Mental Health

I recently had new business cards printed. They read: “Jed Diamond, PhD—Helping men and the women who love them since 1969.” My career helping men began on November 21, 1969 when I held my newborn son in my arms and made a vow to be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and do everything I could to help create a world where fathers were fully healed and involved with their families throughout their lives.

            Although I had worked in the mental health field for many years and written fifteen books, I only recently was able to tell the whole story about my father’s mental illness and the healing journey that saved his life. In my 16^th book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound, I quoted men’s health advocate Roland Warren who said,

“Kids have a hole in their soul in the shape of their dad. And if a father is unwilling or unable to fill that hole, it can leave a wound that is not easily healed.”

            It took me a long time to realize I was a kid with a hole in his soul and that I had tried to fill it by making money and becoming a success in my profession but had avoided the real work of addressing my father wound. I came to see that my father wound was really a family wound that impacted multiple generations. I wanted to be sure I didn’t pass on the wounding to my own children and grandchildren.

            I learned that the wound is there for many who grew up as I did with a mother who did her best to raise me after my father had left when I was five years old. But many experience the wounding in other ways.

“A father may be physically present, but absent in spirit,”

says psychologist James Hollis.

“His absence may be literal through death, divorce, or dysfunction, but more often it is a symbolic absence through silence and the inability to transmit what he also may not have acquired.”

            I was told that my father had “a nervous breakdown” and was committed to the state mental hospital for treatment. It was only years later when I found the journals my father had kept during the years leading up to his hospitalization that I got a glimpse into his mind and what led to the despair that overwhelmed him. Here are a few excerpts:

July 3:
“Oh, Christ, if I can only give my son a decent education—a college decree with a love for books, a love for people, good, solid knowledge. No guidance was given to me. I slogged and slobbered and blundered through two-thirds of my life.”

July 24:
“My dear wife, my beautiful son, I love you both so much, but how do I get the bread to support you? The seed of despair is part of my heritage. It lies sterile for months and then it gnaws until its bitter fruit chokes my throat and swells in me like a large goiter blacking out room for hopes, dreams, joy, and life itself.”

August 8:
“Sunday morning, my humanness has fled, my sense of comedy has gone down the drain. I’m tired, hopelessly tired, surrounded by an immense brick wall, a blood-spattered brick world, splattered with my blood, with the blood of my head where I senselessly banged to find an opening, to find one loose brick, so I could feel the cool breeze and could stick out my hand and pluck a handful of wheat, but this brick wall is impregnable, not an ounce of mortar loosens, not a brick gives.”

December 8:
“Your flesh crawls, your scalp wrinkles when you look around and see good writers, established writers, writers with credits a block long, unable to sell, unable to find work, Yes, it’s enough to make anyone, blanch, turn pale and sicken.”

February 24:
“Faster, faster, faster, I walk. I plug away looking for work, anything to support my family. I try, try, try, try, try. I always try and never stop.”

June 12:
“A hundred failures, an endless number of failures, until now, my confidence, my hope, my belief in myself, has run completely out. Middle aged, I stand and gaze ahead, numb, confused, and desperately worried.

“All around me I see the young in spirit, the young in heart, with ten times my confidence, twice my youth, ten times my fervor, twice my education. I see them all, a whole army of them, battering at the same doors I’m battering, trying in the same field I’m trying. Yes, on a Sunday morning in June, my hope and my life stream are both running desperately low, so low, so stagnant, that I hold my breath in fear, believing that the dark, blank curtain is about to descend.”

I grew up wondering what happened to my father and when it would happen to me. I did go to college and graduated with honors as my father hoped I would and later received a four year, full-tuition, fellowship to U.C. San Francisco Medical School. I hoped to become a psychiatrist and I naively thought that if I could get educated enough I would learn the magic that would protect me from whatever disease had infected my father.

When I arrived at medical school in 1965 with dreams of becoming a healer, it was clear that this was mostly a place for white men. There were few minorities and even fewer women. Before classes began the scholarship students were wined and dined at a faculty home in elegant Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco. The message soon became clear: You are the elite and chosen ones. Follow the rules, do what you are told, don’t rock the boat, and this will all be yours someday.

Coming from a working-class family whose parents were radical politically and active socially, this was the wrong message for me. I also realized that what I was learning in medical school offered very little about the causes and treatment for what ailed my father. I decided to leave and transfer to U.C. Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare.

However, before I could leave I had to see a psychiatrist. From their perspective, anyone who wanted to leave medical school, give up a full-ride scholarship, and go into social work, must be crazy. I left anyway. You learn the rest of the story in my book, My Distant Dad, and in my on-line course, “Healing the Family Father Wound.”

            Leaving medical school and going into social work not only seemed crazy at the time to the psychiatrist I was forced to see, but also to my friends and family who were looking forward to having “a docta in the family.” But it was the right choice for me. It has offered a career that has been meaningful and fulfilling in all the ways that count. I have also made a great living doing what I love to do.

            In 2021, I was sent a review copy of a new book, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It, who was at the time a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. I interviewed Reeves and his experiences mirrored my own.

“When I was thirteen, my father lost his job,”

he said.

“He was hardly alone: this was in the early 1980s in the UK, and he worked in manufacturing. It took months for him to find work. Each morning he would appear at the breakfast table, freshly showered, in a shirt and tie. Then he would go to his desk to check for new job postings and send out résumés.

One day I asked him, ‘Why do you still dress so smartly when you don’t have a job to go to?’ He looked at me and said, ‘I do still have a job. My job is to get another job so I can take care of all of you.’ I’ll never forget that moment. I saw, for the first time, that Dad’s job wasn’t just that mysterious thing he went off to do every morning. It was a manifestation of the relationship of care between him and the rest of the family.”

In Of Boys and Men, Reeves shares ideas that parallel my understanding about the nature of the problem we face.

“It became clear to me that the problem of boys and men are structural in nature, rather than individual; but are rarely treated as such. The problem with men is typically framed as a problem of men. It is men who must be fixed, one man or boy at a time.”

Reeves goes on to say,

“Men are struggling in the labor market because of an economic shift away from traditionally male jobs. And fathers are dislocated because the cultural role of family provider has been hollowed out. The male malaise is not the result of a mass psychological breakdown, but of deep structural challenges.”

Why You Might Want To Consider Men’s Mental Health As A Career Choice.

            Reeves recently founded the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) to inform policy and public dialogue with non-partisan research so that boys and men from all backgrounds can lead healthy, happy, and meaningful lives. He offers the following information about the health needs of boys and men. In January 2024, AIBM issued a report titled “Where Are the Men? Male Representation in Social Work and Psychology,” detailing the following information:

• Mental health needs are pervasive among men, yet the share of men meeting those needs in mental health professions is low and declining.

• Boys and men are currently much less likely to receive treatment for mental health conditions. In 2022, 27% of women reported receiving mental health treatment in the previous 12 months compared to only 16% of men.

• There is strong evidence that socialization and norms contribute to men’s reluctance to seek out the care they may need.

• At a time when suicide among men is at an all-time high, the share of men working in mental health-related professions has recently reached all-time lows.

• In 1968, men made up approximately 38% of the social work workforce, compared to 18% in 2023. The psychology workforce has seen a particularly large drop in the share of men, falling from 68% in 1968 to 20% today.

• This trend appears set to continue. In 2023, the mean age of male psychologists was 60, compared to a mean age of 47 for female psychologists.

• If the downward trend in male representation were to continue at the same average rate as since 1968, the psychology profession would have no men at all by 2046, and the social work profession would be male free by 2070. Obviously, these are simple extrapolations rather than predictions, but serve to illustrate the sharpness of the decline.

• The decline is not receiving much policy attention, especially by comparison to the justified focus on the share of women in STEM and other historically male-dominated occupations.

Chapter 11 of Reeves book Of Boys and Men is titled, “Men Can Heal: Getting Men into the Jobs of the Future.” He says,

“The gender desegregation of the labor market has been almost entirely one way. In particular, the share of men in HEAL occupations—remains stubbornly low.”

He quotes Gloria Steinem who said,

“We can do anything that men can do.”

Reeves goes on to say,

“But men are NOT saying ‘We can do anything that women can do.’ More men can certainly do HEAL jobs. And given the trends in the labor market, they must.”

