Fellow Men, Why Aren’t We in (Challenging) Therapy?

In talking to a number of women in my various communities about what they want to see more of from us men, one of the key things that keeps coming up is that we need to carry and work on our own emotional burdens.

As for my own story, I’ve finally started seeing a therapist and have been doing so for about a year, but that decision was decades late and my past partners and relationships, including friendships, have suffered as a result; I hope to inspire some of you to not wait any longer. Like many men, I went there for an urgent issue that came up, as in general I think of myself as a very introspective person who can figure it out on my own and doesn’t need help (hmm, how many of us have said that to ourselves before?). I stuck with it though, and I’m so glad I did.

Here’s a very specific example of how I’ve grown. A couple of months ago, I had an old friend visit me and tell me a story about a very difficult situation in her life that she wasn’t ready to discuss with her partner. The more she told of her story, the more agitated she became, and soon she started to cry. In therapy I learned that when strong emotions like this occur in others I feel the need to guide them away from it because of my own discomfort with strong emotion. I noticed this in the moment just as I was about to launch into some stories, comforting words, possible solutions, etc., starting out “well that reminds me of when…” but managed to stop myself mid-sentence.

What she needed was for me to listen, to ask questions, to let her feel those emotions. I awkwardly changed my mid-sentence statement into a broken but reasonable “…nevermind. Where — uh — when was the — uh — last time you saw him?” I then grabbed a box of Kleenex for her and let her continue, and kept asking questions until she was done — it turns out she had a lot more to say. When she was done, she made a point of saying how much she appreciated my having given her the space to tell her story and feel all the emotions she couldn’t in the presence of her partner.

I could not have done this without the growth I’ve had in the last year. This is one of many, many stories like this in that time, and I’ll tell more of those here in the months ahead. Multiple people have told me that they have appreciated the ways in which I’m engaging with them now, and have explicitly called out the changes they have seen, which has been incredibly gratifying. I still have a very long way to go and still screw up all the time, but I am glad I am on the path, and am more open to facing my screw-ups (and hearing feedback about them) now that I’ve started.

Beyond stories like this, for those who like bullet points, here are some concrete reasons we need to engage in the work of therapy:

• We all have blind spots. Think back to all the relationships, family struggles, work encounters, and friendships that didn’t work out the way you would have liked; we can all improve, and there can be tremendous personal benefit in your life, relationships, and even your career from doing this work. Nobody is perfect in all their interactions, and no matter how wise or introspective we are, we won’t be able to figure this out on our own.
• Therapy is not about being “crazy” or having “problems,” it is, as a dear friend put it, about “cleaning up our side of the street.” It’s about understanding our origin stories and how we react to things, seeing our patterns in all kinds of contexts, in ways both good and bad. Just because we got to where we are and feel satisfied with our position in life doesn’t mean that our work is done, or that all of our behaviors are good or helpful; we can all be better.
• Women go to therapy disproportionately more than men, which is sadly ironic given that as men we are socialized to avoid expressing emotions (other than anger), and as such have an even greater need to process, as we have fewer opportunities to do so. When we men do go, it tends to be for an urgent issue, i.e., “I’m trying to fix this problem” vs. working on becoming better in our interactions. A good therapist is much more like a personal trainer than a specialist doctor — they work to continuously challenge and improve us, not just diagnose and repair acute trauma.
• We need to take on the burden of our emotional work. In many relationships, and even when dating or with friends, we expect women to do the emotional work of the relationship, and also be the de facto therapists for us. This is exceedingly unfair — that is not their job. We need to take care of our own shit, as well as partner with them in working on the relationship.
• If cost is an issue there are many resources that make therapy available at low or no cost. I know of a few obvious ones myself, but there are many resources that are a quick web search away; I’d also encourage anyone with knowledge about particularly good options to add them as comments to this article.
• Last but not least, and I cannot emphasize this enough, therapy MUST be challenging to be useful. If our therapists are just listening and validating our behavior, we need to find someone better. Again, this is just like with a physical trainer — if a trainer just watched us work out and said “that’s fine” with whatever we did, we’d fire them instantly. We need to hold our therapists to the same standard. It should feel like work, not just a venting session, and we should expect to do substantial homework between sessions.

As a final note, if anybody wants to talk about this 1:1, concerning anything from the challenges of getting started and finding a therapist, what I’ve personally gained from it and the changes I’ve seen, to gauging whether your therapist is sufficiently challenging, please feel free to reach out. I’ve found it transformative, and would be happy to do what I can to help others get started or continue on their journey.

Let’s do this — let’s clean up our side of the street.