There’s a lot of evidence that modern CBT therapy just doesn’t really connect with men very well. Mainly because we don’t really tend to solve problems by “considering more gratitude” or “trying yoga at sunrise maybe?” (Was a legit suggestion when I had a therapist lol.)
Edit: yoga and exercise are awesome, and physical activity can be therapy in itself for many people! There’s some truth to the trope that some men like to hit the gym to deal with their complex feelings lol.
Men tend to want practical steps and solutions to things. And there isn’t a whole lot of practical solutions one person can try to repair the effects of an increasingly alienating society and collapsing socioeconomic structures.
Therapists can be very helpful, and by all means you should definitely try to find a good one.
But sadly when you realize a lot of your issues are circumstantial and practical though, things like “Well I’m depressed and anxious because I feel everything is out of my control, like layoffs and rent hikes.”…
…Sometimes it feels like the prevalent training and methodology seems to say “Well that sounds like a you problem.”
There’s a really good podcast about this called “It’s Not Just In Your Head”
And a YouTube guy “Dr. K” (actually a doctor btw) who runs a channel called "HealthyGamerGG.
The topic is definitely worth analysis and discussion, why therapy isn’t working for men in particular, as it’s often swept under the rug as just “Men being stubborn and toxic” or whatever, but there is a lot more at play here.
We need to make sure men are heard and cared for, before they get warped by all the “alpha grind real man” grifters that understand how they work, and use it for malicious means.
EDIT: I’m really glad this seems to have started a somewhat productive discussion! I want to clarify that I’m NOT tearing down CBT or therapy or yoga or anything!
I’m merely calling attention to certain blind spots I’ve experienced (and therapists have also been discussing) when it comes to how therapy is conducted, and how it might get better in dealing with how men tend to experience the world.
Again, therapy is great and I encourage you to try it. But I’m mainly talking about why men shy away from it, and how we need to seriously talk about how to help them before they start thinking people like Andrew Tate have their best interests at heart.
There’s a lot of evidence that modern CBT therapy just doesn’t really connect with men very well. Mainly because we don’t really tend to solve problems by “considering more gratitude” or “trying yoga at sunrise maybe?” (Was a legit suggestion when I had a therapist lol)
Source?
I’m asking because this sounds nothing like CBT that I did. I’m a woman, but it was gut-wrenching and scary to do exposure therapy. Nothing at all about yoga or gratitude… sounds more like traditional talk therapy to me.
I would give CBT a chance, honestly… I feel like you have some kind of misinformed opinion or maybe had a crappy therapist.
Edit: just for clarity, CBT is a type of talk therapy, but the stuff this person I’m replying to describes sounds more like traditional armchair therapist self-help-book Freudian therapy.
Maybe we have a slight misunderstanding about CBT?
CBT I’m referring to is “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”, not exposure therapy. I hope the exposure therapy was beneficial to you though. :)
Basic CBT I’m talking about is a talk therapy modality where the patient is trained to observe the cycle between their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and pay a bit more mindfulness to how they react to things.
I don’t wanna bash it! But my point is, sometimes men in particular are not raised to understand or differentiate their emotional feelings on a deep level, so this talk therapy alone doesn’t really give them something “actionable” to start solving the problem when you keep getting asked:
“So how does that make you feel?”
“Bad?”
“Why?”
It can be helpful and it certainly helped me! BUT alone, it also has a blind-spot where it’s not as helpful to the way men experience the world. Usually much more externally, and less “pondering feelings.”
I know I’m not articulating this the best way, there’s a lot of nuance, but I’m glad it’s started a productive discussion!
I’m merely saying it can be better, not trying to tear it down. :)
Do you have any evidence about men having issues with this sort of therapy or is that a personal observation?
Edit: honestly it sounds like you had a bad therapist experinece and that therapist has no idea what CBT is (and sorry to say, but neither do you particularly)
Lol funny how we seem to be carrying on different conversations in different threads. Anyway…
So first, sorry if the smilies come off as passive aggressive. I just talk like that because I’m emotive, and it helps to convey a cordial attitude on an increasingly hostile internet. _
Second, basic disclaimer, not a psychologist, sooo…
When I see papers like this, I’m inclined to believe CBT and exposure therapy are different techniques, if they’re being compared as such. But of course, the same practitioner can use different techniques and tools with the same patient.