For years I have been a leader in the emerging field of gender-specific healthcare and have offered two previous trainings for those who would like to enter this emerging field. I am now developing a new training program which I will be offering in the coming months. If you would like more information, you can send me an email to Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Men’s Mental Health Training” in the subject line.

If you would like to learn more about Richard Reeves work, you can contact him through the American Institute for Boys and Men.

If you would like to receive my free weekly newsletter with articles you can use to improve your mental, emotional, and relational health, you can do so here.

The post Why Men’s Mental Health is the Career Choice for the Future appeared first on MenAlive.

My father was a wounded angry man. When I was five years old he swallowed a quantity of sleeping pills believing his family and the world would be better off without him. Luckily he survived and was sent to Camarillo State Mental Hospital, but our lives were never the same again. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and how I could keep it from happening to other families. I am happy to say my father not only survived but thrived and I was able to share our story in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound.

            I swore I would never reach the point of despair that my father experienced, but after two failed marriages and a third one in trouble, I was feeling desperate and almost gave up. Luckily, my wife and I were able to learn how to transform our relationship. (See my welcome message at MenAlive.com, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor”).

            What helped us immensely was a book by Harville Hendrix and his wife Helen LaKelly Hunt, Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples. Over the years, Harville and Helen have become friends and colleagues and I’ve had the privilege and honor to interview them numerous times for my podcasts. Most recently I interviewed Harville on July 11, 2024.

            You can listen and watch our interview here.

            Our conversation ranged over many areas including our gratitude to the philosopher Martin Buber for his early work understanding human relationships and healthy dialogue.  In my book, The Warrior’s Journey Home: Healing Men, Healing the Planet I talked about Buber’s contribution to humankind.

“In his book, I and Thou, Buber describes two kinds of human relationships, I-It and I-Thou. In relation to nature, ourselves, and God, I-It sees us as separate. Others are to be used for our benefit. I-Thou sees us as involved in a sacred relationship of communion. Others are to be respected and cherished.”

            As Buber says,

“Love is the responsibility of an I for a Thou.”

In The Warrior’s Journey Home, I noted that for most of our human existence, for at least two-million years, humans lived in intimate connection with nature. It has only been relatively recently, in the last ten-thousand years, that we have moved from our relationship to nature as a partnership and come to see our role as one of control and domination.

            I quoted Joseph Campbell in his book, The Power of Myth, says

“The Indians addressed all of life as ‘thou’—the trees, the stones, everything.”

He goes on to say,

“You can address anything as ‘thou,’ and if you do it, you can feel the change in your own psychology. The ego that sees a ‘thou’ is not the same ego that sees an ‘it.’”

            In my interview with Harville he said,

“Martin Buber was the first one since Socrates to do anything substantive on dialogue. When I-Thou was published in 1925, Buber was a conduit for a new way to be in the world. But Buber didn’t operationalize it, that was something that Helen and I have done with our work helping couples over the years.”

Safe Conversations and Quantum Connections

            Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., and his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, Ph.D., began by asking,

“Why do couples fight?”

What they discovered led them to develop a simple process of taking turns talking and listening in a structured way that creates safety in relationships. They found it works in ANY relationship, and they began teaching workshops to share the life-changing process. Now they are bringing what they have taught couples how to do in improving their relationships to all the other areas of human life.

            At their website, Safe Conversations/Quantum Connections,  you can learn about how Harville and Helen intend to teach 2.4 billion people, in the next twenty-five years,  the simple practices that can literally save the world between now and 2050. They say,

“Quantum Connections brings the transformative power of Safe Conversations Dialogue Methodology and Tools to small businesses, large corporations, global communities, educational institutions, and community organizations, along with individuals, couples, and families.”

            In their newly released book, How to Talk with Anyone About Anything: The Practice of Safe Conversations, Harville and Helen say,

“Most of us have felt invisible, unheard, devalued, and disconnected at one time or another. The fact is that we are wired to connect. It is not something we can do or stop doing. We are connecting beings. It is our nature.”

            They go on to say,

“So why have so many of us experienced disconnection in recent times? We have become polarized politically and socially to the point that many feel they are invisible and vulnerable. In response, they go into self-protection mode and become defensive, because we all need to feel that we are valued and part of something bigger than ourselves.”

Why Healing Men is Important

            I have been working with men and their families for more than fifty years. My work focuses on men for a number of reasons. First, my own experience and studies from around the world show that males die sooner and suffer from major diseases at rates higher than those of females. Second, the more I’m able to help men, the better things are for women and children. Third, unhealed men pose a major threat to the well-being of all.

            The comedian Elayne Boosler captures this reality in a humorous and insightful observation.

“When women are depressed they eat or go shopping. Men invade another country. It’s a whole different way of thinking.” 

            Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat, author of Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present describes the danger that certain men pose to their country and the world.

“Ours in the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protection of democracy.”

            It is not by accident that each of the seventeen “protagonists” she describes in the book are male, including Benito Mussolini, Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Putin, and Donald J. Trump.

“They use masculinity,”

says Ben-Ghiat,

“as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. Taking what you want, and getting away with it, becomes proof of male authority. They use propaganda, corruption, and violence to stay in power.”

            Richard V. Reeves, founder of The American Institute of Boys and Men, calls the upcoming U.S. election, “The Masculinity Election.” He goes on to say:

            “The 2024 vote was set to be a referendum on the rights of women. Instead it has become a debate over the needs and desires of men. The question now is which model of manhood will win in November. The macho brawler of the Trump-Vance ticket, or the kindly ‘girl dad’ offered by Harris and Walz? The fighter or the coach?”

            Reeves cites statistics showing a significant gender gap in voting intentions:

• Among likely women voters, Harris leads Trump by 14 points (55% to 41%) in the latest New York Times/Siena College poll while Trump leads by 17 points among men (56% to 39%).

• The gender gap among younger voters is especially stark, with women under 30 moving left while their male peers move right.

            My own work over the last fifty-plus years is that men desperately want and need the healing I found in a men’s group that teaches and practices the kind dialogue that Harville Hendrix and Helen LaKelly Hunt plan to bring to the world. Our group has been meeting now for 45 years and hopes to continue meeting for the rest of our lives.

            Truly we need a men’s health revolution and I look forward to working with Harville and Helen to help bring it about. You can reach Harville and Helen here. You can reach me at MenAlive.com and MoonshotForMankind.org.  

The post Healing The Wounded Angry Men of the World Using The Revolutionary Tools of Safe Conversations appeared first on MenAlive.

            My long-time friend and colleague, Steve Horsmon, founder of Good Guys 2 Great Men, invited me to speak to a group of guys who have been involved with their program for some time. He said in an email,

“Our topic is about the importance of CONNECTION. The men would love to hear what you think, feel, and advise around this topic specifically for men who are looking to improve their experience of life and to be more conscious in how they are living. I know you could talk for hours, but a 20-30 minute conversation with all of us would be fantastic.”

            As Steve knows I have been helping men and their families for more than fifty years. Trying to share something helpful in 20-30 minutes was a challenge. I began by sharing these thoughts. It has been said that the two most important days of our lives are the day we were born and the day we found out why.

            I was born on December 21, 1943 (for those who don’t want to do math that makes me 80+ years old). The day I found out why occurred November 21, 1969, the day I held our first son, Jemal, in my arms shortly after he was born. I made a vow to him that I would be a different kind of father than my father was able to be for me and to do everything I could to create a world where fathers were fully healed and involved with their families throughout their lives.

            I started working in what has become the field of gender-specific healing and men’s health shortly after I graduated with a master’s degree in social work from U.C. Berkeley in 1968 (I later went back to school and earned a PhD in International Health and did my dissertation research on men and depression, which was published as a book, Male vs Female Depression: Why Men Act Out and Women Act In.

            I write regular articles for those who subscribe to MenAlive.com and have written seventeen books including international best-sellers Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places, Male Menopause, and The Irritable Male Syndrome. I offer private counseling for a few clients who need, and can benefit, from my unique skills and experiences. I also have created a number of self-guided courses including “Navigating the 5 Stages of Love,”  “Heal The Irritable Male Syndrome,” and “Healing the Family Father Wound.”

            I have found that there are six relationship successes that all men hope to achieve during their lifetimes. I said they all require a great deal of learning and support, which is why the first rule in my book, 12 Rules for Good Men, is “Join a Men’s Group.” Men don’t necessarily address these six issues in the same order I did and we often address each one multiple times in our lives before we achieve ultimate success:

• Becoming a Great Father.

