Teh One Who Knocks
01-25-2017, 12:26 PM
By Martin Daubney - Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/WufQSFqh.jpg
A new report that shows depressed men are turning not to their GPs for help, but to “quick fixes” like porn, sex and video games was always going to be clickbait gold.
So it proved this week, when Britain’s best-selling newspapers feasted on titillating findings from the British Psychological Society conference in Liverpool.
The report, “Sex Difference in Preferences for Psychological Treatment, Coping Strategies, & Triggers to Help-seeking” highlighted that 27% of stressed men turned to sex and pornography to help them cope, compared to 11% of women.
In contrast, 51% of depressed women comfort ate.
(Pictured above – volunteers complete a charity run for men’s mental health)
The Male Psychology Network’s Dr John Barry, of University College London, who co-wrote the study, said in The Sun: “The findings really play into the stereotype of a depressed woman gorging on chocolate and the man looking at porn on his computer.”
The message “men masturbate, women masticate” was a tasty titbit the tabloids could not resist.
But it also meant the most startling findings of the conference, reported in a second paper, went entirely unnoticed.
For it contained eye-opening evidence than could help address the male suicide epidemic: the leading cause of death in men aged under 45, that was recently addressed by Theresa May.
Are clinical psychologists and psychotherapists overlooking the gender-related needs of their clients? Dr Barry draws the stark conclusion that if we had more male therapists, we might save more men’s lives.
He told me: “Men are three times more likely to kill themselves, yet women are 50% more likely to seek professional help before taking their own lives. We know that 75% of women sought help before they committed suicide, versus only half of men.
“So we looked at the barriers to men getting help and found that some 16.5% of men wanted to see a male therapist. That means more men might get help if they were more able to talk to a man.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Research shows that men use porn to cope with stress. Does knowing this change how you feel about stories like this? <a href="https://t.co/9Ik7QoYBNb">https://t.co/9Ik7QoYBNb</a></p>— John Barry (@MalePsychology) <a href="https://twitter.com/MalePsychology/status/823294994064834560">January 22, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This isn’t sexist, no more than women preferring a female obstetrician. Indeed, of those female patients in Barry’s study who expressed a gender preference, 96% wanted to see a female therapist.
But there’s a problem – only 15% of clinical psychologists are male. Barry said: “It makes me think: if there were more male therapists, or if we changed the way women listen to men, could we save more men’s lives?”
Since just 19% of psychology undergraduates are men, it looks like the gender imbalance is here to stay.
Barry also believes society is conditioned to be less tolerant of depressed men.
“When men are depressed we sleep less, become irritable, abuse drink and drugs, play video games, use sex or pornography more, become aggressive, fight,” he continued.
“People don’t sympathise with men who are depressed because, frankly, often men act like idiots. So when we hear that men commit suicide at three times the rate that women do, you might be forgiven for thinking ‘so what – that’s three times fewer idiots on the planet'”.
This victim-blaming and pathologizing of masculinity as somehow problematic or toxic – the mindset that men are their own worst enemies – can lead to what Barry calls a “gender empathy gap”.
That’s why Barry and his colleague Martin Seager are pressing for a dedicated section Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.
An historic vote in April needs a mere 500 votes, or 1% of all British psychologists to green light it. But even that is not a given in a discipline that is more keen to address gender similarities than differences.
Seager tells me: “There’s a massive resistance to this, despite there being a very real need. If you talk about the needs of men, you’re made to feel like an unreconstructed Neanderthal.
“As psychologists we should be leading the way, but we’ve had to push against the system.”
Now the duo are pressing on with their vital mission to help save men’s lives.
Adds Barry: “I heard recently about a practice that didn’t have any male therapists, and this resulted in men refusing to come for therapy. But once they starting employing a male therapist it made a huge difference to their success in reaching men”.
“In therapy, men often talk about football, or jokey banter, which female therapists can interpret as men not taking therapy seriously. But male therapists know this is part of the trust-building process. Listen and talk to them as men, and it can make a huge difference.”
We should listen to inspiring voices like Barry’s and Seager’s, and look beyond the tabloids’ lurid obsession with depressed men gorging on porn or Call Of Duty.