But hey, if I’m wrong and this source is wrong, cool. I’m happy to learn something. To be frank, semantics don’t super interest me though.
So about men in therapy, my evidence is both personal experience, and secondhand reports from psychology professionals I don’t know personally, and isn’t gonna be revolutionary and mind-blowing.
I feel like my therapy experience between two or three therapists was…ok. But I very often felt misunderstood, and like there was a fundamental misunderstanding as to what I was on about at the root of the whole thing.
It’s an unpopular opinion, but people in general, even psychologists, either see no real reason to particularly understand men, or worse and more rarely, actively find them repugnant.
One of the hosts of “It’s Not Just in Your Head” mentioned this in an early episode.
He said he’s talked to other therapists who’ve straight up wearily declared “I can only do so much to help them, but it’s astonishing how many people’s problems would go away if they just…had more money.”
It’s a lot easier to train your mindfulness when you’re not in a constantly embattled state for increasingly scarce resources against a corrupt and uncaring system, isn’t it?
There’s a point when mitigations aren’t going to fix the long term stressors that are causing so many people to snap.
Situational depression is a real fucker. I understand what you mean. I grew up in the Middle East and everything was fucked right and left, people around me were depressed because of society, because of the economy, and because their lives never get better.
I had to move our of there and start healing myself, my brain, my ability to deal with whatever life throws me.
Shitty half assed suggestion but for real one of the original big motivations of yoga is that a lot of people struggle with meditating and “just clearing their mind”. Yoga isn’t just about physical strength and flexibility, it is also about providing a very direct physical practice to make the process of mentally reaching a meditative state easier.
I think it is a great compliment to therapy since in therapy you can talk about how best to rewire negative thought processes into positive ones and in yoga you can practice actually doing that while getting some good moderate exercise.
Oh yeah totes. Never meant to bash yoga or exercise! That was exactly my point, that it was a half baked self-help-motivational-book suggestion essentially.
Mainly because we don’t really tend to solve problems by “considering more gratitude” or “trying yoga at sunrise maybe?”
I feel like at some point all the therapists, at least Western ones, got together and decided that instead of helping men with practical advice and solutions, they would offer help that while being far less practical, would, at least hopefully, in some small way, make them feel a smidge bit better about the problems.
Will yoga at sunrise fix the issues? No. Will it help you feel better about them? That’s the hope. Because, unfortunately, a lot of issues are outside of our control, so the modern therapy approach seems to be centered on getting patients to focus more on the things within their control, like how the things outside of their control make them feel.
You’re right! This is a very pragmatic approach and I’m not bashing it.
It’s hard to articulate this properly, but if I’m bashing anything, it’s the empty corporate way that modern therapy has sometimes been co-opted by the self help industry.
“Oh your boss yells at you? Maybe try some mindfulness to let it go.”
It’s kinda sad because, from a personal experience, I’ve run into that wall where I fought the constant mindfulness battle, tried making my work stresses not bother me, knowing quitting and losing the income would be much worse, and that circle of crazy just never stopped.
But hey, it helped me hold on until I could quit, which was a practical move that seemed to solve a ton of my inner turmoil. :p
As far is i understand it, yes this is the point of therapy. I mean which problem could your therapist really solve? The can’t tell you what to do to get for example a better job.
They can help you to find the root cause of your problems and may help you find a way to solve them. However, as you said, many of the problems can’t be solved by oneself. But is it useful to be in depression over this? I don’t think so. Is it useful to be sad or angry about this? Yes, i do think so. In principle this feeling shows you, that there is a problem. This anger may help you in some situations to get what you want. I do not think therapists want you to do away with the feelings. But where they want and can help you, is that these feelings do not take full control over your thinking. For example, when you a lie in bed, these feelings do nothing good.
