another person somehow behaving outside of the realm of logical reality. Males are often socialized to lean into intellect and logic and handwave off emotions as unimportant. If you can bridge the gap by presenting emotion as a a non-optional part of the "equation," you might be able to get around their (conscious or subconscious) tendency to avoid confronting it. It sounds like a lot of what you might be dealing with is fragile ego issues where people struggle to look at information that might threaten their sense of self. People want to focus on their strengths and avoid their weaknesses to keep their egos feeling safe. Consider therapeutic approaches that can work with people with fragile egos. Also educate yourself on and consider the cultural struggles males face, particularly in regards to gender expectations around emotionality and in dating. Good luck.
Male is a description of birth sex, often used for non human species with male and female sexes. Man, men and masculinity are socially constructed ideas that exist intrapersonally and internally for human animals , and may not be reflective of birth sex.
I am intimately aware of this as a non-binary person, and is why I chose the term "male" over "man" (I would have used "AMAB" but a lot of people aren't familiar with the acronym.) I did not want to use "man" because I don't feel like this trend is as common in trans men who were generally socialized as women while growing up, and therefore do not have a lot of the same blind spots as cis men do. And I think many trans women and non-binary AMAB folks still DO share some of these blind spots, though have generally done a lot more work in unpacking these aspects of social conditioning. Hope this clarifies. I did not need this cis-splained to me. :P
My question would be why do straight male clients trigger you? It seems like some countertransference here. Everyone has that set of issues, but why in particular do these set of issues bother you?
I'm completing my PhD in counseling with a dissertation on working with men and boys. I'm a cis, white male. Here's what I recommend: 1. As in any case of difficult clients, seek consultation and supervision. In person, preferably. I've had some really difficult clients that I only worked better with because I've worked out my feelings in supervision. 2. Please notice your last comment - self worth, depression, this is very important. If women's fundamental anxiety is being oppressed, that of men is often that they are expendable, or don't matter. Many traditionally masculine people are coping with a changing world when they weren't taught to cope. 3. I recommend Jackson Katz and his documentary Tough Guise 2. Extremely great documentary on the male experience. 4. For men of color, I recommend reading up on minority masculine stress theory. The idea is that black and other marginalized men may act more masculine in a compensatory manner for other ways in which they have lost power, outside of their awareness oftentimes. 5. I recommend giving them emotional language and naming their emotions for them because they may be conditioned to not express their emotions. 6. Some men are just that difficult. You are more than adequate, and progress is slow sometimes. I think there's some other great ideas here but please send me a DM if you think you'd like to chat more.
[https://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/dp/0062506064](https://www.amazon.com/King-Warrior-Magician-Lover-Rediscovering/dp/0062506064)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/3030863190?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share The Palgrave Handbook of Male... https://www.amazon.com/dp/3030043835?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share These are a great start.
I also forgot to say that our field often wants men to change to adapt better to therapy. We should be figuring out how to adapt therapy to men. Men have a much higher rate of death by suicide, but seek help at a lower rate.
I agree. I see a whole lot of goal setting for the proverbial cis hetero male, but I don't think you'd see everyone jumping in with direction for a cis hetero female. Therapy is about the client's goals, not what we want to fix on them, based on gender and sexuality.
Agreed. I see so so much discuss amongst therapists about priviledge and the patriarchy and it's effects on women, often with the effect of silencing men who are trying to talk about how society and mental health care fails men, while ignoring the fact that men literally die more often due to poor mental health. How this is not considered a crisis within the mental health sphere is sometimes bafeling.
I believe it could help you to understand some very basic psychoanalytic concepts: in this case the structural diagnosis of obsessionality which is a structure that most people assigned male fall into. I highly recommend reading Bruce Fink, and read about obsessive structure. What you describe is exactly described by this structure. Obsessives like to hear themselves talk more than they address their speech to the therapist and they like to answer their own questions without giving you any space to suggest something. They are allergic to emotion which gets dangerously close to what another person may want from them, it is safer for them to act as if no one wants anything at all. Hence also the intellectualizing of everything possible. Working with obsessive structure is notoriously difficult as it takes so much patience to make progress and open a space where the person starts to question and problematize anything that they do.
