Part 1 — Men and mental health, what are we missing?
I have been interested in men’s mental, emotional and relational health for a long time. When I was five years old, my middle-aged father became increasingly irritable, angry and depressed because he felt he could not support our family, my mother and me, by doing the work he loved. In desperation she overdosed on sleeping pills to stop the pain. Fortunately, he didn’t die, but our lives were never the same. He was committed to the Camarillo State Psychiatric Hospital.
My father was an actor in New York and moved to California in hopes of working in the emerging film and television industry. But, like many creative artists of the period, he fell into the “red scare”, was blacklisted and could not find work. His time in the mental hospital only made him worse. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and how I could prevent it from happening to other families.
After graduating college I was accepted to UC San Francisco School of Medicine with hopes of becoming a psychiatrist. I hoped to learn and develop the skills to help men like my father and the families who love them. However, medicine, at the time, was too limiting for me and I transferred to UC Berkeley where I earned my Master of Social Work Degree. My initial interest was in addiction medicine, but I soon expanded my work to include Gender and Men’s Health Medicine. I later went back to school and earned a PhD in International Health. My thesis research was published as a book: Male vs. Female Depression: Why Men Act Out and Women Act In.
After the birth of our first son, Cemal, in 1969 and daughter, Angela, in 1972, I created MenAlive.com as my window to the world to house my books, articles and online programs. I have published seventeen books, including international bestsellers Male menopause and The Irritable Man Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Root Causes of Depression and Aggression, as well as trendsetting books including Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Overcoming Romantic and Sexual Addictions, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet, Relief for Stress for Men, and Long live Men! The Moonshot mission to heal men, close the lifespan gap, and offer hope to humanity.
The field of gender therapy and men’s mental health has grown significantly since I started in 1972. I estimate that there are now at least a thousand organizations that focus on various aspects of men’s health. In 2021, I invited several colleagues who were doing great work to join me in what I called my Moonshot Mission for Humanity and Humanity. We started meeting monthly to get to know each other, share ideas and create an online hub to bring individuals and organizations together to help men live fully healthy lives.
With the help and support of one of our founding members, Joe Conrad, founder and CEO of Androtherapywe developed a website and introductory film at MoonshotforMankind.com. I believe that men are both the “canaries in the coal mine” alerting us to the problems facing humanity and also the key players in solving the problems that undermine everyone’s health. The Moonshot website shares our vision and call to connect:
“The journey to heal humanity has begun.”
Our Moonshot vision can be summed up simply:
“We believe that human mental, emotional and relational health is key to empowering men to live long and well. Our mission is to help men live healthier, happier, more collaborative lives – fulfilling lives of purpose and productivity, where men are supported and valued as they make positive contributions to their families, friends and communities. When this happens, families are strengthened, communities prosper and humanity takes its next leap forward.”
Men and mental health: What are we missing?
According to the report by Derek M. Griffith, PhD, Ayo Ogunbiyi, MPH, and Emily Jaeger, MPH at Georgetown University’s Center for Men’s Health Equity,
“Men are not the problem. How we – society as a whole and healthcare providers in particular – deal with them is.’
In an article on April 2, 2024 titled “Men and Mental Health: What Are We Missing?” detail a number of important issues that we often fail to address, including:
- It is time for primary care physicians, mental health providers, and policy makers to critically examine the accuracy and utility of their assumptions and explanations for rates of depression, anxiety, burnout, substance abuse, and other common mental health conditions in men. .
- 40% of men with a self-reported mental illness received mental health services in the past year, compared to 52% of women with a self-reported mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
- The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated men’s mental health crisis.
- Pandemic uncertainty, loneliness from social distancing, financial stress, relationship challenges and other factors have contributed to increased rates of men with difficulty sleeping, alcohol and substance use, and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
- Traditionally, men are socialized to define their worth by their ability to contribute financially to a household. However, as the labor market has shifted away from traditionally male-dominated jobs, men must now redefine their value outside of their employment, income and home.
- The concept of ‘precarious masculinity’, which is the belief that masculinity is an attainable social position that must be constantly earned and defended, means that men may feel that their character – rather than their behavior – is being judged in more turbulent economic times.
- Even when men seek care, that care often falls short. Data from Canada and the United States found that more than 60% of men who died by suicide had accessed mental health services in the previous year.
- When men seek mental health services, it is not uncommon for them to feel that providers mischaracterize and underestimate their needs and that these providers do not seem to have a genuine interest in their problems.
- The fact that men are diagnosed with depression at lower rates than women, despite higher rates of suicide, substance use, and violent behavior, suggests that more could be done to improve the tools used to diagnose men with depression.
- While some mental health providers may be gender sensitive and recognize the ways in which aggression, alcohol use, and risky behavior are part of the symptoms that men with depression may experience, There are few courses and trainings that focus on gender differences in mental health, leaving mental health service providers less equipped to serve and offer gender-sensitive resources to men.
We need a new approach to tackling men’s mental health problems. In part two of this series, I’ll address the fact that men’s mental health issues don’t just affect men. They affect everyone. If you want to read more articles like these, visit me at MenAlive.com and get our free newsletter with new articles and tools you can use to improve your mental, emotional and relational health.