Anger is a catalyst for change. The problem is that, all too often the catalyst is used for destructive ends as opposed to constructive ends. And therapy can help to mitigate the chance that someone will use their anger to harm, but like the parable of the broken window, destruction can be creative.
Therapy is about the patient getting into a better, more positive, and happier mindset.
Happy people, don’t tend to get angry enough to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.
So yeah, there’s a correlation there, but if therapy was being used as a vehicle for “the man” (or whomever) to keep you from their oppression, IMO, therapy would be a lot cheaper, or free.
To me, since therapy isn’t free for so many people, that’s not it’s primary motivator. The main push for therapy is in self analysis and understanding the reason why you feel as you do. All in an effort to help the patient have more control over their emotions, and feel better overall, or process through things that may have been very disruptive to their mental well-being. Everything from a sudden job loss to childhood trauma.
I don’t think that any therapist would ever encourage you to stay in a situation that you were actively being harmed in (either mentally or physically). At worst, they wouldn’t tell you to stay in that situation, but also wouldn’t push you to get out of it, staying neutral. Bluntly, it’s not the job of therapy to tell you “that’s toxic and you should get out”, their job is to have you recognise that the situation you’re in is toxic and decide to exit that situation. They want to lead you to that decision, not make it for you.
Long story short, the sum total of therapy in my opinion, is to ask the tough questions and honestly pursue solutions to any problems you may have in your life. The therapist is just a guide on that path, but you must walk it. If that leads to finding a new job or getting out of a relationship or something of that nature, you have to make that choice; the therapist can help you see things in a better, more neutral light (untainted by your own perspective), and think about things more critically, but can’t and shouldn’t be simply telling you what to do.
This is a big reason why the stereotypical phrases we see in popular culture about therapists is that they’re sitting back, listening to you saying things like “how does that make you feel?” And “why do you think they did that?”… Because that’s what they’re doing, they’re forcing you to consider what other people may have been doing, or what their motivations were, and how it affected you. It helps you have perspective on what’s happening in your life and look at things in a way that makes sense, rather than just be frustrated by others constantly being demanding or whatever they’re doing.
Therapy, IMO, is 100% about the patient making sense of what’s around them and making good decisions about what to do next.
Simply put: you cannot control others and what they do, but you can control how you react to those people and how you allow them to affect you.
And how do you do something “practical” about it, with any ideology and not just anarchism? Becoming radicalized and aware of surrounding ideology doesn’t suddenly make you able to throw everything away, it doesn’t eliminate your need for food and roof over the head which is something you need money and a job for.
Fellow anarchist (Christian variety), and I hear you friend.
“Never suffer from the dread imposed on you” is a bit of a lofty promise! Oftentimes even with the best aims, somebody feels overwhelmed.
For example, I tried to rile up all my coworkers, and they agreed with me, but didn’t want to rock the boat. So nothing changed. And I left, not being able to singlehandedly turn tables on management myself.
I think you can be energized and feel a sense of purpose when you find your way to make positive change in the world absolutely.
But it’s still a fight, because everything is stacked against people who want more than just going round and round on the labor/consumption cycle. It doesn’t end. The System™ doesn’t need to sleep or vent its feelings on its path to consumption.
It wears on you after a while.
So my point is, therapy is great for discussing those feelings. But we often hit a brick wall where I was mentally handling things in a constructive, mature, self aware way, but there just wasn’t anything to be done because the circumstances just don’t stop wearing on you.
There’s a lot of evidence that modern CBT therapy just doesn’t really connect with men very well. Mainly because we don’t really tend to solve problems by “considering more gratitude” or “trying yoga at sunrise maybe?” (Was a legit suggestion when I had a therapist lol.)
Edit: yoga and exercise are awesome, and physical activity can be therapy in itself for many people! There’s some truth to the trope that some men like to hit the gym to deal with their complex feelings lol.
Men tend to want practical steps and solutions to things. And there isn’t a whole lot of practical solutions one person can try to repair the effects of an increasingly alienating society and collapsing socioeconomic structures.
Therapists can be very helpful, and by all means you should definitely try to find a good one.
