18 July 2012

posted in:

What About Me(n)?

With all that has been written, advocated, or spoken about lately with respect to “mental health awareness”, it occurred to me how, perhaps in spite of its intentions, the message may be missing it’s mark. And by “mark”, I mean men.

When I look at the public service announcements, take for instance Bell Canada’s “Let’s Talk” campaign (featuring Olympian Clara Hughes), or consider the large percentage of women who both practice psychotherapy or who see a therapist, I have to speculate, in the mind of the average “guy” standing on the outskirts of all this information, two assumptions might be poking about:

1. Therapy is for women.

2. If therapy is for men, it’s not speaking my language.

First, it goes without saying that therapy is for everyone. Yet, it’s one thing to throw around phrases like “therapy is for everyone”, quite another to show how therapy can benefit everyone, particularly those portions – of which men largely consist – who historically have not embraced talk therapy as passionately as you would assume from movies and TV depictions.

This leads us to the second point: language.

I do believe that the language – heck, even the imagery – we use to raise awareness of mental health perhaps does not yet speak clearly to a wide variety of people. Within the context of this blog post, I’m thinking specifically of men who may not be feel comfortable speaking openly with others about their feelings or conflicts – it is specifically this category of people, I feel, who still struggle in silence.

There is definitely a place for men in talk therapy. Therapists such as myself are here for you, male or female, straight or gay, young or old, even if at first it takes time for you to become comfortable talking about your concerns.