By Alexander Sullivan, LCSW

For some reason, the idea of men going to counseling is considered foreign.  I’m not sure I can singlehandedly capture the complicated relationship between men and therapy, but I hope to be able to shed some light.  As men, we are often drawn to problems that have solutions. Flat tire? Change it. Running toilet? Fix it. Relational conflict? Resolve it (the process of how we resolve it varies greatly amongst men).  Men like solutions. We like results. We like answers. If we’re humble enough to say we don’t have the skills to fix something, we’ll begrudgingly call someone who does... but not before at least trying ourselves, am I right?

Now, I don’t want to play into all the stereotypical macho tropes of manhood, because I find it fails to represent most, if not all men.  But take a minute and consider if this is true for you. It feels good to move into a chaotic space and restore order. Isn’t this the very thing God does in the first three days of creation (Genesis 1:3-10).  Now consider the problems that can’t easily be solved. What about workplace or relational challenges that could blow up at any moment? What about kids misbehaving or getting themselves into trouble? Consider the unbridled anxiety that looms in the corners of your thoughts. Or depression that undermines your value?  How do we manage things like this?

I find in my work with men, I’ve observed that we tend to do a combination of the following:

Disengage - We remove ourselves from the problem and throw our attention into something which can numb to the sting.  Whether that’s self medicating or filling every empty moment of our time with something to avoid the silence. Sometimes the anger men feel is so hot they’re afraid of what may happen if it rages forward and they disengage to protect their loved ones.  

Overexert - In an attempt to regain our loss of control we become hypervigilant in controlling every little thing that is actually within our power to influence.  What’s worse, we will do just about anything to exert our power and bring things into the realm of our bidding.

Consider for a moment the first man, Adam.  No matter your religious or cultural background, we can view the biblical story of Adam as polemic to the issues of man.  Firstly, mankind is made to rule over the created world that was just created. At the pinnacle of creation, the man Adam is set in the garden and given two first tasks: make more people and rule over (to work and care for) this world (Genesis 2:15).  When he failed at the only thing he was told not to do, he and his wife hid from their God.  

Man was made to rule, but when “work and care for” became taking for himself, he hides.  Throughout the Bible you see story after story of mankind either taking for himself by manipulation or force OR running away from thing that needed to be dealt with.

Now, what does this have to do with mental health.  Well first, ruling over our lives is biblical. But rule means to care for and nurture, not to take for ourselves.  Overexerting is our tendency to wrestle things into becoming what we want. Disengaging is our tendency to remove ourselves from the thing we can’t bare to face.  But only when we assume a humble posture can we actually address the thing that plagues us. Often then, we see that we need to change in the process to become a better version of ourselves.  But in the process of trying to fix things ourselves, we can cause more damage and hurt those in our vicinity.

And the same way we cannot exert our will on or ignore a leaky pipe forever before it causes major damage, sometimes we need to seek out people who have the training to see the problems in a different light.  In counseling, a good counselor will help you identify what your patterns are and how they aren’t serving you. More than showing you what went wrong, you may be called into growing and becoming a greater version of yourself. The core of counseling is to grant you the space to go to the depths of your soul you may otherwise never visit and begin restoring order.  In cases where you’re dealing with serious mental health concerns, you may be equipped with the tools to be able to cultivate and care for your own life.