Male mental health and victim blaming

MidoriEgg · 2024-12-30T18:35:44+00:00

I work in the mental health field and I generally agree with this,

Yes some men get great results from therapy, but it isn’t for everyone or for every problem. Sometimes community groups that offer a space to activities/build connection are more helpful/meaningful. That’s true for women as well, but I personally think even more so for men. Therapy can be very useful but I do think it tends to get overvalued and it ends up overshadowing other strategies that may be more useful in certain circumstances.

bluepvtstorm · 2024-12-30T16:03:22+00:00

My dad was a therapist for years. Even if men don’t like to do the talk therapy route. Words need to be said to help explore the problem. One cannot address the problems if no words are said.

You have to start somewhere. Would I blame a person with an eating disorder, no. But would I also make them responsible for starting by saying I have a problem and need help.

What I read is that men don’t ask for help based on assumptions. They perceive mental health is only for women without entering into the process.

The VA has a lot of mental health programs that are exactly what this is talking about. They have musical therapy, they have group events, they have battle buddy programs etc. but before you can get to those shoulder to shoulder therapies you got to get into the system which is saying I have a problem and I need help.

No one can know what will work if not enough men are engaging meaningfully.

EetinAintCheetin · 2024-12-30T16:08:50+00:00

This is not a question of tools but a question of motivation. The topic of having stronger male bonds and fulfilling hobbies comes up relatively often and it is almost always shot down in flames by the usual doomer brigade.

The problem is that when you are in a blizzard of loneliness, depression, anxiety and negativity, being shown a path that seems counterintuitive at first, gets no traction. It’s like if someone who is lost in the woods and starving and thirsty and someone tells them “you are better off staying in one place, so a rescue team has a higher chance of finding you”, but their panic makes them keep going further and further into the woods hoping they will find a way out, only to get lost even more hopelessly.

In reality, nothing can make you more attractive to the opposite sex like having high self esteem, enjoying life and getting your needs met by friends, activities and a general purpose in life. Unfortunately, most men who struggle with dating sit around and wait for others (women) to approve of them or give them love, before they can start approving of themselves and loving themselves.

But that almost never works, and if it does, it never works in the long term. If you are waiting around for other to approve you and give you permission to feel good about yourself and be happy, you will always be their slave and you will just get annoyed and angry when you are not getting that approval. Which in turn makes you even less appealing and attractive.

It goes the same way with male friendships and activities. Lonely men shit on these because hanging out with guys is not comparable to holding hands with a crush. But by refusing to have fulfilling male friendships and refuse to take active part in life, they just dig a deeper hole into their misery and desperation, which turns other people off even more.

It’s a very weird dynamic. Understandable, but weird and self sabotaging nevertheless.

TopShelfSnipes · 2024-12-31T00:08:20+00:00

The issue is that male mindset around mental health tends to be more solution focused. Men and boys are very much tension and release. Tension builds until it's released, then it dissipates immediately. Wanting something we can't have is particularly damaging if allowed to fester long enough. Solutions around such things therefore need to center around forming a plan to attain it, illustrating both mentally and emotionally why it's not truly worth having, or forming a group around people who don't have it with real camaraderie that does not view the thing nobody has as unattainable.

Womens' mindset around mental health tends to be much more about CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy), recognizing root causes, and pattern interrupts.

Let's take an involuntary celibate guy who is frustrated at not getting laid. Enthusiastic sex from a woman can fix him, but it can't be forced, and it will only fix him if certain preconditions are met. The sex has to be of a type he wants. Part of the problem with "incel mentality" is they want the casual sex that people got when they were 18, when they're 35 and still struggling. The idea of sex and committing to the woman who gives it to him is abhorrent to the incel mindset - he wants to fuck around, make up for lost time, etc. But there is no making up for lost time. And if he has an opportunity to have sex, he will ruin it with this attitude. It becomes self-defeating. However, an involuntary celibate guy who finally meets a girl who's into him at 35 and forms a relationship, can get sex and marriage, provided he doesn't bring unhealthy attitudes into it. That relationship can help fix his insecurities around sex. But not if he's constantly comparing himself to her past partners. He needs to forge his own sexual destiny with her, one based around mutual interest, mutual consent, and mutual respect for limits.

A man is not going to be receptive to looking inward, particularly not someone with incel mindset. Hence the appeal of blackpill and how it plays on his insecurities to promote monetization of content. The man with the incel mindset would rather be right than fix it, because fixing it is hard.

