New Article: Why Family Engagement Is Essential For Supporting Student Mental Health

Even today, various mainstream news and social media platitudinously state the obvious, that society must open up its collective minds and common dialogue when it comes to far more progressively addressing the challenge of more fruitfully preventing and treating mental illness in general.

But I find they don't adequately address the problem of ill men, or even boys, refusing to open up and/or ask for help due to their fear of being perceived by peers, etcetera, as weak/non-masculine.

The social ramifications exist all around us; indeed, it is endured, however silently, by males of/with whom we are aware/familiar or to whom so many of us are closely related.

Meantime, according to psychologist, psychotherapist and author Tom Falkenstein (The Highly Sensitive Man, 2019, Ch.1), “numerous psychological studies over the last forty years tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the ‘strong man’ is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. …

“In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others. …

“While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women.

"According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States.

“In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world. Men are more likely to suffer from addiction, and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don't receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.”

Although it may be only on a subconscious level, a societal/cultural mentality persists: Men can take care of themselves, and boys are basically little men.

It could be the same mindset that may explain why the book Childhood Disrupted only included one man among its six interviewed adult subjects, there presumably being such a small pool of ACE-traumatized men willing to formally tell his own story of childhood abuse.