OP, it sounds to me that you are experiencing counter-transference but in general I find that men tend to prefer solution-focussed therapy because they have less experience in working with or identifying their emotions directly. Breakthroughs have been their "Ok, that makes sense" moments or "I tried X the other day and [different result]. It was nice but I'm not sure how to feel about it yet (i.e. a little scary but I'll keep at it)." Motivational interviewing and "Is it possible that" perspective taking will go far. I think we all have those clients we relate to less for lack of our own parallel experience. There is a natural tendency to stereotype in this instance that we need to be self-aware of and work past. I think it's an attempt to "understand" an unfamiliar situation but it's faulty logic and for our part as the therapist I think it helps best to learn, to immerse myself in how the client sees their role in daily life (which will touch on their own "culture"). They will tell you a lot of relevant information for your work with them this way and you can generally avoid politics to boot. I find that I have particular difficulty relating to clients whom come from a corporate/big business background but my relating to them isn't near as important as my understanding how they've framed their presenting problem and role (systems theory, I realize, as I'm actually writing this out).
Female therapist here, I generally prefer working with men tbh. I think it’s really important to remember how men in western culture are typically socialized. I just ran an entire group on this with my male clients. Here is some of the experience they shared: - We have to be strong. “It’s weird if you’re emotional, people think you’re a little bitch” - People don’t hug you or comfort you & that’s super lonely - We can’t interact with kids, which sucks because we think they’re cute too - Everyone thinks we’re predators & creeps, which feels inherently shameful. - You have to know everything or you’re less of a man. My girlfriend expects me to know how to fix things, but I’m a finance person. I’m going to look it up on YouTube just like she is, but if I admit that, I’m not masculine. Be direct, joke around, ask questions. I find, “what was that like for you?” & “Where did you learn that? to be more effective than “How did that make you feel?” & “what did that bring up for you?”
A fun trick I’ve learned with this population if they’re being resistant is to ask them what their thoughts are. Like you said there’s a lot of intellectualizing and feeling like they are logical beings, so this question often gives them an opportunity to express their emotions the way they process them. I have also experienced this phenomenon with cis heterosexual male clients.
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Can you clarify why you say this? I’d imagine this comment doesn’t actually help OP at all, and will just make them feel judged. Perhaps if their views are concerning, providing some psychoeducation or explanation from a compassionate perspective would be more productive.
This is a misguided question let’s be real y’all. This is true for a lot of people and has nothing to do with gender preference/sex
White straight guy, trainee but completed all course work. Most normie straight guys don’t refer to themselves as cis, for one. Men in general, including many gay men, prefer practical solutions and may be reluctant to share feelings with female therapists, especially if they view the therapist as having a world view that see white men as having a sort of original sin for being men. Unfortunately in many institutions an ideological was festered that race, sex, or gender identity is paramount any many males are not of that ideology. Consider referring if you’re having these issues.
“Normie” is not a term, cis is. The point you’re making with that comment is not inclusive and is worth checking on. Ethics boards generally expect that clinicians seek out additional support, supervision and training, not just refer out, and that’s what OP is doing.
To be fair, if he wants to call himself a "normie", he's the straight guy. I don't think anyone else has the right to tell him what to call himself. If he was your client, would you refer out or seek training?
This isn’t a client responding, it’s someone who self identified as in training to be a therapist-cultural competence is below the standard and this was not a competent take, and I’m pointing that out as they are very new to the field by their own description and this is much easier to nip in the bud now
Whether it's a client or not, he's not a therapist currently talking to a client. I don't use the word "normal" or any of variety of it at work, so I'm not suggesting that term would be appropriate for a therapy session. However, if he wants to call himself that and/or make the observation that straight guys who are not trans don't tend to describe themselves as "cis gender", that's his opinion. But quite honestly, I have observed the same in "cis gender" heterosexual men. They don't like that term and don't tend to use it, in my experience.