But sadly when you realize a lot of your issues are circumstantial and practical though, things like “Well I’m depressed and anxious because I feel everything is out of my control, like layoffs and rent hikes.”…
…Sometimes it feels like the prevalent training and methodology seems to say “Well that sounds like a you problem.”
There’s a really good podcast about this called “It’s Not Just In Your Head”
And a YouTube guy “Dr. K” (actually a doctor btw) who runs a channel called "HealthyGamerGG.
The topic is definitely worth analysis and discussion, why therapy isn’t working for men in particular, as it’s often swept under the rug as just “Men being stubborn and toxic” or whatever, but there is a lot more at play here.
We need to make sure men are heard and cared for, before they get warped by all the “alpha grind real man” grifters that understand how they work, and use it for malicious means.
EDIT: I’m really glad this seems to have started a somewhat productive discussion! I want to clarify that I’m NOT tearing down CBT or therapy or yoga or anything!
I’m merely calling attention to certain blind spots I’ve experienced (and therapists have also been discussing) when it comes to how therapy is conducted, and how it might get better in dealing with how men tend to experience the world.
Again, therapy is great and I encourage you to try it. But I’m mainly talking about why men shy away from it, and how we need to seriously talk about how to help them before they start thinking people like Andrew Tate have their best interests at heart.
I doubt cock and ball torture would be well-received by many men.
LMAO how did I not get this. Particularly dense today. All the upvotes suddenly make sense.
LOL…wat?
©ock and
(B)all
(T)orture
Source?
I’m asking because this sounds nothing like CBT that I did. I’m a woman, but it was gut-wrenching and scary to do exposure therapy. Nothing at all about yoga or gratitude… sounds more like traditional talk therapy to me.
I would give CBT a chance, honestly… I feel like you have some kind of misinformed opinion or maybe had a crappy therapist.
Edit: just for clarity, CBT is a type of talk therapy, but the stuff this person I’m replying to describes sounds more like traditional armchair therapist self-help-book Freudian therapy.
Maybe we have a slight misunderstanding about CBT? CBT I’m referring to is “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”, not exposure therapy. I hope the exposure therapy was beneficial to you though. :)
Basic CBT I’m talking about is a talk therapy modality where the patient is trained to observe the cycle between their thoughts, feelings, and actions, and pay a bit more mindfulness to how they react to things.
I don’t wanna bash it! But my point is, sometimes men in particular are not raised to understand or differentiate their emotional feelings on a deep level, so this talk therapy alone doesn’t really give them something “actionable” to start solving the problem when you keep getting asked:
“So how does that make you feel?” “Bad?” “Why?”
It can be helpful and it certainly helped me! BUT alone, it also has a blind-spot where it’s not as helpful to the way men experience the world. Usually much more externally, and less “pondering feelings.”
I know I’m not articulating this the best way, there’s a lot of nuance, but I’m glad it’s started a productive discussion!
I’m merely saying it can be better, not trying to tear it down. :)
No, I’m confident about what I said. Exposure therapy is one part of CBT.
I did CBT for PTSD and death anxiety, the latter involving large bits of exposure therapy.
https://www.psychologytools.com/professional/techniques/exposure/
Do you have any evidence about men having issues with this sort of therapy or is that a personal observation?
Edit: honestly it sounds like you had a bad therapist experinece and that therapist has no idea what CBT is (and sorry to say, but neither do you particularly)
Edit: had to add the passive aggressive smiley :)
Lol funny how we seem to be carrying on different conversations in different threads. Anyway…
So first, sorry if the smilies come off as passive aggressive. I just talk like that because I’m emotive, and it helps to convey a cordial attitude on an increasingly hostile internet. _
Second, basic disclaimer, not a psychologist, sooo…
When I see papers like this, I’m inclined to believe CBT and exposure therapy are different techniques, if they’re being compared as such. But of course, the same practitioner can use different techniques and tools with the same patient.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3347982/
But hey, if I’m wrong and this source is wrong, cool. I’m happy to learn something. To be frank, semantics don’t super interest me though.
