Contributor: Pouria Mojabi
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Mental health is highly context-dependent. Blanket solutions to mental health ignore our individual realities, which differ greatly based on where we're from, how we live, and what we experience.
Underutilization of mental health services deserves introspection through the lens of BIPOC and other marginalized population segments, but here we delve into why men seek help for their mental health at such low utilization rates across typical treatment modalities.
The emotional context of male existence
According to a meta-analysis of multiple studies, “women prefer to focus on emotions as a coping strategy more than men do.”
Help-seeking differences between men and women are clearly reflected in the data, and yet, as a society, we expect one set of tools to help men and women equally.
Men experience the gamut of human emotions, but the expressions of their emotional struggles point to a root lack of internal and external resources, through no fault of their own: anger management, addictions, loneliness, fear of rejection, and existential dread.
Too often, pride and culture keep men from engaging with or addressing their mental health, which keeps them from getting interpersonal support, developing coping strategies, and feeling normal for their regular, human feelings.
Unsustainable denial
How can men be expected to deal with their emotions – effectively or at all – when few are raised to talk about emotions in the first place?
When emotions aren’t noticed, they can’t be identified or processed – key factors in mental health maintenance. According to Mental Health America, “People who are good at being specific about identifying and labeling their emotions are less likely to binge drink, be physically aggressive, or self-injure when distressed.”
Men frequently struggle to engage with difficult feelings, employing counterproductive coping mechanisms or ignoring issues until they become crises. Illustrating this point, men are three times more likely to die of suicide than women.
For men to manage emotional health better, they need solutions that overcome stigma and other obstacles associated with existing mental health services.
Stigma as an obstacle to men’s mental healthcare
Men tend to dismiss their own struggles to avoid inviting judgement and societal messaging that holds sensitivity equates with weakness and feelings make men soft. Young boys get the message that emotions other than anger are unbecoming of men.
Men learn feelings are “bad,” which incentivizes denial. In addition to stigma’s impact on male self-esteem and its role in creating denial processes, it also perpetuates a society where men are afraid to seek help.
Why men don’t go to therapy
Some experts have pointed out the practice of psychotherapy was invented in a gendered way. Male psychoanalysts developed what would become our mainstream therapy approaches, for use on women, whom they viewed as weak and hysterical. Today, psychologists are predominantly female, and less than a third of people in therapy are male.
Men fear judgment for their attendance. As a UT professor of psychology acknowledges in an interview with VICE, “the classic image of therapy (sitting on a couch with the Kleenex next to it, in a room with turquoise walls) may not be the most welcoming place for traditionally-minded men.”
For men of color, instances of initiating or continuing therapy are even slimmer. According to the 2015 U.S. Census, 86% of American psychologists are white, with no lived experience of the struggles to be discussed in session. It’s no wonder then, that only 4.7% of U.S. mental healthcare utilization comes from Black patients, male and female.
How else do men seek mental health support?
If therapy doesn’t provide the necessary ease, flexibility, and de-stigmatized experience, what can men do to take ownership of their mental well-being? The Internet Age has brought many attempts at digital solutions.
First, meditation apps ascended to popularity. While good solutions for people already familiar with their own emotions, the idea of engaging in periods of stillness may feel insurmountable to men. A 2017 study out of Brown University even found that men who did participate in mindfulness exercises were less likely to benefit than women.
After meditation apps came the wave of online therapy apps. These removed physical barriers to therapy, especially groundbreaking in rural areas, but didn’t address the cost, stigma, mistrust, and need for scheduling related to therapy. These solutions also didn’t make the process more accessible to men specifically.
Chatbots were another wave of innovation that fell flat. Receiving randomized supportive messages doesn’t seem to make anyone feel meaningfully uplifted.
One other familiar alternative has seen high utilization in its high-tech evolution: support groups.
Peer support groups feel more comfortable for men......
While traditional, in-person peer support groups retain the barrier of accessibility, they do approach mental health in a way that seems to appeal more to men.
It can feel cathartic to let one’s guard down in front of other "regular guys," who aren’t likely to be scrutinizing or analyzing like a therapist would. Hearing others’ vulnerable, authentic statements counterbalances repression, removing the shame associated with male emotion.
As effective as in-person peer support groups may be, access is still a barrier. They require free time, local availability, and the fortitude to show one’s face.
Until recently, there wasn’t a reliable way to access the healing power of support groups, anonymously.
By moving peer support groups online, and removing personal identity and replacing it with anonymity, you can safely talk about anything you’re going through, once nobody knows who you are.
A better, more modern version of peer support groups for men
Mental health treatment for men should capture the effect of an in-person support group, except with flexibility, ease, and anonymity. As such, an iteration on the in-person peer support group model has emerged, addressing lessons learned from less accessible modalities: Supportiv, the anonymous peer-to-peer support network.
The on-demand anonymous peer support chats allow men to seek support when it’s convenient or top-of-mind (rather than on a schedule), and without risk of judgment, condescension, or identification, features that have been highlighted by male users, who constitute 53% of the service’s overall members. Instead of being instructed or infantilized, users are empowered. As one anonymous male user puts it: “They led me to formulate my own plan to fix my problem.”
In parting, any mental health tool should aim to address the needs and goals of the population it serves; and men are in particular need of such tools. As we learn more about the factors that make men more likely to reach out for support, we can continue to innovate empowering mental health solutions with minimal barriers to access.
Contact Pouria at: [email protected]