            Whether we have biological children of our own, acquire them when we marry someone who already has children, or we mentor children in other ways, we must learn to be great fathers. For me it began immediately after Jemal was born. Up until then, my main focus was on work and my vision of being a great father began and ended with being a good provider and role model.

            But with Jemal’s birth, I took two weeks off from work and stayed home to connect with our son. I helped with diapers, feeding, and late-night rocking to help him to sleep. But I learned a life-lesson about being a dad when my wife decided she needed a break from mothering after Jemal was a year old and went on a week-long “vacation” with a girlfriend.

            Although I had practiced the basics, I always knew my wife was there and I believed that women had some special mothering gene built in to tell them what to do in every situation. I knew that men didn’t have that build-in wisdom. So when my wife left, I felt terrified. But when you are alone with a one-year-old, even for a week, you figure things out and I learned that neither females nor males have any genetic wisdom, but we can all learn to be great parents. I learned I didn’t have to parent like my wife. I just had to learn to do it my way.

            My wife and I now have six grown children (including an African-American daughter my first wife and I adopted when Angela was 2 ½ months old), seventeen grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. Our daughter has gifted us with a great deal of wisdom, including the challenging and beautiful realities of life and what it means to be a father, grandfather, and great grandfather to African American progeny.

• Finding Your Calling and Taking It to the Limit.

            I’ve learned that the old idea of “do what you love and follow your bliss” has serious limitations. My career and later my calling evolved over time and began with a promise I made to my children and had little to do with finding a job I loved. My first job was working with drug addicts. I created a residential treatment program called “Our Family.”  It is not too far fetched to recognize that my developing commitment and skill to be a great father translated to my work in the world.

            After five years founding and directing what became a successful residential treatment program for men and women with addiction problems, I applied for and was hired as one of first County Drug Abuse Program Directors, where I worked with local government and private sector community members to develop a whole range of programs in San Joaquin County.

            As my two children got older, I eventually joined a men’s group to get support for the stresses and strains of trying to balance being a great dad with doing work that was meaningful. My work has continued to evolve just as my children have grown and changed and both have been enriched by my men’s group.

• Connecting With Your Tribal Brothers.

            In Indigenous communities throughout human history when young boys reach a certain age, traditionally between age 10 and 12, they are taken from their mothers and are initiated into the world of men. Once they complete their initiation into manhood they go on to take their place in the tribe having been tested and successfully passed a test that allows them to feel confident in who they are.

            This group of boys and later men are forever bonded. They will eventually find a mate and have children of their own, but the bond they make as boys continues on throughout their lives. One of the great tragedies of modern life is that most of us have never been initiated into manhood. The result, as Robert Bly, describes in his book, The Sibling Society.

“This is not about siblings in a family,”

says Bly.

“We’ll use the word sibling as a metaphor, a lens, bringing into focus certain tendencies, habits, and griefs we have all noticed.”

            Bly goes on to address a problem of males who have never grown up and are perpetual children, though they appear to be adults.

“Adults regress toward adolescence and adolescents—seeing that—have no desire to become adults…Perhaps one-third of our society has developed these new sibling qualities. The rest of us are walking in that direction.”

            I found a different direction when I joined a group of guys following a one-day workshop led by the psychologist Herb Goldberg, author of the book, The Hazards of Being Male. Our group has been meeting now for many years and we’ve learned to become a band of tribal brothers. My wife, Carlin, says that the main reason she feels we have  had a successful 44-year marriage, is because I’ve been in a men’s group for 45 years. I wrote about our journey in my book, 12 Rules for Good Men.

• Finding and Keeping Your Soul Mate From Here to Eternity.

            The idea of finding our soulmate has become somewhat of a cliché, but it is very real in my life. If you visit my website, MenAlive.com, you will see my welcome video, “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” Carlin and I had both been married twice before and had children from our previous marriages when we met, fell in love, and eventually got married.

            Like all couples, we’ve had our challenges, not the least of which has been to learn to blend two families together and deal with our ex-spouses. She has been in women’s groups and my men’s group has been a great gift in helping me grow up and how to be a true partner in life.

            Last year, Carlin slipped on a wet sidewalk and broke her hip. The repair surgery was successful, but she suffered a stroke when her blood pressure dropped too low during the surgery. She is doing well, but we are both getting older. She is 86 and I will be 81 in December. The great gift of our long and beautiful relationship is learned to be caregivers as well as caretakers for each other as we face the challenges and lessons that are with us every day as we face the realities of disability and death as well as the joy of living every moment to the fullest while we are here.

• Standing Up To the Destructive Dominators When Your Time is Called To Act.

            My friend and colleague Riane Eisler wrote a powerful book some years ago called The Chalice & the Blade: Our History, Our Future, in which she describes two systems that have been part of human existence for the last ten thousand years:

            “The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy—the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations are primarily based on the principle of linking, rather than ranking, may best be described as the partnership model. In this model—beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female—diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.”

            Depending on what period of human history we are born into, we all must make decisions about whether we will go along with the crowd or stand up those in the world who would dominate and destroy.

            Being born in 1943 during World War II, I experienced the battle between freedom and partnership and a totalitarian model of domination that had occurred with the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. I came of age when my own country got embroiled in Viet Nam and I became a war protestor. Most recently I recognized the dangers of a man who was voted out of office, but refused accept the election results, and now wants to be the next dominator-strongman.

            I first warned about the danger in an article published on May 7, 2016 titled “Why Donald Trump Will Be Our Next President.” Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat warned about the danger in her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present, published in 2020. She said, “For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy. They use masculinity as a symbol of strength and a political weapon. They promise law and order, then legitimize law-breaking by financial, sexual, and other predators.”

• Becoming the Man You Were Meant to Be.

            Throughout our lives, each of the first five relationships help hone who we are as men. They help us become our true selves. From the moment of conception we have within us ancestral elements from a line of women and men (biologically, in the form of an X chromosome which we receive from our mothers and a Y chromosome we receive for our fathers). There are ten trillion cells in the human body and everyone is sex-specific, with either an XY set of chromosomes if we are male and an XX pair if we are female.

            Together, all six of these challenges determine whether we will be good enough men or great men. Most of us aspire to greatness but have struggled with one or more of these six challenges. We often seek “work-life balance,” but really tend to separate these six and try and attend to one while neglecting another.  

            But all are non-negotiable and we must find ways to attend to all six. I received guidance on how to do this from an unlikely teacher—an old Native American woman who was a master basket weaver. Here’s what she taught me. She described weaving a beautiful basket as being a metaphor for a full and successful life.

            Think of each of these six life challenges as one strand in the basket. It’s impossible to weave multiple strands at the same time; we need to attend to the strand that requires our attention without losing awareness of the others. Every strand will get our attention—just not all at the same time. I know I give attention to where I am most needed, knowing that I will then move on to the next strand when it attracts my attention. The basket holds my life as I strengthen individual strands. I’m no longer on a teeter-totter—I am weaving my life into something whole and lovely, powerful and meaningful.

            I hope you have found these ideas helpful. You can send your feedback to me at Jed@MenAlive.com. Come visit my websites, www.MenAlive.com and www.MoonshotforMankind.org

The post The 6 Relationship Successes Great Men Achieve: Which Ones Are You Missing? appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 4

In Part 1, I shared my challenges with depression, the fact that the suicide rate for males is so much higher than it is for females, and how these realties have impacted men and their families. In Part 2, I looked more deeply into the underlying causes and potential solutions to this world-wide problem. In Part 3, I offered on an evolutionary understanding of what we need to know to help us address the major problems of male violence, directed inwards and outwards. In Part 4, I offer guidance for all those who are ready to see the truth about the times in which we live and how we can live, love, and work, for good in the world.

            For most of my professional life I believed that treating depression and preventing suicide involved helping individuals, couples, and families. A new perspective opened for me in 1993 at a men’s leadership conference in Indianapolis, Indiana. I’ve written a number of articles about my experience over the years, including my most recent, “Transformations: The End of the U.S. and the World as We Know It and The Truth About Our Collective Future.”

