Men’s Mental Health, Loneliness, and What Actually Helps
There’s been plenty of headlines outlining the challenges men seem to be having.
As Scott Galloway has popularized, three quarters of suicides are completed by men, men are twelve times more likely to be incarcerated, and among 25-34 year olds, they’re lagging behind in higher education as well. According to the Pew Research Center, 47% of women have bachelor’s degrees compared to their male counterparts 37% (2024). Additionally, women seem to earn higher degrees as well – 62% of masters degrees are held by women (National Center for Education Statistics, 2023).
As a result of some of the conditions outlined above, it seems plausible that men are experiencing a status compression. Once proverbially positioned at the heads of boardroom tables and literally outnumbering their female counterparts in college classrooms, men are now being asked to share more of the power and access to resources than they have historically.
They’re also more lonely. According to the American Enterprise Institute, there’s been a sharp increase in men reporting they have “no close friends”, with five times as many men reporting this from 1990 to 2021.
If you raise (young) men, live with men, are in the business of supporting men, or are a man, then you’re probably already trying to sort out what’s happening on the front lines of what you’re experiencing.
Here are the trends as I have seen them unfold in our practice, and my viewpoint as a trained and licensed psychotherapist who's built a career working mostly with men:
The Problem (S.P.I.N.E)
- Shame
- Potential
- Isolation
- Negative Judgments
- Exiting
The (Potential) Solution (C.P.R-V):
- Connection
- Purpose
- Responsibility
- Validation
Shame:
I recently had a brief dialogue with a colleague, Korab Idrizi, on LinkedIn about shame. He noted that men are, "not taught to name the ‘smallness’ of shame, so [they] reach for the tools [they] know…anger or frustration.” I agree with this, as I see it unfold in practice all the time.
Parents will complain to me that their son is disrespectful, that they don’t listen, that they seem unmotivated, that they seem stuck, or that they seem lost. This causes parents to turn to behavioral management – parents trying to get their children to be more respectful, more motivated etc. They start telling, lecturing, nagging, and judging. When parents raise young men by engaging in behavioral management they inadvertently trigger the “smallness” that Idrizi outlined.
This is not to say that parents shouldn’t manage behavior, nor is it implying that parents not monitor their children’s behavior. It is merely to suggest that if you lead with behavioral management first, you miss the chance to connect with your son’s experience before changing their behavior.
Their behavior should be telling you a story. That story is often that they feel incapable, weak, insecure, unsure, or self conscious – that they are being perceived as a bad kid – that they are not safe, nor welcome. Their response is to either close up (see kids who feel/act stuck) or fight back (see kids who are disrespectful).
Be careful to not add fuel to the fire of shame by managing behavior without connection (more coming later on this). You’ll likely continue to reinforce a narrative of “not-good-enoughness” that they already battle with.
Potential:
“And that’s just it, Justin, we don’t get it, he’s smart, he has all the potential in the world – if he would just apply himself!”
I hear this all the time from parents raising young men. Again, the issue here is associated with the impact that this framing has on men.
You might be under the impression that framing "potential" to men is a good thing – it drives them towards reaching what is possible. However, that is only true if there’s a foundation from which men can reach for their potential. Men will not reach for what they are truly capable of achieving unless they simultaneously feel like it is safe enough to do so while also having the support of those closest to them to do so.
The frame of potential from above is not supportive – the tone is around what’s missing – not what’s already there. It’s about closing the gap on a deficit in performance, versus reaching for what’s possible.
When framed this way, few men will reach their potential.
Isolation:
This one seems obvious given the statistics from above, but men in general cope with powerful negative emotions by isolating versus connecting with others. Whether influenced by evolution or the zeitgeist of today’s social media omnipresence, men are isolating, retreating and exiting. The impact of attachment related traumas – that is – trauma that occurs at the relational level when men’s needs aren’t met – can result in shame and isolation as well.
The remedy to isolation is connection, which often can feel difficult if one is not equipped with the tools to master the resistance that one may get when they begin to try and connect with men. Again, we’ll work through how to do this below.
Negative Judgments:
“He’s spending all of his money and I need him to get a job.”
“He’s way too focused on girls and not enough on school work.”
These are just a few judgments I've recently heard from parents about their sons. While I believe it can be normal to disagree with some of what we see our children doing, and in turn, normal to impulsively joke, tease, or perhaps even judge them, parents should remain careful.
Good leaders, like good parents, and like good coaches too, don’t drive productive outcomes by judging. If they feel compelled to criticize, they are aiming at a targeted behavior that they believe can improve, not a general statement on the person's character or decision making.
For men in particular, sharp negative judgments have the added challenge of creating an environment where they choose to no longer collaborate with the person judging, effectively shutting out the ability to grow by that person's guidance. As you can imagine, this creates added tension in the relational system.