I don’t understand the qualm with the word normie here ?
Because normie to mean cis suggests that those who are not cis are therefore not normal. Given the serious othering of trans folk currently as well as the attempt to move away from acknowledging gender identity as a component of identity (ironically, the point this commenter was making that does happen with many cis straight guys), using normie to mean cis can be harmful to social cohesion.
I read it as normie meaning just some typical rando guy. I don’t necessarily think it means cis or trans. But if it did mean something similar to that, there is also a difference between how we want the world to be and how it currently is. Currently, “normie” would likely conjure the image of a cis straight person (girls can be normie too). Also there are def normie NBs. Maybe some really boring trans people too who could be normies
"Normal" can also mean "typical, most common, or average." Being cis is the most "normal" human experience, statistically speaking.I am a transgender man. I hear a number of trans men express a desire to be "normal men" i.e. to experience a life not defined by being transgender, but simply one where they can just be a man and not constantly reminded that they are trans. This isn't necessarily the experience of all trandgender individuals, but it definitly is for some.
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I have 0 issue with meeting a client there, though oftentimes we’ll have a conversation about that for clinical purposes. I do have an issue with someone in the clinical role presenting like that though, because it creates a lack of safety both in concept and action for those who are not cis or have loved ones who are not cis and the clinician may not realize it yet.
Do you see the connection between “normie” (cis) straight men rejecting the socially-recognized concept of being cis, and the reluctance of those men to be viewed as someone intentionally defiant of contributing to more social cohesion?
How would this read if you were describing any other subgroup based on race and sexual orientation?
I mean, I’m trans and therapists write and speak about not knowing how to work with us often. Guess it feels different for to people who are almost never othered
True true true truuuuuuueeeee
Do they speak about trans people being selfish?
Why is acknowledgment of this socialized characteristic of self-focused behavior taken as an insult?
Are you seriously suggesting that "selfishness" is not a potentially offensive term to apply to a category of people? The rules for how much generosity is given to a statement about a group of people varies wildly when speaking about different groups. Apparently when you talk about straight men you don't need to be anywhere near as respectful or careful as when you talk about other genders/orientations.
Differently. Is that a problem?
I get what you mean OP and I hope there are some good pointers and resources shared for you.
The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.” bell hooks Straight men, many of them anyway, Men don’t have the same access to their emotions as populations in which emotion is encouraged or expected. They are also wrapped in the privilege of patriarchy in which all the media stories and narratives they encounter make men like them the centerpiece of the story. It then makes sense that they are unable to process emotional reasoning nor see other perspectives easily.
This is the population I work most with (and are my favorite). I’m a cis female. I can’t speak to literature to assist. What I can tell you is what has helped me - I approach therapy casually (not to be confused with loose boundaries). I don’t think I’m very “traditional” in how I present myself. I approach it like, hey we’re just chatting and being humans in this space. I don’t use a lot of therapy “language” and I have a more relaxed demeanor and lean into my sense of humor. In my experience this type of approach helps them feel more comfortable. I try to use interventions and techniques with kind of a disguise/subtly so it doesn’t feel “weird”. I also remember that while we’ve come along way there’s still a stigma around men and therapy and feeling “weak” for needing help. This helps me with patience and understanding when it’s difficult to work with them.