            As I write this article at the end of July 2024, fires rage throughout the west. Inside Climate News has an article posted today,

“Supercharged by Climate Change, Western Megafires Explode Simultaneously Heat waves and ‘flash droughts’ fuel intense fires in California, Oregon and Canada.”

            My friend and colleague Richard Heinberg, author of numerous books, The Party’s Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies, wrote a recent essay, “From Climate Crisis to Polycrisis” and said,

“The Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu wrote that, in warfare, it is essential to know both your enemy and yourself. Today, humanity has ‘enemies,’ including climate change and nuclear weapons, that are capable of destroying civilization and whole planetary ecosystems. So far, we are not defeating these enemies—which we ourselves created.”

            Heinberg goes on to say,

“Our collective inability to reverse the rising tide of risk implies a failure of understanding: we don’t know our enemies; moreover, we evidently don’t know ourselves, because if we did, we wouldn’t continue generating such problems.”

            I turned 80 years old last year and have spent much of my life getting to know myself so that I could help solve problems facing men and women. I realize that self-knowledge is a life-long process and none of us complete the process in a single lifetime. I have learned to be more compassionate towards myself for my own limitations and to accept the fact that everyone has their own time for recognizing and acting on the truth of what they learn.

            I was given a great gift in 1993 when I saw the “sinking ship of civilization” and also the “lifeboats to a better future for humanity.” Here are a few of the things I’ve learned thus far. I hope they will be helpful to you:

• “Civilization” is a misnomer. Its proper name is the “Dominator culture.” 

            As long as we buy the myth that “civilization” is the best humans can aspire to achieve, we are doomed to go down with the ship. In The Chalice & the Blade: Our History Our Future first published in 1987, internationally acclaimed scholar and futurist, Riane Eisler first introduced us to our long, ancient heritage as a Partnership Culture and our more recent Dominator Culture, which has come to be called “Civilization.”

            In her recent book, Nurturing Our Humanity: How Domination and Partnership Shape Our Brains, Lives, and Future,written with peace activist Douglas P. Fry, they offer real guidance for creating a world based on partnership. Historian of religions, Thomas Berry, spoke eloquently to our need to be honest about our present situation.

            “We never knew enough. Nor were we sufficiently intimate with all our cousins in the great family of the earth. Nor could we listen to the various creatures of the earth, each telling its own story. The time has now come, however, when we will listen or we will die.” 

            Get out in nature. Feel the changes we’ve created. Connect with the Earth again. It will connect you with yourself.

• There is a better world, beyond civilization.

            When I was given the book Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn,I got a clear sense of the two worlds that are competing for our attention: A world where hierarchy and dominance rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Takers) and a world where equality and connection rule (Quinn calls it the world of the Leavers). In his many books Quinn offers a clear contrast in worldviews.

            In his book, Beyond Civilization: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure, Quinn says,

“I can confidently predict that if the world is saved, it will not be because some old minds came up with some new programs. Programs never stop the things they’re launched to stop. No program has ever stopped poverty, drug abuse, or crime, and no program ever will stop them. And no program will ever stop us from devastating the world.”

            Quinn goes on to quote Buckminster Fuller who said,

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

            In my sweat-lodge vision in 1993, those who recognized our old way of being was not sustainable, got off the sinking ship of Civilization and connected with other like-minded people to create a new way to be in the world that has ancient roots that can lead us to a new way of life.

            Czech dissident Václav Havel captured the sense of our times when he said,

“Today, many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying and exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble.”

• An Old Kind of Masculinity is On the Way Out.

            The old dominator systems were ruled by frightened, wounded, men who came to believe that the only way to survive was to rule by force. Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes these men in her book, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present. She says,

“For ours is the age of authoritarian rulers: self-proclaimed saviors of the nation who evade accountability while robbing their people of truth, treasure, and the protections of democracy.”

            Among the seventeen protagonists in her book she includes: Adolph Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Benito Mussolini, Vladamir Putin, and Donald J. Trump.

            Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Anne Applebaum describes the way modern-day autocrats support each other in her book, Autocracy Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World. “Nowadays, autocracies are underpinned by sophisticated networks composed across multiple regimes…The autocrats are rewriting the rules of world trade and governance as their propagandists pound home the same messages about the weakness of democracy and the evil of America.”

• A New Kind of Masculinity Has Been Quietly Emerging.

            Like many men in today’s world, I grew up without an engaged, caring, supportive, and loving father in the home. As I result, it took me a long time to learn what it means to be a good man in today’s world. My healing began in 1979 when I joined my first men’s group. When we began meeting there were very few men’s groups that supported men in being our authentic best selves. Now there are millions.

            We don’t talk about “toxic masculinity,” but how we can develop an expanded masculinity that allows us to embrace the archetypal male qualities of risk-taking and protection and to express them in healthy, life-sustaining, ways.

            In my book, 12 Rules for Good Men, I describe the evolution of our group and what I have learned since we began. My wife, Carlin, will tell you that a key reason we have had a successful 44-year successful marriage has been because I have been in a men’s group for 45 years.

            In my most recent book, my seventeenth, Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity, I describe a number of innovative programs that are at the forefront of this emerging new men’s movement including:

• The Mankind Project

            The ManKind Project is men’s community for the 21st Century. MKP is a nonprofit training and education organization with over three decades of proven success hosting life-changing experiential personal development programs for men. We believe that emotionally mature, powerful, compassionate, and purpose-driven men will help heal some of our society’s deepest wounds. We support the powerful brilliance of men and we are willing to look at, and take full responsibility for, the pain we are also capable of creating – and suffering. We care deeply about men, our families, communities, and the planet.

• The Good Men Project

            “The Good Men Project® is a glimpse of what enlightened masculinity might look like in the 21st century,” the press raved when we launched. We had set out to start an international conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. And with over 3 million visitors coming to join in every month, it looks as if we’ve done exactly that.

            Guys today are neither the mindless, sex-obsessed buffoons nor the stoic automatons our culture so often makes them out to be. Our community is smart, compassionate, curious, and open-minded; they strive to be good fathers and husbands, citizens and friends, to lead by example at home and in the workplace, and to understand their role in a changing world.

• Man Therapy:

            What began as a suicide prevention campaign has morphed into a men’s mental health campaign where the goal is to support all men before they are ever in crisis. We remind men that taking care of their mental health is the manliest things a man can do, that therapy comes in many forms and connect men and their loved ones to information, tools and resources. Our goals remain to bust through the stigma, increase help-seeking behavior and reduce suicide among working-age men.

• MenAlive:

            MenAlive seeks to help men, and the women who love them, successfully navigate the unique stresses of life in the 21st century, so that all our relationships can survive and prosper. The economic and ecological changes going on in the world are unprecedented in human history.

            Our vision for MenAlive is to focus on critical aspects of men’s health and well-being.  MenAlive is a safe haven in this time of transition. It offers time-tested resources to help you when you need it the most. It’s a place you can trust for yourself and your loved ones, a place we can all come together to share our experiences to help us weather the storm. None of us have all the answers, but together we can find our way.

• The Moonshot For Mankind:

            We believe man’s mental, emotional, and relational health is the key to empowering men to live long and well. Our mission is to help men live healthier, happier, more cooperative lives—fulfilling lives of purpose and productivity, where men are supported and valued as they make positive contributions to their families, friends, and communities.

            We bring together organizations who are committed to men’s health, connect them with each other, and offer resources so that they can help men and their families to live long and healthy lives.

            If you found these articles helpful, I invite you to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.

The post Homecoming: An Evolutionary Approach for Healing Depression and Preventing Suicide appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 3

            In Part 1, I shared my challenges with depression, the fact that the suicide rate for males is so much higher than it is for females, and how these realties have impacted men and their families. In Part 2, I looked more deeply into the underlying causes and potential solutions to this world-wide problem. In Part 3, I will build on an evolutionary understanding and how it can help us address the major problems of male violence, directed inwards and outwards.

            We don’t often think of suicide as a form of violence or depression as an underlying cause of violence, but they are intimately related. The World Health Organization (WHO) produced an in-depth analysis of violence and published the information under the title, “The World Report on Violence and Health.” The report is the result of 3 years of work, during which WHO drew on the knowledge of more than 160 experts from more than 70 countries.

