Men’s Issues | Better Mental Health: Princeton Counseling Service

Men have taken on a specific role in human development over the span of hundreds of thousands of years. While roles have very recently shifted somewhat, historically speaking, men have been the ones to fight the wars and build society. And if you think about it, it’s pretty hard to feel emotions, let alone process them, while on bloody battlefields and balancing atop giant skyscrapers.

You could say at this point in time, men have become hardwired to compartmentalize their feelings. They have them, just as much as women have feelings, they simply select to store them away and get to them later. For this reason, most men buck at the idea of going to therapy to communicate their feelings.

The reality is, it is for the very reasons I just stated that men can greatly benefit from therapy. Here are 3 reasons why men should at least give therapy a try:

Recover Your Sense of Identity

For many generations, there was a strong definition of, and acceptance of, masculinity. Today, we are given a mix of messages from the media about what it means to be a man and how destructive “toxic” masculinity is. Add to this the fact many men grew up in homes where the father was either fully absent or emotionally absent, and many men struggle with their own sense of identity. Therapy offers men a space to create a healthy definition of what it means to be a man.

Improve Your Relationships

Because men have a hard time communicating their feelings, their female partners can often feel abandoned and confused. This can cause real problems in the relationship.

Therapy allows men to become a healthier version of themselves, one that can connect better with their partner.

Deal with Grief and Pain

Grief, loss, trauma… these are sadly a part of life. Most people, especially men, have a very hard time navigating these mental health challenges. Therapy helps men explore their own emotional pain so they can heal and move on.

These are just a few reasons why men should seriously consider trying therapy. If you’d like to explore treatment options, please get in touch with me.

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You’ve no doubt heard the expression “men are from Mars, women from Venus.” And while we can all point out some major differences between the sexes, typically those differences all start in one major organ – the brain!

One of the biggest complaints women tend to have about men is that they sometimes seem emotionally unavailable or distant. This distance stems from what is called “compartmentalization.”

Men tend to compartmentalize their feelings and thoughts about, well, pretty much everything. If you were to look inside a woman’s brain, you might find a comfy quilt made from her thoughts and feelings, all stitched together. Women naturally process thoughts and feelings and integrate them into one cohesive “thing.”

Now if we were to take a look inside of a man’s brain, we’re apt to find a tool cabinet with almost infinite drawers. Men don’t integrate their thoughts and feelings. They tend to file everything away, each thought and emotion getting its own compartment where it sits until the man is ready to deal with it.

Compartmentalization Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

Historically speaking, men and women have played different roles within the home and society. Women, traditionally, have been responsible for raising healthy and functioning members of society. For this important task, they need to be able to think and feel at the exact same time. They need to have the skills that allow them to process and integrate thoughts and feelings.

Men, on the other hand, have traditionally been tasked with keeping the family safe, fighting the wars, and building societies, literally. These are incredibly challenging tasks and ones where it isn’t necessarily feasible to think and feel at the same time. When a man is on the battlefield, fighting the enemy and trying to stay alive so he can return to his wife and children, he doesn’t have the time or luxury of processing how he feels about having to kill others so that he doesn’t die.

In other words, compartmentalization is a natural coping mechanism for men. It has served them very, very well throughout history. Compartmentalization does not make men “bad.” It’s simply an evolutionary mechanism that has allowed men to cope.

Modernizing the Male Brain

Compartmentalization is a bit like our natural “fight or flight” mechanism. It served our ancestors well and helped keep them alive. But modern people no longer face the same life or death situations. We’re not, generally speaking, chased by wild mastodons or saber tooth tigers. These days we have mortgage payments and lengthy commutes. But our bodies still kick into “fight or flight” mode and we end up dousing our organs with stress chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol. This wreaks havoc on our health, causing diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

Fight or flight served its purpose, but it now tends to cause more harm than good.

Compartmentalization is similar. It definitely has served a great purpose, and it still can in certain situations. But generally speaking, compartmentalization can also wreak havoc on men’s relationships with women.

Learning to Decompartmentalize

If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a bunch of baby chicks, you know how hard it is to get them to all move in unison and toward a common destination. This is what it will feel like to decompartmentalize your mind. No one ever said becoming a more well-rounded man was going to be easy.

But in order to strengthen the relationship you have with the women in your life, you’ll need to be willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable for a little bit. You’ll need to begin to integrate your thoughts and feelings. Heck, you’ll need to even admit you have them!

Working with a therapist can be a great way for you to begin your journey. A trained therapist can give you the tools that will help you begin this important integration so you can feel a closer connection to women.

If you’d like to explore treatment, please reach out to me. I would be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.

SOURCES:

3 Reasons Why Men Should Try Therapy

Compartmentalization: How it Hurts Men’s Relationship with Women

Compartmentalization Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

Modernizing the Male Brain

Learning to Decompartmentalize