Doing Psychotherapy with Men – Practising ethical psychotherapy and counselling with men

Description

Little if any information is currently made available in undergraduate, post-graduate, or professional development programs, to prepare or support psychosocial practitioners with the knowledge and skills essential to effectively engaging and communicating with men. Increasingly, clinical practitioners, as well as professionals involved in mental health promotion and education, are realising that their capacity to work with men falls short of what is needed. There is also a growing recognition that men’s general reluctance to access and utilise psychosocial services is not because of some inherent male aversion to accepting assistance (which is a common misconception), but because such assistance has often been found to be unhelpful, incognisant of issues of male gender, and even harmful.
In my clinical work with men (including in groups) spanning twenty years, I have often encountered men who had previously entered therapy or counselling in good faith, only to find that they did not receive appropriate, respectful or useful assistance. Some of them also reported that they had been made more susceptible to thoughts of suicide by their poor experience with a practitioner. I have continued to encounter these kinds of cases.
My observations about many men’s health and mental health promotion programs is that they, too, often reflect ignorance of men’s lived experience, of the range of important considerations in prioritising and communicating health messages suitable for men, and of how to engage with men in a way that is respectful and effective.