            The report detailed estimated global-related deaths as follows:

These numbers vary in different years and rates of violent deaths also vary according by country and within each country with different groups. But clearly violence from suicide accounts for nearly as many deaths as war-related violence and homicides combined. All forms of violence are tragic and many have come to believe that violence is simply a part of human nature. But this is not true.

            Violence of all kinds can be understood and prevented.

“Violence thrives in the absence of democracy, respect for human rights and good governance,” said Nelson Mandela. We often talk about how a ‘culture of violence’ can take root. This is indeed true—as a South African who has lived through apartheid and is living through its aftermath, I have seen and experience it. No country, no city, no community is immune. But neither are we powerless against it.”

            In order to understand and prevent violence, we must first accept the reality that males, on average, are more violent than females. We see this from the WHO report on violence cited above. Here are additional statistics on estimated global homicide and suicide rates by age group and gender:

At every age males die from homicide and suicide at rates much higher than females. It is also true that males perpetrate more violence that results in death than do females. Although biology is not destiny, we must accept that biology plays a significant role in the increased prevalence of male violence.

            Richard V. Reeves is founder of the American Institute of Boys and Men and author of the book Of Boys and Men: Why The Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. In his chapter “Making Men: Nature and Nurture Matter,” he says,

“It is not helpful to deny or dismiss sex differences”

and quotes anthropologist Melvin Konner who said,

“I want my sons and daughters, my hundreds of students, or any young people, or anyone at all to miss the fact that there are differences between the sexes that are not shaped by culture but are more fundamental, rooted in evolution and biology.”

            Reeves goes on to talk about the influence of the hormones in males and females.

“One result of the testosterone bath of male brains is a greater tendency toward physical aggression, not just in humans but in almost all primates and mammals. Human males are more physically aggressive in all cultures at all ages. Boys are five times more likely than girls to be frequently aggressive by the age of seventeen—seventeen months, that is. The gap widens until early adulthood before narrowing again. Worldwide, men commit over 95% of homicides and the overwhelming majority of violent acts of other kinds, including sexual assault.”

Male Violence is Not Inevitable

            When we describe the biological realities that make mammalian males, including human mammals, more aggressive, some people conclude that male violence is inevitable and unchangeable. That is not true.

            James Gilligan, M.D. has spent his life dealing with male violence. He is a world-renowned psychiatrist and the former director of the Center for the Study of Violence at Harvard Medical School. He is best known for his series of books entitled Violence, where he drew on more than 25 years of work in the American prison system to describe the motivation and causes behind violent behavior. When asked what drew him to work with violent offenders, he shared his personal story.

             “I think the ultimate answer, as with most major life decisions that people make, goes back to my earliest childhood. I grew up in a family with a father who was quite violent toward my two brothers. He would really whack around. He would knock them across the room to the point where I was really scared he would accidentally kill one of them.

            “Now, it’s true, the level of violence didn’t reach the extremes that I later became familiar with when I worked with prison inmates who were often the children of fathers or mothers who actually had killed a family member. My father didn’t go that far. He was never arrested, and nobody ever made a complaint of child abuse or anything. That was in the days before people even had a concept of child abuse. The whole concept of the battered child syndrome wasn’t articulated and expressed until around 1963 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Before that, people didn’t even talk about child abuse.”

            In his book, Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes, Dr. Gilligan connects his own families violence to societal violence.

“My father was caught in a cycle of generations of violence that played itself out in our family as it had, indeed, in the very land on which we were living, a land purchased with the blood of the natives whom we displaced.”

            He goes on to describe the link between violence and growing up male.

“All this violence—against the native peoples of the land, against my brothers—was part of a larger pattern—that statistically, most legal violence is committed by men against other men. Violence is primarily men’s work; it is carried out more frequently against men, and is about the maintenance of manhood. To say that is not to minimize men’s violence against women; it is, rather, to take the first step toward understanding the etiology of violence, against both men and women.”

Males Are Violent Because Their Souls Have Been Violated

            I have worked with violent men throughout my career as a psychotherapist specializing in men’s mental and emotional health. I have had similar experiences to those Dr. Gilligan describes when he first entered a prison.

“Looking at the gate leading into the Massachusetts prison you do not see inscribed over it Dante’s motto, ‘Abandon all hope ye who enter  here,’ but it does not need to be, for most of those whom I see there had already abandoned all hope. To speak of these men as ‘the living dead’ is not a metaphor I have invented, but rather the most direct, literal, and least distorted way to summarize what these men have told me.”

            In his book, Under Saturn’s Shadow: The Wounding and Healing of Men, Jungian analyst Dr. James Hollis says simply,

“Men’s lives are violent because their souls have been violated.”

He goes on to say, “Mass-murderers and serial killers have all suffered violent verbal and physical abuse. The frustrated postal employee or bank clerk who goes berserk has become commonplace on the six o’clock news. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. Soul murders occur all the time in the lives of men.”

The Moonshot For Mankind: Bringing Organizations Together For Good

            My father suffered his own kind of soul murder when he was kept from doing the work he loved which I described in Part 1 of this series.  My own work over the last fifty-plus years has been to heal the masculine soul. Three years ago I invited a group of colleagues to join me in what I called “a moonshot for mankind” to work together to heal the mental, emotional, and relational wounds that lead to violence.

            On our website, MoonshotForMankind.org, you can learn about our efforts. We invite organizations who share our goals to join us. Here are a few of the organizations that have joined the movement:

            Shana James, ManAlive Podcasts. Says Shana,

“For 15 years I have coached more than a thousand leaders, CEOs, authors, speakers and people with big visions who step into more powerful leadership, start and grow businesses, create more effective teams, increase their impact, get promoted, find love, rekindle spark, create a legacy, and become more personally inspired and fulfilled.”

            Frederick Marx, Warrior Films. Says Frederick,

“I aim to provide some of the tools to enable people everywhere to reach for their own human transformation and to lend a hand in support of men everywhere. Warrior Films inspires needed social change by telling compelling stories highlighting transformational solutions.”

            Lisa Hickey, The Good Men Project, Says Lisa,

“The Good Men Project is one of the largest worldwide conversations about what it means to be a good man in the twenty-first century. We are trying to create big, sweeping, societal changes—overturn stereotypes, eliminate racism, sexism, and homophobia, and be a positive force for things like education reform and improving the environment.”

            ManTherapy.org: Man Therapy is an evidence-based, decades-long, multidisciplinary effort to break though stigma, improve help-seeking behavior and reduce male suicide. And they’ve got the stats to back it up. Learn more here.

            MenLiving.org: MenLiving delivers programs and experiences to help create a world of healthy, intentional, connected men who can heal and thrive. Learn more here.

            Men and Boys Compassion Initiative (MBCI) is an international movement to help men and boys cultivate their compassionate selves. This also requires the cultivation of courage and wisdom to heal the male crisis of disconnection.

The post Homecoming: An Evolutionary Approach for Healing Depression and Preventing Suicide appeared first on MenAlive.

“It’s a boy!” or “It’s a girl!” are often the first words that are spoken after the birth of a baby. Most of us don’t remember the words when we were born and those of us who are parents will never forget those words when one of our own children arrived. My wife, Carlin, and I have six children, seventeen grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. Sex and gender issues have always been important to me, as are they for most everyone.

            Prior to the publication of his book, Of Boys and Men: Why The Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What To Do About It by Richard V. Reeves, I was sent a pre-publication copy to review. The Preface of the book is titled “Worried Dad to Worried Wonk” and Reeves begins saying,

“I have been worrying about boys and men for 25 years. That comes with the territory when you raise three boys, all now grown men. George, Bryce, Cameron: I love you beyond measure. That’s why, even now, I sometimes worry about you.”

            Reeves goes on to say,

“But my anxiety has spilled over into my day job. I work as a scholar at the Brookings Institution, focusing mostly on equality of opportunity or lack thereof. Until now, I have paid most attention to the divisions of social class and race: But I am increasingly worried about gender gaps, and perhaps not in the way you might expect. It has become clear to me that there are growing numbers of boys and men who are struggling in school, at work, and in the family. I used to fret about three boys and young men. Now I am worried about millions.”

            I also received an advance copy of Ruth Whippman’s new book, BoyMom: Reimaging Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity. I did a podcast interview with Ruth that I am including in this article.

            Whippman begins the book with the following epigraphs that introduces readers to the core themes of the book:

            “Boys need healthy self-esteem. They need love. And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children. Patriarchy will not heal them. If that were so they would all be well. –bell hooks, Feminism is for Everybody.