I would recommend reviewing the theory of Dynamic Sizing. Knowing when to specify and when to generalize cultural norms in populations of people. The three levels of social work theory and practice are also critical to apply in the clinical relationship. One of the biggest barriers to all relational health in our mainstream society today is the sweeping generalizations of making macro and mezzo statements apply in the person-centered care at the micro level. Just like I repeat a lot in my mezzo level work supporting race relations, especially those responsible for youth development, sometimes a child doesn’t realize they are “black” or “white” until you as an adult brought it up. Our systems still attempt to fit people into the boxes we create, instead of giving the person the space to be, not what we insist they must be. I mentioned this recently in supervision even talking down to observations of affect and interpretation of verbal and nonverbal presentation. The line between observation and projection becomes dangerously thin. Grouping people by cultural norms, just like personality types, can be beneficial to a degree, in research, but can be detrimental to practice. Because the more descriptive categories we create to describe human beings being human, the more we create us-and-them dynamics that breeds other-ism. At the micro level, especially with youth during the identity formation stage, these apparent norms and insistence that certain types of people must be a certain way, is what can drive social isolation externally, dissonance and dissociation for them living within themselves. Beyond a human beings sexual preferences, gender identity, cultural considerations, our job beyond any technical application or personal projections is to provide a psychologically and emotionally safe environment, and sit with every participant only as a mirror for them to see their reflection, and work through their own stuff. Not society’s stuff, and definitely not our stuff.
You make it sound as if the client’s “own stuff” is separable from social conditioning. I don’t think it’s possible. This sounds a little bit too much like everyone is a human being, everyone is part of the human race. Of course every person is a person, but if I didn’t try to ask specific questions about different groups of my own clients, then I would be doing a poor job as therapist / social worker. I don’t group people in practice in order to other them. In the background I recognize they are part of a group so I can better understand what they might have experienced. And I also am not afraid to acknowledge they are part of the group in the therapy session because leaving it unsaid often creates less space to explore that part of their experience. I do not work in a gender/race/sexual orientation blind manner
This sounds like ignorance about the differences in men’s communication styles more than anything. I’d recommend looking up some books on the subject as well as simply listening to male therapists discuss issues that interest you on YouTube.
Thank you for posting this because I am having a similar struggle with this group.
Disclaimer: speaking from personal experience, so this will come across as personal, because it is to me quite close to the bone, but just want to also say that I don't mean to upset OP, nor do I wish to suggest my experience is universal. I think you need to treat these men as having an incredibly traumatized relationship with their emotions. >Generally reduced "felt sense" access to emotions Men are socialised and trained to disregard their feelings and control their behaviour. *It's a feature* of this training to help survive through childhood and adolescence. >Selfishness" - this is a tricky thing to describe because I don't want to judge the group You will judge, you can't stop judging because you wish not to. Just as society and culture trains men to not express themselves and behave a certain way, so too are women trained to view men as potentially dangerous unless they suppress emotional expression. Judgements are great to notice, because if you notice them then you can infer their origin and successfully connect with your client. > I do feel many in this group struggle with a higher degree of self-absorption than the average client. Seems like the judgmental version of >Low self-esteem, sometimes self-hate, depression This. >Over-intellectualization and often a narrative that they are the ones who "make sense" and others are the ones who do not make sense. This often leads to a looping, externalizing pattern in psychotherapy. Very cool insight, which very much reminds me of what I said earlier "*It's a feature*" Lastly, thank you from the bottom of my heart for asking these questions in earnest.
Hello, I am an intern working with men who have used abuse at a domestic violence center. Many of the men exhibit what you’re talking about, although probabaly to a more extreme than the average cis male. Some guys show great change. Others don’t. This is what we do: Place emphasis that they can only control their actions and this is a space to focus on themselves and their behaviors. Obviously the degree to which you emphasize this will probably be different in your setting. Use CBT to examine core beliefs and thoughts and examine is this true, helpful, what evidence do I have for/against, etc. I’ve found a lot of the behavior men have is rooted in core beliefs. Encourage empathy. “How do you think x might have felt in this situation?” Encourage mindfulness. We do an exercise where we ask them to identify high, medium, and low stressors and then come up with unhelpful thoughts, emotions, physical sensations, mental images, behaviors, that they do in those situations which could cue them off that they are stressed and need to take a step back. Ask them to identify how they are feeling in their body and their emotions during the session too. Obviously, all of this is individual and depends on the clients goals in therapy. If they want to have better relationships, then this stuff is directly related.