The guide continues to wish to guide, but the young man they want to access their guidance is not interested, is distant, or in some cases, doing the exact opposite of what the guide would want.
Exiting:
Which leads to the fifth problem: young men are choosing to exit. They are exiting relationships, exiting from applying themselves towards challenging and/or meaningful pursuits, exiting trying, and in some cases are simply becoming nihilistic.
When a person doesn’t perceive as though they have access to the opportunity for success, an odd phenomenon that psychologists call learned helplessness occurs.
Rather than continuing to subject themselves to effort after effort that leads to failure, they simply give up. From what I’ve seen, this giving up isn’t passive. It’s an active retreat to the exit of whatever it is that is causing the young man to perceive that the road ahead is only filled with chances to fail.
The (Potential) Solution (CPR-V):
Connection
In an era where I’m sure we all feel more disconnected than what we’d like, men seem to need connection more than most. In my work, simply having a venue where men can connect with someone like me or someone on our team seems inherently cathartic in itself.
From an evolutionary standpoint, we all feel best when we are surrounded by some form of community. This is why prisons use solitary confinement as a severe punishment – it hits on a psychological need we all have to be with people. By removing the ability to connect with others, we create extraordinary challenging psychological conditions.
If we are to support young men (and women for that matter) we must work extra hard to foster communities where they feel connected. While online communities serve that purpose, in person connection has irreplaceable value and is worth working towards.
Purpose
I spoke about this on my appearance on the Council of Dudes Podcast where I described how I believe that we live in a time where it’s never been easier to get your basic needs met and therefore, it’s never been easier to struggle to figure out what your higher-order purpose is.
When you remove the pull towards resolving practical challenges in one’s life – like acquiring food, shelter, friends, safety – your brain is automatically drawn towards needing to solve more existential questions.
The challenge that many men face is that they are either being drawn towards a sense of purpose that is associated with status games and therefore isn’t going to be fulfilling, or they are unclear around what their life’s purpose is.
In our work with young men, we challenge them to look critically at their values and encourage future focused reflection to help shape current behavior.
Responsibility
When the going gets tough, many men are abdicating responsibility – see “exiting” as a part of this trend, noted above.
Oddly, parents too are letting their young men off the hook by taking care of their son’s needs first. Seemingly worried about negative outcomes over their child’s growth, I’ve seen countless parents (mostly Moms) step in to micro manage. Some Moms write their son’s school papers, others have reported writing their son’s college essays, others still wake up their 17 year-old senior to get ready for school each day.
Even schools seem to be quick to accommodate, providing escape hatches for young men to shirk responsibility by offering them countless opportunities to redo assignments while also moving to include parents more quickly into challenging situations versus addressing things with the young man first.
Men thrive when they are put in charge of things. Young boys who are told to help out around the house feel a sense of accomplishment and contribution. Young men who have increased agency over the direction of their life lean into taking on more responsibility, not less. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, men who are put in positions to be responsible for others – as providers – caregivers – caretakers or protectors seem most inclined to thrive.
When we step in to solve men's challenges without first asking them to do some heavy lifting on their own, we’re inevitably trying to resolve our own anxiety while robbing them of the chance to not only grow, but to manage their own emotional distress. This pattern continues to unfold in our practice and is something that I’ve paid close attention to in trying to reverse it.
Put men in a position to be responsible and you may be surprised just how much they grow as a result.
Validation
The final element to turning things around with men is validating their efforts – in a way – this is an antidote to “negative judgments” and “shame” from above.
Chris Williamson has stated this well in my assessment. When working with men and men’s mental health, it’s important to toe the line, as I’ve tried to here, in asking men to rise to the occasion and take on more responsibility while also acknowledging that their self worth is not tied to outcomes and that those who are in support of them see their efforts.
I recently met with a 25 year old who talked about hiding his body insecurities. He was afraid to show the parts of himself he least liked about himself to others. Then he got into a relationship and was validated for feeling skittish about himself and trying to hide the parts he wanted no one to see. The feeling of being seen and accepted by his partner was like weight being lifted off him – a giant exhale – a feeling of knowing that he was okay, even if at times he didn’t feel like he was.
More men need to know that they are seen – that we know they are trying – that we see them working – thinking – plotting – analyzing. That we have high expectations for them AND believe that they are still working hard to become the best version of themselves.
I’m joining a colleague of mine, Laura Collins, for a totally free 20-minute discussion on the topic of men’s mental health and mental performance this coming Thursday, March 5th at 12:15 PM EST.
If you’d like to hop in and hear me expand on my model for supporting men (SPINE/CPR-V) then feel free to click here to RSVP!
Thanks for reading as always and if this resonates with you, forward this edition to a friend!
Time to win the week 🏆
See you soon :)
– J
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