            “And now,” cried Max, “let the wild rumpus start.” –Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are.

Whippman’s introduction is titled #MeToo Baby and begins with these words:

“I hope for your sake this one is a girl,” said our mail carrier one morning as I sat out on the front step, nine months pregnant, my two sons buzzing hyperactively around me. Her eyes flicked between my giant bump and the boys, who were playing some generic mildly violent game complete with gender essentialist soundtrack of “PEYEW PEYEW!! NEEEEOOOWWWWWW!!! HIYUHHHH!!” noises. When I told her that no, our third child was another boy, she let out an involuntary moan of compassion.”

            Inspired by his own experiences as a father and policy expert, Richard Reeves founded the American Institute of Boys and Men (AIBM) in 2023 to bring awareness to the challenges facing boys and men today and to develop evidence-based solutions. Their research focuses on the following five area:

• Mental Health

            Boys and men are increasingly lonely, and at higher risk of suicide and “deaths of despair.” We shed light on the male mental health crisis and look for urgent solutions.

• Education & Skills

            By multiple measures, boys have fallen far behind in school. We study the many  factors that affect boys’ educational progress and outcomes.

• Employment

            Men, especially working-class men, are struggling in our changing global economy. We study structural forces, including globalization but also education and skills training that affect men in the labor market.

• Black Boys and Men

            In a time where all boys and men confront new challenges in school, work, and family life, Black boys and men face particular systemic disadvantages. We pay special attention to their needs and hardships.

• Fatherhood and Family

            Family life is changing, but dads matter as much as ever. We study the economic and cultural changes that are affecting boys and men at home and with their families.

Sex and Gender in a Time of Social Confusion and Transformation

            “I felt as though society was fracturing along gender lines,” Ruth Whippman says. “Conservatives were rallying around men, leaping to their defense. #NotAllMen, they tweeted, willfully denying the systemic nature of the problem; even going so far as to claim that men were the real victims of #MeToo.”

            Though Whippman recognizes the problems with extremists on the right, she also recognizes that liberals are also missing some important realities.

“Liberals, my natural clan, allied themselves with girls and women. In a strange politicization of gender itself, men and boys somehow became the very symbol of conservative values, and women and girls of progressive ones.”

            She goes on to say,

“Although obviously there were still countless individual conservative women and progressive men, as political class, females started to represent change and hope, while males symbolized the status quo, injustice and harm. It was, of course, a false dichotomy, but at a gut, tribal level it felt real. My tribe was rejecting my kids. I found myself stranded on one side of the symbolic divide, with my own children on the other.”

Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sens of Our Political Divide

            Dr. Hector A. Garcia is a clinician and has published extensively on evolutionary psychology. In his book, Sex, Power, and Partisanship: How Evolutionary Science Makes Sens of Our Political Divide he brings his years of reach to help us better understand sex, power, and politics.

            He describes well the forces facing our country.

“A nation’s sinew begins to tear. Triumph in one group is met with fear and bewilderment in another. Old prejudices are reanimated; new ones are invented. The masses succumb to irrational forces, prodded to frenzy by politicians and the media. The nation is poised to devour itself.”

            These words could come from today’s headlines but are taken from the first chapter of Garcia’s book, Sex, Power, and Partisanship which was published in 2019. He goes on to say,

“The controversial election of Donald Trump as the forty-fifth US president polarized the United States more than at any other time in its contemporary history.”

            Dr. Garcia goes on to say,

“To begin to understand this fracture, let’s turn to an unlikely source for psychological insight: media pundits. American political commentator and talk show hos Chris Mathews once described Republicans as the ‘Daddy Party’ and Democrats as the ‘Mommy Party.’  Writing in the Baltimore Sun, May 14, 1991, Matthews went on to say:

            “Republicans protect us with strong national defense; Democrats nourish us with Social Security and Medicare. Republicans worry about our business affairs; Democrats look after our health, nutrition and welfare. Republicans control the White House; Democrats provide a warm, caring presence on Capitol Hill…it’s the traditional American family. Daddy locks the door at night and brings home the bacon. Mommy worries when the kids are sick and makes sure each one gets treated fairly. This partition of authority and duty may seem an anachronism from the Leave It to Beaver era, but it’s an apt model for today’s political household.”

            Dr. Garcia quoted hardline conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who boasted on Fox news,

“I am more of a man than any liberal.” 

Sex and gender issues color our lives including the current controversies about reproductive rights, gun violence, how we raise our children, and even who will become the next president of the United States.

            I have been writing articles and books about sex and gender, since my first book, Inside Out: Becoming My Own Man came out in 1983. Since then, I have written sixteen other books including my two most recent, 12 Rules for Good Men and Long Live Men! The Moonshot Mission to Heal Men, Close the Lifespan Gap, and Offer Hope to Humanity.

            You can learn more about Ruth Whippman and her work at RuthWhippman.com. You can learn more about Richard Reeves and his work at the American Institute for Boys and Men, at AIBM.org. If you’d like to learn more about me and my work, you can find me at MenAlive.com.

The post BoyMoms and BoyDads: What We Can Learn From Ruth Whippman & Richard Reeves About Sex, Power, and Parenting appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 2

            In Part 1, I shared my challenges with depression, the fact that the suicide rate for males is so much higher than it is for females, and how these realties have impacted men and their families. Here we will look more deeply into the underlying causes and potential solutions to this world-wide problem.

The Most Underappreciated Fact About Men and Why Males Are the Risk-Takers

            Dr. Roy Baumeister is one of the world’s leading social scientists. Understanding his work can better help us understand a lot about why men are the way they are and specifically why men are the risk-taking gender.

            Baumeister is the author of more than thirty books and four hundred scientific articles. In his groundbreaking book, Is There Anything Good About Men? How Cultures Flourish By Exploiting Men, he says,

“If evolutionary theory is right about anything, it’s right about reproduction. Nature will most favor traits that lead to success at reproducing. But for thousands of years, men and women have faced vastly different odds and problems in reproducing. On this basic task, women faced good odds of success, whereas men were born to face looming failure.”

            Given that all humans are mammals, there is a basic biological fact of life. It is the female who carries the baby in her womb and will always be 100% sure that any offspring carry her genes. Males can never be 100% certain, hence the truism, “mother’s baby, father’s maybe.” Further, through evolutionary history more females than males reproduced.

            Dr. Baumeister tells us that

“Of all the people who ever reached adulthood, maybe 80% of the women but only 40% of the men reproduced. Or perhaps the numbers 60% versus 30%. But one way or another, a woman’s odds of having a line of descendants down to the present were double those of males.”

            Baumeister goes on to say,

“That’s a stunning difference. Of all humans ever born, most women became mothers, but most men did not become fathers.”

The result is that throughout human history men became the risk-takers, competing with other men to be chosen by a woman to mate with him. Some successful males (think Genghis Kahn) fathered hundreds of children. Some men stuck out completely.

            Women’s motto became: “Life has handed you a good thing; don’t blow it. Play it safe.”

            Men’s motto was the opposite: “The odds are against you. Better take your chances.”

            Says Baumeister,

“That’s why we are descended from playing-it-safe women and risk-taking men.”

Help-Seeking vs. Risk-Taking, The Empathy Gap, and Implications for Male Suicide

            My father didn’t seek help with his depression until he was forced to do so and the help available at the time was inadequate. This is still true for many men today.

“Perhaps it is not surprising that, if there are large gender differences in risk-taking and protective behavior,”

says Dr. Martin Seager who we met in Part 1,

“there will also be correspondingly large gender differences in help-seeking. An individual or group that is more likely to take risks to protect others is also by definition less likely to seek help or self-protection.”

            As my father found, he was not only driven to take risks to work in a challenging profession in order to take care of his family, but this indication was supported and encouraged by the society at large.

“The evidence also indicates that society is correspondingly calibrated to expect this difference and is consequently less empathic towards male death and injury,”

says Seager.

“If this is the case, then it must follow logically that men will be on average more driven than females to take their own lives because of:

              a. A greater instinct to ignore personal safety and confront danger

              b. A greater instinct to protect others (and greater shame at failing to do so)

              c. A lower sense of entitlement to receive help or protection from others.”

