What is it that prevents men from reaching out for psychotherapy? It is a question worth asking when we consider recent research by the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, which suggests that around 70% of men reach a crisis point before seeking therapeutic support.
From a young age, many boys are taught to be strong, tough and self-reliant. The expectations handed down by families, cultures and society often communicate that a man must continue functioning, solve problems, provide financially, and protect others emotionally. Within this framework, there is often little room for vulnerability, emotional dependence, uncertainty, or psychological struggle.
Many men therefore grow up without having experienced what it means for their vulnerability to be met by a kind and emotionally attuned other. There may have been little opportunity to develop a language for emotional life, or to make sense of painful inner experiences. In this way, many men learn to survive emotionally by suppressing, disconnecting from, or intellectualising their suffering.
To suffer is an inherent part of being human, and none of us can prevent it. What we can prevent is allowing that suffering to turn into misery and an unfulfilled life. Psychotherapy can help us come to terms with the limitations and realities of life, whilst also bringing us into contact with who we were meant to be and our unrealised potential.
As men, we possess no special psychological faculties that allow us to evade the difficulties of relationships, workplaces, families, grief, trauma or loneliness. If more men were able to seek psychotherapy before reaching a crisis point, many could avoid years of emotional suffering, relational breakdown, sleeplessness, chronic anxiety, depressive states, and at times even suicidal feelings.
What Brings Men to Therapy?
Men often initially seek psychotherapy because of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, trauma, burnout, or relationship difficulties. However, as the therapeutic process develops, deeper emotional and relational themes frequently begin to emerge.
These can include:
- Childhood emotional neglect and emotional invalidation
- Physical, emotional or sexual abuse experienced in childhood
- Historic experiences of bullying and humiliation at school or in the workplace
- Relational trauma and attachment difficulties
- Health anxiety and chronic fear about illness or death
- Workplace trauma, including relational and single-incident traumatic experiences
- Difficulties communicating emotional needs within intimate relationships
- A lifelong sense of emotional loneliness or not having had anyone to talk to about feelings
- The absence of emotional connection with fathers or male caregivers
- Social expectations for men to remain emotionally strong whilst privately suffering from a lack of love, kindness and affection
- Discovering neurodivergence later in life, and beginning to understand how they may have been misunderstood, marginalised or shamed throughout childhood and adulthood
- Internalised homophobia and difficulties accepting one’s sexuality as a gay man
- Difficulties forming or sustaining long-term intimate relationships
- Experiences of emotional, physical or financial abuse within intimate relationships, reported by both heterosexual and gay men
- Feelings amongst some heterosexual men that their experiences of abuse or emotional mistreatment remain difficult to speak about openly due to fears of ridicule, disbelief or social invalidation
- Experiences of infidelity, guilt and shame, where some men seek psychotherapy in order to understand the unconscious and relational dynamics underlying their actions
One of the recurring themes in psychotherapy with men is that emotional suffering has often existed for many years before it is spoken about openly. In many cases, men have functioned outwardly for decades whilst carrying significant emotional pain privately and silently.
Generational Differences
Men in their fifties and sixties often approach psychotherapy with a greater sense of urgency, particularly when engaging in therapy for the first time. There can understandably be a desire to feel better quickly after many years of emotional endurance, even though meaningful psychological change usually takes time.
Men in their twenties, thirties and forties often appear somewhat more patient with the therapeutic process, perhaps because they experience themselves as having more time and future ahead of them to work through longstanding emotional difficulties and relational patterns.
What has also changed socially is that more older men are now seeking psychotherapy and couples therapy than in previous generations. In earlier decades, there was often greater social judgement associated with attending therapy, particularly for men, where emotional openness could be experienced as weakness or failure.
Finally, many men have expressed that the broader public conversation around mental health, together with male public figures speaking more openly about their own psychological struggles, has helped them feel less ashamed about seeking support themselves.
Psychotherapy offers men not simply a place to talk, but a place to begin understanding themselves differently. Often, it is the first relationship in which a man feels able to speak honestly about fear, grief, vulnerability, shame, loneliness, anger, love, dependency and emotional need without feeling judged, dismissed or emotionally unsafe.
Many men spend years carrying emotional pain silently and privately. If this article resonates with you, you can get in touch here or learn more about me here.