Whereas in general, women involuntary celibates are much more willing to not fixate on the sex/relationship aspect - no tension/release dynamic - and look into things like childhood trauma that affect unrelated issues that may manifest themselves in dating difficulty through a much more indirect process. Even if the overarching issue remains unsolved, they are more willing to enjoy a recurring touchpoint with a therapist to learn about themselves, even if progress is not linear or clear - because the act of feeling heard has value to her.

IMO to fix this for men, men's therapy needs to be less about self-discovery than about finding the solution, AND it needs to be clear that HE has the tools to solve his problem, and needs to use therapy to unlock them. This approach is rarely taken in therapy. It's usually an endless process of self-discovery, which isn't appealing to most men. In a perfect world, it would also involve some kind of support group or outreach where men who are struggling with the same issue AND seeking treatment can come together in a group setting as well.

IceWingAngel · 2024-12-30T16:47:17+00:00

Bit of an outlier, but personally as a guy, I've liked going to simple CBT therapy for the past couple years I've been doing it. It's definitely not for everyone, however I think the outlet alone would do most people some good. Better than the prior alternative anyways.

griii2 · 2024-12-31T18:15:19+00:00

My experience is of course just a single anecdote, but I think it speaks volumes.

Long story short, I was abused by my partner and our couples therapist told us that as a man I cannot be abused by a woman.

Btw, this is the feminist Duluth model.

ImaginaryDimension74 · 2024-12-30T17:23:58+00:00

I agree. Men aren’t “under utilizing” mental health services because of masculinity, they are using such services less because they don’t find talk therapy very helpful at fixing the underlying problem.

giveuporfindaway · 2024-12-31T05:57:06+00:00

All current mental health is focused on trying to turn a man into a woman. Modern psychology might as well be called femology. The whole field as it stands now should be abolished and gender segregated.

ThinkSupermarket6163 · 2024-12-30T16:04:01+00:00

I do think a lot of men could benefit from the behavioral stuff. I know that’s what keeps me sane. At the same time though, a lot of dudes have serious problems that are probably best handled by a professional.

Solondthewookiee · 2024-12-30T19:00:21+00:00

It is possible for many men to need both social support and therapy. They aren't mutually exclusive ideas. Some men only need one, some need both.

Unfortunately, with red pill brainrot seeping into mainstream male thinking, especially among younger generations, many men now spread the downright dangerous idea that therapy doesn't work for men and that men shouldn't go, and red pill in particular demonizes people who seek mental health treatment.

Social groups are easy to start and spread, so that should be the activism focus, but the advocacy focus should still be destigmatizing men seeking mental health services, including therapy and medication.

GGMcThroway · 2024-12-30T16:15:49+00:00

"Men’s mental health" wasn't a field of its own because male everything in medicine is studied and treated as the default.

That said, if shoulder-to-shoulder works better for men, shoulder-to-shoulder modalities should be become more common and accessible. Blaming a patient for a treatment method (talk therapy) not working is just dumb. "Chemo didn't cure your cancer? Well that's your fault!"

I think our mental health system, regardless of gender, wasn't built for the kinds of attachment issues manifesting in the modern population. Not being able to properly bond with your primary attachment figure when you're a baby is devastating, but we have no way of rectifying it right now.

alotofironsinthefire · 2024-12-30T17:37:50+00:00

The problem with mental health struggles is while it's not the person's fault, it is their responsibility to work on.

It can be a challenging line to find and you are going to make mistakes. But like with the rest of life, you need to keep working at it

One of my children is non neurotypical, teaching them to learn their own ways to handle the world around them without using their condition as an excuse is and will always be a challenge but it's what needs to be done

RapaxIII · 2024-12-30T16:26:27+00:00

The paper notes roughly three main points it supports as solutions:

1) adopt a public-health approach to the underlying issues, moving beyond the common tendency to ‘victim-blame’ men who have mental health issues;

2) emphasize the importance of documenting and addressing the oft-ignored social determinants of men’s mental health; and

3) encourage critical reflection on the configuration and nature of mental health services vis-à-vis men’s mental health.