Towards a More Scientific and Effective Approach to Reducing Male Suicide

            Dr. Seager’s approach offers importance guidance for clinicians as well for men and their families.

By simply allowing archetypal gender differences to be researched, understood, and honored, gender-specific solutions to male suicide can indeed be found. Here are some important points:

• Carl Jung talked of archetypal patterns evolved within the human species and shared within a “collective unconscious.”

• Jung’s thinking was clearly influenced by ancient Chinese conception of “Yin” and “Yang” in which femininity (one aspect of “Yin”) is seen along with masculinity (one aspect of “Yang”) as complementary system of opposites within the natural universe.

• Dr. Seager proposes the following simple and practical instinctual, evolutionary-based, male archetypes:

1. Fighting and winning.
2. Providing and protecting.
3. Maintaining mastery and self-control.

• These archetypes contribute to a sense of masculine identity, honor and strength. To the extent that a man feels these elements are missing, he will feel the opposite of masculine shame and failure.

            My own experiences and research has convinced me that men’s inherent proclivity to maintain emotional self-control helped men be successful hunters during the millions of years humans were hunter-gatherers. Men needed to fight potential threats from other men in order to protect our families. Men needed to take-risks in order to compete with other men in our own tribes so that we would be chosen by women. These evolutionary-based instincts are built-in and though they don’t control our behavior, we still make individual choices, they cannot be ignored.

            Calling masculinity “toxic” or blaming the “patriarchy” just serves to divide and alienate us. We create more conflict between left and right, males and females, Republicans and Democrats, Us and Them. We need more bridges not more walls.

            I met the internationally acclaimed scholar, futurist, and activist, Riane Eisler shortly after her book, The Chalice & the Blade was published in 1987. We have been friends and colleagues ever since. She said,

“Underlying the great surface diversity of human culture are two basic models of society. The first, which I call the dominator model, is what is popularly termed either patriarchy or matriarchy—the ranking of one half of humanity over the other. The second, in which social relations may best be described as the partnership model. In this model—beginning with the most fundamental difference in our species, between male and female—diversity is not equated with either inferiority or superiority.”

Why an Archetypal Approach to Male Depression and Suicide Works Better

            For some clinicians, men’s innate desire to fight and win, to protect women and children, and to control our emotions, are seen as “toxic” or “harmful.” They try and encourage men to change and express themselves in different ways. Dr. Seager’s approach is different:

            “If we assume that men on average are more likely than women to be driven to ‘fight, protect’ and ‘retain mastery/self-control,’ then it is clear that trying to encourage men collectively to ‘open up, be vulnerable’ and ‘seek help’ potentially violates deep-rooted masculine instincts. Such an approach may even increase a sense of masculine shame and failure.”

            Dr. Seager concludes that we have a choice between two divergent approaches:

• Socially challenging and reconstructing masculine behavior and masculinity itself as a negative stereotype through educational methods with the aim of teaching males to seek help and share emotions more openly (i.e. change masculinity).

• Changing the social attitudes and responses of society towards men and boys to create more empathy for masculinity as a positive part of the human spectrum, while providing male-friendly services for men and boys that both honors the male archetype and offer new and better ways of expressing it (i.e. change society).

            In advocating for the second of the two approaches, Dr. Seager says,

“I am saddened that our profession seems to be no better than the rest of society in being blind to the fact that men and boys also have needs and problems arising from their gender. Raising this subject always incurs unreasoned resistance and even at times hostility. This in itself shows the need to keep promoting the issue.”

            My father was fortunate to have survived a health-care system based on the first approach that never worked for him, he finally found his way to one that accepted his inherent drive to take risks in support of his family. I wrote about his journey in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound and an article, “My Father’s Stay at God’s Hotel: A Slow-Medicine Approach to Healing Mental Illness.”

The Moonshot For Mankind: Male-Positive Programs For Men and Their Families

            I launched MenAlive in following the birth of our first son, Jemal, on November 21, 1969 and our daughter Angela, on March 22, 1972. Fifty years ago, there were very few programs that focused on men’s mental, emotional, and relational health. Now there are many. Three years ago I invited a number of colleagues who I knew were offering new and effective approaches for helping men to join me in creating a central hub for the thousands of organizations that are now available.

            Come visit us at our website, MoonshotForMankind.org. Here are a few of the organizations that have joined our movement:

            ManTherapy.org: Man Therapy is an evidence-based, decades-long, multidisciplinary effort to break though stigma, improve help-seeking behavior and reduce male suicide. And they’ve got the stats to back it up. Learn more here.

            MenLiving.org: MenLiving delivers programs and experiences to help create a world of healthy, intentional, connected men who can heal and thrive. Learn more here.

            Men and Boys Compassion Initiative (MBCI) is an international movement to help men and boys cultivate their compassionate selves. This also requires the cultivation of courage and wisdom to heal the male crisis of disconnection.

            You can learn more about the work of Martin Seager at the Centre For Male Psychology.

            We need more programs for men that are evolutionary-archetypally informed. You can learn more at MenAlive.com and MoonshotForMankind.org. If you like articles like these, I invite you to become a subscriber.

The post Homecoming: An Evolutionary Approach for Healing Depression and Preventing Suicide appeared first on MenAlive.

I have been a marriage and family counselor for more than fifty years. I have written seventeen books and thousands of articles about love and marriage, but this may be the most important article you will ever read. If you visit my website you will see my welcome video “Confessions of a Twice-Divorced Marriage Counselor.” The bad news is that divorce is painful when it happens once, even more so when it happens twice. The good news is that for Carlin and me, the “third time” was the charm. We have now been happily married for 45 years.

            The even better news is that this article and podcast will introduce you to John Schinnerer and Joree Rose. Dr. John Schinnerer coaches men to perform at their peak from the boardroom to the bedroom. He was an expert consultant for Pixar’s movie Inside Out. Joree Rose, MA, LMFT, is a licensed marriage and family therapist, transformation coach, mindfulness and meditation teacher, author, speaker, and she also leads mindfulness retreats around the world.

            Together they offer something you won’t find anywhere else—the secrets for having a successful marriage that lasts a lifetime. It is rare for a marriage and family counselor to tell potential clients that there is someone else who can offer something more valuable and helpful than what he has to offer, but that is what I’m doing.

            John and Joree offer support to men, women, and couples. It is the kind of help and support I wish was available to me before I struggled with two marriages that led to two divorces. And you don’t have to wait until your marriage is in trouble to benefit from what John and Joree offer.

            You can get a good feel about who they are and what they offer by watching the podcast interview I did recently. Here are some additional words of wisdom that they have to share. Here are a few of the most important tools of practice from Joree and John for those who want to have THE ULTIMATE RELATIONSHIP:

• NAME / DON’T BLAME what you’re feeling in the moment. Practice using “I” statements, rather than “You” statements…and practice communicating with curiosity and compassion; it’ll decrease defensiveness and increase connection and understanding. Say: “I feel unimportant when you don’t look up from your phone when I am telling you about my day.” Don’t say: “You are always ignoring me!” *Hint: It’s not an “I” statement to say, “I feel like you’re always ignoring me.” That sounds like naming, when in actuality, it’s blaming.

• ALLOW AND ACCEPT YOUR PARTNER’S EMOTIONS. Once you start limiting, denying, resisting or judging your partner’s emotional expression, disconnection follows. You don’t have to agree with or feel the same as your partner for you to create space for what they are feeling.

• MAKE GRATITUDE AND APPRECIATION A DAILY HABIT. It can be about anything your partner does – tasks or chores, their values, morals or ethics; let them know you value them for it all! Be grateful for even the smallest of things.

• DOING SMALL THINGS OFTEN for your partner is the key to building a strong relationship. Leave a note for them, rub their feet at the end of the day, make dinner reservations, take out the garbage without being asked…even the smallest task can go a long way. Creating a ratio of 5:1, positive to negative, will help you master your relationship.

• BE CURIOUS ABOUT WHO YOUR PARTNER IS IN THE HERE AND NOW. Realize that you’ve both grown since the beginning of your relationship and show interest in learning about those changes. When you first starting dating you’d ask a lot of questions – what they like, dislike, dreams, hopes, expectations…just because you’ve been together a long time doesn’t mean you should make assumptions that you know who they are. They (and you!) have likely changed over time. Inquire, without attachment, to how they think, and be open to hearing it, especially if it’s different than how you think.