We need to talk to depressed men on their terms, and not hector them to be more like women. We need to close, not widen, the gender empathy gap. Do that, and we might not only help depressed men to get help. We just might save their lives.
http://i.imgur.com/WufQSFqh.jpg
A new report that shows depressed men are turning not to their GPs for help, but to “quick fixes” like porn, sex and video games was always going to be clickbait gold.
So it proved this week, when Britain’s best-selling newspapers feasted on titillating findings from the British Psychological Society conference in Liverpool.
The report, “Sex Difference in Preferences for Psychological Treatment, Coping Strategies, & Triggers to Help-seeking” highlighted that 27% of stressed men turned to sex and pornography to help them cope, compared to 11% of women.
In contrast, 51% of depressed women comfort ate.
(Pictured above – volunteers complete a charity run for men’s mental health)
The Male Psychology Network’s Dr John Barry, of University College London, who co-wrote the study, said in The Sun: “The findings really play into the stereotype of a depressed woman gorging on chocolate and the man looking at porn on his computer.”
The message “men masturbate, women masticate” was a tasty titbit the tabloids could not resist.
But it also meant the most startling findings of the conference, reported in a second paper, went entirely unnoticed.
For it contained eye-opening evidence than could help address the male suicide epidemic: the leading cause of death in men aged under 45, that was recently addressed by Theresa May.
Are clinical psychologists and psychotherapists overlooking the gender-related needs of their clients? Dr Barry draws the stark conclusion that if we had more male therapists, we might save more men’s lives.
He told me: “Men are three times more likely to kill themselves, yet women are 50% more likely to seek professional help before taking their own lives. We know that 75% of women sought help before they committed suicide, versus only half of men.
“So we looked at the barriers to men getting help and found that some 16.5% of men wanted to see a male therapist. That means more men might get help if they were more able to talk to a man.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Research shows that men use porn to cope with stress. Does knowing this change how you feel about stories like this? <a href="https://t.co/9Ik7QoYBNb">https://t.co/9Ik7QoYBNb</a></p>— John Barry (@MalePsychology) <a href="https://twitter.com/MalePsychology/status/823294994064834560">January 22, 2017</a></blockquote><script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This isn’t sexist, no more than women preferring a female obstetrician. Indeed, of those female patients in Barry’s study who expressed a gender preference, 96% wanted to see a female therapist.
But there’s a problem – only 15% of clinical psychologists are male. Barry said: “It makes me think: if there were more male therapists, or if we changed the way women listen to men, could we save more men’s lives?”
Since just 19% of psychology undergraduates are men, it looks like the gender imbalance is here to stay.
Barry also believes society is conditioned to be less tolerant of depressed men.
“When men are depressed we sleep less, become irritable, abuse drink and drugs, play video games, use sex or pornography more, become aggressive, fight,” he continued.
“People don’t sympathise with men who are depressed because, frankly, often men act like idiots. So when we hear that men commit suicide at three times the rate that women do, you might be forgiven for thinking ‘so what – that’s three times fewer idiots on the planet'”.
This victim-blaming and pathologizing of masculinity as somehow problematic or toxic – the mindset that men are their own worst enemies – can lead to what Barry calls a “gender empathy gap”.
That’s why Barry and his colleague Martin Seager are pressing for a dedicated section Male Psychology Section of the British Psychological Society.
An historic vote in April needs a mere 500 votes, or 1% of all British psychologists to green light it. But even that is not a given in a discipline that is more keen to address gender similarities than differences.
Seager tells me: “There’s a massive resistance to this, despite there being a very real need. If you talk about the needs of men, you’re made to feel like an unreconstructed Neanderthal.
“As psychologists we should be leading the way, but we’ve had to push against the system.”
Now the duo are pressing on with their vital mission to help save men’s lives.
Adds Barry: “I heard recently about a practice that didn’t have any male therapists, and this resulted in men refusing to come for therapy. But once they starting employing a male therapist it made a huge difference to their success in reaching men”.
“In therapy, men often talk about football, or jokey banter, which female therapists can interpret as men not taking therapy seriously. But male therapists know this is part of the trust-building process. Listen and talk to them as men, and it can make a huge difference.”
We should listen to inspiring voices like Barry’s and Seager’s, and look beyond the tabloids’ lurid obsession with depressed men gorging on porn or Call Of Duty.
We need to talk to depressed men on their terms, and not hector them to be more like women. We need to close, not widen, the gender empathy gap. Do that, and we might not only help depressed men to get help. We just might save their lives.