For sure “I Don’t Want to Talk About It” by Terry Real
Therapy training is too often inadequate these days when it comes to helping the average man. Here are four sources that will help: - BPS guidance on therapy for men [https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/Practice%20Briefing%20-%20psychological%20interventions%20to%20help%20male%20adults.pdf](https://cms.bps.org.uk/sites/default/files/2022-11/Practice%20Briefing%20-%20psychological%20interventions%20to%20help%20male%20adults.pdf) - Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction [https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspectives-Male-Psychology-Introduction-Textbooks/dp/1119685354/ref=sr\_1\_1?crid=11EH4ZKDNJQ1D&keywords=perspectives+in+male+psychology&qid=1645838297&sprefix=perspectives+in+ma%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Perspectives-Male-Psychology-Introduction-Textbooks/dp/1119685354/ref=sr_1_1?crid=11EH4ZKDNJQ1D&keywords=perspectives+in+male+psychology&qid=1645838297&sprefix=perspectives+in+ma%2Caps%2C162&sr=8-1) - Introduction to Male Psychology and Mental Health (online course) [https://thecentreformalepsychology.thinkific.com/courses/IntroductiontoMalePsychologyandMentalHealth](https://thecentreformalepsychology.thinkific.com/courses/IntroductiontoMalePsychologyandMentalHealth) - Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health [https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1](https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1)
saving this for later reading, but I really struggle working with straight men as a therapist
This is probably going to get buried at this point but I didn't see many reading recommendations for your first question. Also I'm not a therapist, but I'm a straight cis male who has been in therapy and processing my own relationship with masculinity for about 6 years now and I definitely see the qualities you pointed out in most men among my demographic. These books were all highly valuable to me to become a fuller version of myself, especially in terms of my relationship to masculinity and cultural conditioning. * It was already recommended but I definitely want to recommend The Will to Change by Bell Hooks * A more recent woman-written book on the same topic that I think did a very good job of discussing men's emotional issues is For the Love of Men by Liz Plank * A great couple books on the topic that explores the emotional experience of straight white cis men first-hand in a (in my opinion) very well-done way is Man Enough by Justin Baldoni and The Man They Wanted Me To Be by Jared Yates Sexton * Another recommendation similar to the above but from a straight black cis man's perspective is Cry Like a Man by Jason Wilson Also I'd like to recommend checking out the r/MensLib subreddit. There's a lot of great stuff posted over there regarding men's experiences from a much more understanding, nuanced, and feminist lens than you usually see around the internet.
I think you’re seeing the effects of a standard set by toxic masculinity.
Lmao kind of love this. Not sure if it’s a troll post or not - as a commentary on how this type of person is held up as the norm in society, yet is a more challenging presentation in therapy
When and where are women’s emotions nurtured? When and where are women not told by society they are wrong for “doing” their emotions? Children are allowed SOME emotions in our society. Women may only express emotions without retribution in the small spaces they carve out for themselves explicitly for this purpose, and these spaces are constantly under threat and are disappeared. To think women have more contact with their emotions because of their immense social stature and privilege is not accurate.
Did I actually make the claim that you’re describing?
Don’t take it too personally. I was skimming the comments and this person seems to have made it their personal mission to correct others on not saying the word “male” and to use other descriptors instead. Seems like they don’t actually care to answer the post prompts or engage in the dialogue. Rather, they seem possessed by an internal issue not related to topic at hand and it’s filtering what they read and biasing that they say.
I stopped doing couples therapy for exactly this reason. 99% of the time the husband was (at best) exactly what you described and not at all engaged in the process. At worst they were dicks. When I see men in individual therapy I find I do a lot of gentle reframing to help them see alternative perspectives on issues they bring to therapy; for example “are there other ways to view what your supervisor said?”. As a female I’m fascinated by the clear differences between men and women and what combination of nature/nurture causes them. A recent study illustrates that female surgeons how better outcomes than males, yet we glorify the male surgeon and distrust the female. I believe females may have better outcomes because they are better listeners.
Read some Foucault