Counseling for Men
Common concerns of Men: Why Men use Counseling
- Anger and anger management
- Depression / Stress / Anxiety
- Divorce and child custody / Parental alienation / Paternity fraud
- High risk of homelessness and suicide / Lower life expectancy
- Dangerous, high-risk jobs and workplace fatalities
- Educational inequalities / Financial hardship
- Military conscription / Selective service status (yes, it’s still a thing)
- Absence of services for Male victims of domestic violence (yes, this IS a thing)
- Societal intolerance and misandry / False misconduct allegations
- Disproportionately less funding and research on Men’s health issues
- Routine circumcision (genital mutilation)
What a Man gets from Male-friendly Counseling
Men’s counseling is purposed to empower men to overcome challenges, strengthen their emotional wellbeing, and improve their relationships. The Men’s counselor’s role is to provide guidance, support, and insight as men explore and navigate through their experiences and work towards positive changes. Men’s counseling helps men learn to recognize and deal with denial, supports men’s commitments to care for their body, teaches men how their minds work, and deepens their Spirit.
The Value of Individual Men's Counseling
Men need a sanctuary from the world for an hour a week. To slow down and breathe. To think and feel and be. To be with the depth of emotion and with the consequences of their decisions and actions. Men need time and space to learn about their essence in a non-judgmental way, where they’re respected and honored for who they really are and not dismissed for the chaos others claim they have created. Men thrive on respect, taking risks, acting with integrity and courage, being accountable, honest, and wise. Men have grace and compassion. Individual counseling for Men helps bring out these qualities of character in a Man.
Key aspects and approaches in Male-friendly Counseling
Here are some of the key aspects and approaches:
- A Male friendly approach that understands the importance of masculine gender dynamics and healthy male cultural norms that can impact men’s natural emotional experience and expression, acknowledging the expectations and pressures that men often encounter from powerful external societal forces.
- Learning views about emotions that recognize men’s emotions are commonly stereotyped, stigmatized and misperceived by society at large, as if men are defective in being human, due to having been wrongly socialized to suppress or downplay. Nothing could be farther from the truth about men. This perspective denies a legitimate openminded exploration to seek understanding of the natural ways a man’s emotional experiences develop and manifest in his life.
- Communication skills work that helps men develop effective communication behaviors to improve relations in their lives, since men may face challenges in their relationships due to ineffective communication patterns and behaviors in their relationship environment.
- Support that helps men navigate adaptations to the roles they assume during life’s difficult times. Men’s role during life transitions brings associated challenges and uncertainties. Throughout life, men experience various transitions, such as the joy of becoming a father, wealth or career changes, or dealing with loss of friends and family members, or facing health, aging and death.
- Exploring strategies that achieve body-mind-spirit balance in the existential struggle of prove worthy of being in the world. Meeting expectations of others, demands of work and personal life create stress and conflicts for men in the daily precarious grind of manhood.
- Anger management counseling that helps men understand, target, harness and integrate the mechanism of the emotion of anger. Men may struggle with anger-related issues, anger counseling and education addresses anger in a constructive manner, reducing its negative stigma and impact from misunderstanding the nature and purposes of anger.
- Setting that is confidential and private for addressing clinical mental illnesses that manifest as severe anxieties, depression, traumas or other forms of personal mental and emotional suffering and anguish. Most men are actually competent at figuring most things out on their own, and because they see that most therapists are female, some men are less likely to seek professional psychological help for their life concerns unless they can speak with another man that they trust.
- Developing a positive and realistic attitude for life that generates self esteem and a true sense of purpose and worth through helping others.
- Focusing on personal growth and development that encourages men to set and pursue meaningful goals and aspirations in their lives.
