laptop on top with the words mental health, Image: Pexels
World Mental Health Day is not just a date on the calendar to overlook. It is an annual reminder of our position on prioritising mental health.
However, the number of men seeking professional help to manage their mental health remains alarmingly low, even on a global scale. A report by The Telegraph last January noted that 80% of suicides were committed by men and that in 2020 only 15% of men received psychotropic medications or therapy, compared to 26% of women.
The reason, according to Bryce Spencer-Jones, host of the Unstuck Yourself podcast , is that men have been conditioned to internalise their feelings for a long time, and they don't even know where to start on their mental health journey.
“Many men just want to be seen and heard… They have so many emotions stored up, but they may not have the resources to know where to start their healing,” he explains.
In short, in 2023, men still do not go to therapy. Spencer-Jones, who is part of a group of experts attending an initiative from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health, and some other speakers weigh in on why.
The biggest barrier to men seeking help for mental health issues , according to all panelists, is that they often can't even identify feelings of anxiety, depression , and other common mental disorders .
Expanding on the previous point, Kevin Simon, a psychiatrist and instructor at Harvard Medical School, says: “I have a 2-year-old boy, and often when children show emotion from an early age, they are socially trained to try to diminish it and not fully recognizing what the feelings are.”
What he means is that, because men are taught to internalize any emotion that makes them appear vulnerable, they often cannot distinguish one from the other. As Spencer-Jones puts it: many men “don't know what they don't know.”
In this sense, the idea that going to therapy would help them develop skills and tools to recognise and confront their emotions is something foreign.
But a big part of “unlearning” and breaking social stigma is realising that a therapist can help you identify how you feel and guide you accordingly.
You don't need to prepare a plan; just be open to seeking help. It's always a good time to start by simply acknowledging that it's okay to not have it all figured out.
To highlight the issue of men's mental health , there is an urgent need to create safe spaces for men to share their problems.
Martin Pierre, former president of the Massachusetts Psychological Association, insists on the need to create safe spaces for men to talk about their problems. As too many romantic movies and series show, men have a hard time expressing their feelings to their other male friends.
“Connection allows men to recognize their own humanity. Safe spaces allow men to bear witness to each other's pain as a way of questioning and affirming themselves, and allows them to be vulnerable with each other. When you reveal, you heal,” Pierre explains to Harvard Gazette .
Kalen Jackson, vice president and owner of the Indianapolis Colts and founder of the Kicking the Stigma initiative, insists on the importance of influencers normalizing conversations about men's mental health . To make his point, he asked members of the popular NFL football team to express their struggles with mental health as athletes.
“There is no greater representation of masculinity in the United States than American football. Being able to break that barrier with our players, sharing how they feel and their emotions, (…) realising the impact we can have has been inspiring for us,” she says.
Part of Harvard's initiative was to get influencers to interact with leading men's mental health professionals and understand, through them, how they can help create a culture where men feel safe disclosing their emotional battles. The 25 influencers present at the event had a combined reach of 20 million people.
The idea, through these various initiatives, is very clear: to redefine the very definition of masculinity
[ Via GQ Mexico]
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