We all recognize the stereotypical message about manhood: Men shouldn’t cry. Men aren’t emotional. Men must be the providers. Men are strong. Men suck it up when life gets hard.
While we’ve certainly made progress as a modern society in dispelling these myths of masculinity, they’ve been so deeply ingrained in many men’s upbringing that it can be difficult for them to show any perceived signs of weakness or to ask for help, especially when it comes to mental health.
In fact, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, one in ten men experience depression or anxiety, yet less than half of those men ever receive treatment.
“More women than men tend to seek out treatment or therapy,” says Sue Kocet, licensed professional counselor and owner of One Step at a Time Therapy in State College. She has seen this firsthand in her own practice, where 35 percent of her adult patients are male and 65 percent are female.
In many ways, she says, the men and women she treats are experiencing similar issues. Male or female, the majority are struggling with depression and/or anxiety, she says. Kocet also treats many members of the LGBTQ+ community, including those who do not identify with their gender assigned at birth, and she says they usually are seeking help for the same issues—depression and/or anxiety.
In addition, she says, the number of clients who struggle with substance abuse are split pretty evenly between males and females.
That’s not to say there are no differences between genders, however.
According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, men are almost four times more likely to die by suicide than women. However, women tend to experience suicidal thoughts more frequently than men do.
Also, women are usually more comfortable sharing their emotions, while men sometimes feel like anger is the only acceptable emotion they are allowed to express.
“Anger is often a secondary emotion,” Kocet says. “When we’re sad or embarrassed or ashamed or jealous, those are really uncomfortable feelings to sit with, and a lot more difficult to process, so anger tends to be the go-to for a lot of men.”
Supporting loved ones
If men are unable to acknowledge their uncomfortable feelings, it can be difficult for their friends and family to recognize that they need some support, but Wes Scala, licensed clinical psychologist, and co-owner of Heartwood Independent Practitioners in State College, says there are some signs that might be symptoms of a mental health issue.
“Signs would be any major changes that you notice in behavior—for example, if they’re making risky decisions around finances or their physical well-being, if there are problems at work or disciplinary issues, or if substance use either starts or becomes more severe in some way,” he says. “Another piece would be isolating behavior, or withdrawing from friends, from family.”
If you’ve observed concerning behavior, it can be daunting to think about bringing it up in conversation.
“If you’re looking at a man that’s felt like they’ve always had to keep up that persona of strength and provider, it might be a little bit more difficult to have that conversation,” Kocet says.
However, Scala believes men are often more in tune with their feelings than we give them credit for.
“This idea that men don’t want to talk about their struggles, I think that’s a myth that needs to be dispelled. I know in my experience, men are often craving those kinds of conversations and connections with other people,” he says.
The important thing is finding the right approach.
First and foremost, Scala says, be nonjudgmental.
“Make an observation and follow it up with a question. For example, ‘I’ve noticed you’ve been a little quiet this week. Is everything okay?’”
Also, he says, using “side-by-side communication” can be very effective.
“Having conversations or checking in while doing some kind of shared activity—going for a walk, fishing, hiking, on a drive, or whatever the activity is—can often create an environment that might be easier to talk about difficult topics or struggles, as opposed to a face-to-face intervention kind of thing,” Scala says.
Finally, he says, “I think often the other piece is just coming back. Asking more than once. If you’ve checked in with a partner and the response you get is ‘I’m fine,’ but you’re still concerned, I think coming back and asking again can be helpful.”
If a friend or loved one has made the decision to seek therapy, it’s important to be supportive, especially when men might fear they’re showing weakness by seeking help.
Kocet says, “I like to point out that it takes a lot of strength to get into therapy in the first place. Because it takes a lot of strength to be able to recognize that there are things you want to improve on or things you would like to change and to ask for help. It’s so hard to ask for help.”
Breaking the stigma
Beyond our individual relationships, Kocet believes we need to work more broadly to break the stigma associated with mental health, particularly as it affects men.
“I think the first step as a society is looking at recognizing how mental health really impacts everybody at some point in our lives. Whether it’s grief over the death of a loved one, whether it’s depression or anxiety, or even school stress, work stress, or stress caused by changes in our lives—moving to a new place, starting a new job—all of those are things that can affect our mental health, and I think that as a society, normalizing struggles of mental health is really important,” she says. “I also think it’s important for the media and for men who have visibility to talk about it a little bit more and normalize it a little bit more.”
Kocet also says parents hold some of the keys when it comes to shaping the attitudes of our future adults.
“When we’re raising our young boys, we can work to remove some of that language from our parenting—‘Be a man, buck up, men don’t cry’—and I think it is important to teach our children globally, our young boys, how to identify their emotions and then how to express those emotions in an appropriate way,” she says.
Scala also believes parents play a crucial role in busting the stereotypes.
“As fathers, being able to model for our kids that emotions are okay, emotions are information that tells other people around us about a need that we may have, and being kind of intentional about encouraging that, fostering that, showing and modeling that to kids—that can help kids grow up to be men who are comfortable showing when they’re struggling and asking for help,” he says.
“I always think of the kid who falls down and skins their knee,” he continues. “I think it’s pretty common to hear the response of, ‘Don’t cry, you’re fine,’ and while I think the parent is often in that moment trying to comfort or reassure the kid, I think what that does is it kind of invalidates what they’re feeling in the moment. … I think a better response is to just say, ‘Oh, it looks like that hurt! I see that you’re upset. Is there something that you need? Can I offer something to help you feel better?’”
Scala suggests that approach for all ages, particularly when someone is expressing a negative emotion.
“Try not to use invalidating language. Anything that starts with ‘Don’t be (sad/mad/etc.),’ or ‘Don’t feel (a certain way),’ sends a message that what we are feeling is somehow not okay, and we should conceal it or not show it. That certainly shows up a lot in my practice. When I hear people coming in and talking about the things that upset them, it’s usually when they feel like they haven’t been understood or validated.”
Positive developments
Kocet says the younger generation does seem to be breaking free from some of the myths of masculinity, and that adolescent young men are more apt to seek help than adult men. In fact, she says, the split in her teenage clientele is almost fifty-fifty between males and females.
In addition, although Kocet says she has seen an increase in mental health struggles since the pandemic began, COVID also brought a positive development that anecdotally seems to have encouraged men to feel a little more comfortable seeking therapy: telehealth.
“I think that it’s been really healthy for people to have access to treatment through telehealth. It makes accessibility so much better. It might help men seek treatment more readily because they can do it in the privacy of their own home, or they can just close their office door and do a telehealth session,” she says. T&G
Karen Walker is a freelance writer in State College.