I'm sorry, but I just don't realistically see things like this being implemented in a country as toxic as the US. Men are denied the ability to be a victim and that won't change any time soon

TermAggravating8043 · 2024-12-30T17:46:52+00:00

I don’t mind admitting that I had a male very close to me that struggles with his mental health. It’s not obvious until you know them well, sporadically looking for old stuff, lack of enthusiasm, negative outlook etc But it was until we reached a point in our lives that it got worse, he hardly ate and slept for roughly 15 hours a day, sat on the floor rather than a chair, constantly watching shit over and over but the nail on the head was unable to leave the house without crying.

I’d been telling him for years this was something he needed to address but he just didn’t want to acknowledge it. By this point we had babies, Colicky and terrible sleepers and he had let me down big time on the births and newborn stages. It simply became a matter of “I can’t deal with you, I can’t give anymore, I can’t keep excusing you anymore” for him to finally seek some help.

Me, a woman finally pushed him to get help, his doctor was a woman, his therapist was a woman, the person doing checks on him was a woman. It turned out one of his male colleagues was going to the same therapist for similar issues (we discovered not long after) and his father had done a similar course too, but none of these men will even mention it to each other. Not even to make casual small talk.

In my experiences, mens mental health is founded by woman helping men, and this is not the way it should be. Even in male groups in our areas, the volunteers are woman. I believe the bottom is line comes back down to men don’t want to be carers, especially for other men when they have nothing to gain

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kwikkwikstudy · 2024-12-30T21:20:35+00:00

That therapy can very well work for men, which I firmly believe, is irrelevevamt if men won't participate.

Therapists and other stakeholders (everyone who cares about people) should take responsibility for the innefective ways therapy is marketed to men and the way therapy services are delivered to men and work to change that.

Because what we're doing now isn't working.

Makuta_Servaela · 2024-12-30T17:47:00+00:00

rather than "face-to-face" (talk therapy) treatment.

This is less about it being a less effective therapy, and more about men not being as interested in it. No matter what kind of therapy you use, no therapy will work if you don't want it to/don't believe it will. This is less about victim blaming, and more about something akin to trying to cure an infection but not keeping up with the antibiotic regimen assigned to you.

I don't think men do that because they are stubborn. I think men do it because they don't really understand how talk therapy works. It's common for sex workers to report that men will often vent to them for therapeutic relief- which is doing it all wrong. A sex worker's job is to please and satisfy the man and make the man feel heard (which is good, but is not talk therapy). A therapist's job is to help people question their own norms and own behaviours and to make changes in their own patterns. That's why, for example, men complain about not getting hugs or no one asking about their days, and women keep responding "why don't you hug your bros and ask them about their day?" and that response tends to confuse men.

The other issue is that men tend to be much worse at handling their mental issues logically- but they are taught to believe that what they do is the logical one. Women with mental disabilities are taught a lot more about masking and hiding, and are taught their logical responses are emotional, while men are taught that their emotional responses are logical, so men don't realise which behaviours they actually need to question.

meisterkraus · 2024-12-30T17:02:21+00:00

It is going to depend on the issues the man is having. So can you make actionable changes or not. Depressed because you are lonely cognitive behavioral therapy is the best. Depressed because a friend or family died, regular talk therapy.

Right now I feel there is a push for only talk therapy to be considered the right way to do therapy. Men tend to want to fix a problem not just vent.

Nobodyz_Nikki · 2024-12-30T21:21:33+00:00

There's been an uptick in men's mental health ever since there's been an uptick in blaming men for everything that's wrong in society. There's correlation between toxic masculinity trending and men rejecting that image then using mental health as a play to evade any ridicule or discipline for their actions.

They don't want to really heal what the world thinks makes them defective. They want to claim they need to heal to shut people up then go to the gym with their bros. It's all a big show.

HeartTheHero · 2024-12-30T16:24:21+00:00

Mental health is fucking nonsense when you realize most mental illnesses are caused arbitrary expectations.

Tren_troll · 2024-12-30T16:06:17+00:00

Most dudes have a problem with chronically low testosterone levels and not enough physical activity.

If you are lifting in the depths of hell like Dr. Mike Israetel, you don't have time for any of that emotional shit.

Title	Male mental health and victim blaming
Author	Pitiful_Progress_699
Upvotes	62
Comments	204
Date	December 30, 2024 3:52 PM UTC (1 year ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1hpq5vn/male_mental_health_and_victim_blaming/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/male-mental-health-and-victim-blaming.1539919 https://theredarchive.com/post/1539919

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