So about men in therapy, my evidence is both personal experience, and secondhand reports from psychology professionals I don’t know personally, and isn’t gonna be revolutionary and mind-blowing.
I feel like my therapy experience between two or three therapists was…ok. But I very often felt misunderstood, and like there was a fundamental misunderstanding as to what I was on about at the root of the whole thing.
So, afformentioned Dr. K has a good video about this (YouTube link, dunno how to share as Newpipe) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uf8bt6fGQyA
Found a thoughtful blog here that resonates as to the reasoning. I think he’s making sense. https://www.saltcitycounseling.com/post/why-do-men-do-so-poorly-in-therapy
And I can’t find the particular episode, but these fine folks discuss it sometimes. https://www.youtube.com/@itsnotjustinyourhead/
It’s an unpopular opinion, but people in general, even psychologists, either see no real reason to particularly understand men, or worse and more rarely, actively find them repugnant.
Hope this helps.
Nothing wrong with me that a million dollars or two wouldn’t fix.
One of the hosts of “It’s Not Just in Your Head” mentioned this in an early episode.
He said he’s talked to other therapists who’ve straight up wearily declared “I can only do so much to help them, but it’s astonishing how many people’s problems would go away if they just…had more money.”
It’s a lot easier to train your mindfulness when you’re not in a constantly embattled state for increasingly scarce resources against a corrupt and uncaring system, isn’t it?
There’s a point when mitigations aren’t going to fix the long term stressors that are causing so many people to snap.
Situational depression is a real fucker. I understand what you mean. I grew up in the Middle East and everything was fucked right and left, people around me were depressed because of society, because of the economy, and because their lives never get better.
I had to move our of there and start healing myself, my brain, my ability to deal with whatever life throws me.
I hope you’ve been able to heal somewhat, friend! I can hardly imagine how awful that must’ve been. I’m glad you got out.
I think another hard part of it is wanting to help. It feels so simple to help people, fix things, make it all better “if we only just…”
…and at the exact same time it feels insurmountable, especially when you need to take care of yourself and that’s its own battle.
Shitty half assed suggestion but for real one of the original big motivations of yoga is that a lot of people struggle with meditating and “just clearing their mind”. Yoga isn’t just about physical strength and flexibility, it is also about providing a very direct physical practice to make the process of mentally reaching a meditative state easier.
I think it is a great compliment to therapy since in therapy you can talk about how best to rewire negative thought processes into positive ones and in yoga you can practice actually doing that while getting some good moderate exercise.
Oh yeah totes. Never meant to bash yoga or exercise! That was exactly my point, that it was a half baked self-help-motivational-book suggestion essentially.
Bash yoga at your own risk… very flexible people will hunt you down and offer you some healthy snacks
Haha I do Capoeira, so the Yoga folks wouldn’t have to look very far! XD
I feel like at some point all the therapists, at least Western ones, got together and decided that instead of helping men with practical advice and solutions, they would offer help that while being far less practical, would, at least hopefully, in some small way, make them feel a smidge bit better about the problems.
Will yoga at sunrise fix the issues? No. Will it help you feel better about them? That’s the hope. Because, unfortunately, a lot of issues are outside of our control, so the modern therapy approach seems to be centered on getting patients to focus more on the things within their control, like how the things outside of their control make them feel.
You’re right! This is a very pragmatic approach and I’m not bashing it.
It’s hard to articulate this properly, but if I’m bashing anything, it’s the empty corporate way that modern therapy has sometimes been co-opted by the self help industry.
“Oh your boss yells at you? Maybe try some mindfulness to let it go.”
It’s kinda sad because, from a personal experience, I’ve run into that wall where I fought the constant mindfulness battle, tried making my work stresses not bother me, knowing quitting and losing the income would be much worse, and that circle of crazy just never stopped.
But hey, it helped me hold on until I could quit, which was a practical move that seemed to solve a ton of my inner turmoil. :p
As far is i understand it, yes this is the point of therapy. I mean which problem could your therapist really solve? The can’t tell you what to do to get for example a better job.
