New Psychotherapy for Men

"From childhood onward, men appear to be at risk. Infant males aremore likely to undergo complications during labor and delivery andto have more birth defects. Boys often manifest behavioraldifficulties and learning disabilities in elementary school. Byeighth grade, boys are only half as likely as girls to aspire to bea professional or career person; boys are nine times more likely tosuffer from hyperactivity and more than twice as likely to besuspended from school. Men are less likely to attend college and/orgraduate school than women. Compared to young women, young men arefour times more likely to be victims of homicide and five timesmore likely to kill themselves.

"Men suffer under a code of masculinity that requires them to be:aggressive, dominant, achievement oriented, competitive, rigidlyself-sufficient, adventure seeking, willing to take risks,emotionally restricted, and constituted to avoid all thingsperceived as 'feminine.' Such a code is bound to take a toll onmen's longevity. The average life expectancy for males in theUnited States is seven years shorter than that for women.Traditional male role traits inhibit men from seeking medical helpin the early stages of disease and from being sufficiently attunedto their own internal processes to detect early warnings ofillness." --from the Introduction.

Slowly, the truth emerges. In a society in which men are expectedto be strong, independent, aggressive, and impervious to emotionalstress, boys are nine times more likely than girls to suffer fromhyperactivity, young men are five times more likely to commitsuicide than young women, and men have far higher rates ofsubstance abuse and antisocial personality disorder than women.Clearly, many men are in need of psychological treatment andpsychotherapy. Ironically, however, the very qualities that areresponsible for many of their emotional and behavioral difficultiesmake it much more difficult for men to admit they have problems,seek professional help, or have faith in the efficacy oftreatment.

In New Psychotherapy for Men, leading figures in the field of men'spsychology explore the psychological sources of men's emotionaldifficulties and offer specific techniques to help therapistsovercome men's resistance to therapy. With the help of full-lengthcase studies, they trace the sources of emotional and psychologicaldisturbances in men and present new models for assessing andtreating men's unique emotional difficulties. This book illuminatesthe unhealthy aspects of masculinity through the lens of genderrole...