They can help you to find the root cause of your problems and may help you find a way to solve them. However, as you said, many of the problems can’t be solved by oneself. But is it useful to be in depression over this? I don’t think so. Is it useful to be sad or angry about this? Yes, i do think so. In principle this feeling shows you, that there is a problem. This anger may help you in some situations to get what you want. I do not think therapists want you to do away with the feelings. But where they want and can help you, is that these feelings do not take full control over your thinking. For example, when you a lie in bed, these feelings do nothing good.
Anger is a catalyst for change. The problem is that, all too often the catalyst is used for destructive ends as opposed to constructive ends. And therapy can help to mitigate the chance that someone will use their anger to harm, but like the parable of the broken window, destruction can be creative.
Therapy is about the patient getting into a better, more positive, and happier mindset.
Happy people, don’t tend to get angry enough to rise up and overthrow their oppressors.
So yeah, there’s a correlation there, but if therapy was being used as a vehicle for “the man” (or whomever) to keep you from their oppression, IMO, therapy would be a lot cheaper, or free.
To me, since therapy isn’t free for so many people, that’s not it’s primary motivator. The main push for therapy is in self analysis and understanding the reason why you feel as you do. All in an effort to help the patient have more control over their emotions, and feel better overall, or process through things that may have been very disruptive to their mental well-being. Everything from a sudden job loss to childhood trauma.
I don’t think that any therapist would ever encourage you to stay in a situation that you were actively being harmed in (either mentally or physically). At worst, they wouldn’t tell you to stay in that situation, but also wouldn’t push you to get out of it, staying neutral. Bluntly, it’s not the job of therapy to tell you “that’s toxic and you should get out”, their job is to have you recognise that the situation you’re in is toxic and decide to exit that situation. They want to lead you to that decision, not make it for you.
Long story short, the sum total of therapy in my opinion, is to ask the tough questions and honestly pursue solutions to any problems you may have in your life. The therapist is just a guide on that path, but you must walk it. If that leads to finding a new job or getting out of a relationship or something of that nature, you have to make that choice; the therapist can help you see things in a better, more neutral light (untainted by your own perspective), and think about things more critically, but can’t and shouldn’t be simply telling you what to do.
This is a big reason why the stereotypical phrases we see in popular culture about therapists is that they’re sitting back, listening to you saying things like “how does that make you feel?” And “why do you think they did that?”… Because that’s what they’re doing, they’re forcing you to consider what other people may have been doing, or what their motivations were, and how it affected you. It helps you have perspective on what’s happening in your life and look at things in a way that makes sense, rather than just be frustrated by others constantly being demanding or whatever they’re doing.
Therapy, IMO, is 100% about the patient making sense of what’s around them and making good decisions about what to do next.
Simply put: you cannot control others and what they do, but you can control how you react to those people and how you allow them to affect you.
Oh man, I can second HealthyGamerGG. Decent tips and aside from that also a pleasant fellow all around (at least that’s how he comes off in his vids)
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And how do you do something “practical” about it, with any ideology and not just anarchism? Becoming radicalized and aware of surrounding ideology doesn’t suddenly make you able to throw everything away, it doesn’t eliminate your need for food and roof over the head which is something you need money and a job for.
deleted by creator
Fellow anarchist (Christian variety), and I hear you friend.
“Never suffer from the dread imposed on you” is a bit of a lofty promise! Oftentimes even with the best aims, somebody feels overwhelmed.
For example, I tried to rile up all my coworkers, and they agreed with me, but didn’t want to rock the boat. So nothing changed. And I left, not being able to singlehandedly turn tables on management myself.
I think you can be energized and feel a sense of purpose when you find your way to make positive change in the world absolutely.
But it’s still a fight, because everything is stacked against people who want more than just going round and round on the labor/consumption cycle. It doesn’t end. The System™ doesn’t need to sleep or vent its feelings on its path to consumption.
It wears on you after a while.
So my point is, therapy is great for discussing those feelings. But we often hit a brick wall where I was mentally handling things in a constructive, mature, self aware way, but there just wasn’t anything to be done because the circumstances just don’t stop wearing on you.