            This is an important point. My wife, Carlin, and I have taken this a step further. We recognize that in a marriage both partners change over time and we need to refresh and update our commitments as things change. Carlin and I get remarried every 15 years. We actually decide if we want to marry this person, as though it was a new relationship. We think hard about who we are and want in a marriage partner. We have now been married three more times since we first got married 45 years ago.

• KNOW YOUR, AND YOUR PARTNER’S, LOVE LANGUAGE. These are the ways in which we know that we, or our partner, are loved. The five love languages are: physical touch, quality time, receiving gifts, words of affirmation, and acts of service. Many partners don’t share the same love language, and we often give what we most want, and it may end up having the opposite effect for our partner.

• COMMUNICATE YOUR NEEDS ACCURATELY. When asking your partner for something, know the difference between an invitation, request or demand. An invitation allows for a yes/no answer, without judgment. A request is asking your partner for something that is based on your value set. A demand just tells them what to do. The best way to get your needs met is with a request.

• KNOW, AND UNAPOLOGETICALLY NAME, YOUR NEEDS AND BOUNDARIES. Don’t be afraid to tell your partner what you need from them; remember, they can’t read your mind. For example, if you would like them to plan date nights, be explicit about it. If you have the need to talk on a deeper level, don’t feel “too needy” for expressing what will make you feel more seen, heard, validated or connected. And don’t apologize for what you need – own it!

• MAKE REPAIR ATTEMPTS. After you’ve had an argument, conflict, or misunderstanding, you need to make repairs to get unstuck, heal, and reconnect. Stepping towards one another can be done in a variety of ways: soft, compassionate touch (a hug, touch on the arm), offer an apology, be curious how the other is feeling, seek understanding that lead to the transgression, engage in a joint activity, sit next to one another, inquire what your partner needs to feel resolved, etc… Even if you don’t feel like it, and your overwhelming emotions are still activated, make the repair attempt anyways; it’ll help you to move past the issue quicker.

• RESPOND TO BIDS FOR ATTENTION. When your partner seeks your attention, respond by acknowledging them. For example: put down your phone; look up; make eye contact; answer the question; pause on what you are doing; comment on what they are showing you; show interest. When you are busy, you can still acknowledge by saying, “I see that you want to show me _________, and I’ll be happy to take a look in a minute when I finish __________.” When our bids consistently go unacknowledged, the message received is that our partner doesn’t care, and they will likely shut down and stop trying.

            John and Joree offer a lot more. You can visit them at their home website:

https://loveisntenough.net/. Tell them Dr. Jed recommended you drop by. You will be glad you did.

            If you’d like to come visit me, I hang out at https://menalive.com/. If you like articles like these and want to learn about my latest programs for men, women, and couples, feel free to subscribe to my free newsletter here.

The post Love Isn’t Enough: The Secrets for Having a Successful Marriage That Lasts a Lifetime appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 1

            Depression and suicide have been my companions as far back as I can remember. I was five years old when my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills. Though he didn’t die our lives were never the same. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and what I could do to prevent it from happening to other families.

            In an article, “Being Bipolar: Living and Loving in a World of Fire and Ice,” I described my own mental health challenges and healing journey.  In my book, The Irritable Male Syndrome: Understanding and Managing the 4 Key Causes of Depression and Aggression, I shared my research and clinical experience that convinced me that men and women are different in ways they deal with depression and aggression in their lives and in other ways as well.

            Depression and suicide are not just problems for men, but there is something about being male that increases our risk of dying by suicide. According to recent statistics from the National Institute of Mental Health, the suicide rate among males is, on average, 4 times higher (22.8 per 100,000) than among females (5.7 per 100,000) and at every age the rate is higher among males than females:

Even during our youth where suicide rates are relatively low, males are still more likely to die by suicide than are females. It is also clear to me as my wife and I move into our 80s, we face many challenges as we age, but it is older males who more often end their lives by suicide with rates 8 to 17 times higher than for females.    

            In my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound, I describe my father’s slide into depression and the despair that increased when he couldn’t find work. As a writer, he wrote regular entries in his journals. I still feel the pain as I re-read them and feel his increasing shame when he couldn’t support his family:

            July 3rd:

“Oh, Christ, if I can only give my son a decent education—a college decree with a love for books, a love for people, good, solid knowledge. No guidance was given to me. I slogged and slobbered and blundered through two-thirds of my life.”

            July 24th:

“Edie dear, Johnny dear, I love you so much, but how do I get the bread to support you? The seed of despair is part of my heritage. It lies sterile for months and then it gnaws until its bitter fruit chokes my throat and swells in me like a large goiter blacking out room for hopes, dreams, joy, and life itself.”

            August 8th:

“Sunday morning, my humanness has fled, my sense of comedy has gone down the drain. I’m tired, hopelessly tired, surrounded by an immense brick wall, a blood-spattered brick world, splattered with my blood, with the blood of my head where I senselessly banged to find an opening, to find one loose brick, so I could feel the cool breeze and could stick out my hand and pluck a handful of wheat, but this brick wall is impregnable, not an ounce of mortar loosens, not a brick gives.”

            September 8th:

“Your flesh crawls, your scalp wrinkles when you look around and see good writers, established writers, writers with credits a block long, unable to sell, unable to find work, Yes, it’s enough to make anyone, blanch, turn pale and sicken.”

            October 24th:

“Faster, faster, faster, I walk. I plug away looking for work, anything to support my family. I try, try, try, try, try. I always try and never stop.”

            November 12th:

“A hundred failures, an endless number of failures, until now, my confidence, my hope, my belief in myself, has run completely out. Middle aged, I stand and gaze ahead, numb, confused, and desperately worried. All around me I see the young in spirit, the young in heart, with ten times my confidence, twice my youth, ten times my fervor, twice my education. I see them all, a whole army of them, battering at the same doors I’m battering, trying in the same field I’m trying. Yes, on a Sunday morning in November, my hope and my life stream are both running desperately low, so low, so stagnant, that I hold my breath in fear, believing that the dark, blank curtain is about to descend.”

            Four days later, he took an overdose of sleeping pills and spent seven years in a mental hospital receiving “treatment” until the day he escaped. The book has a happy ending, but it took a long time to get there.

            I share what I have learned over the years in an on-line course, “Healing the Family Father Wound.”  I recently read a chapter in the book, The Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health edited by J.A. Barry, et al., by Martin Seager, titled “From Stereotypes to Archetypes: An Evolutionary Perspective on Male Help-Seeking and Suicide,” that adds some important pieces to the puzzle and added to my understanding of male depression and suicide and how we can more effectively help men and their families.

An Evolutionary Understanding of Male Psychology

            “In our current age it is unfashionable to think of human gender as connected with our biology and evolution,”

says Dr. Seager.

“Gender is currently thought of primarily as a social construct, a theory that carries assumptions that gender can be fluid, molded by education or even chosen as a part of a lifestyle. Gender is increasingly seen as a collection of disposable social stereotypes, separate from and unrelated to biological sex.”

            Dr. Seager goes on to say,

“This hypothesis is bad science and even worse philosophy…When held up against the anthropological and cross-cultural evidence, a social constructionist theory of gender cannot explain clearly observable and universal patterns of male and female behavior.”

            I agree with Dr. Seager and have long held that we cannot understand or help men, or women, without recognizing our biological roots in the animal kingdom. In my book, 12 Rules For Good Men, Rule #4 is “Embrace Your Billion Year History of Maleness.” I introduce the chapter with a quote from cultural historian Thomas Berry.

“The natural world is the largest sacred community to which we belong. To be alienated from this community is to become destitute in all that makes us human.”

            I also say in the book that all humans are also mammals and we cannot understand men without recognizing that fact. Dr. Seager agrees.

“Human beings are evolved mammals and they have never stopped being so,”

says Seager.

“Whatever social, cultural and political structures are placed upon us as humans, these cannot erase our mammalian heritage and indeed are constructed upon and shaped by that heritage, though not determined or defined by it.”

            Dr. Seager goes on to say,

“Globally, across all human tribes or societies and throughout all known history and pre-history, allowing for inevitable variation across a spectrum, there are universal patterns of male and female behavior in the human species.”

            Based on the most massive study of human mating ever undertaken, encompassing more than 10,000 people of all ages from thirty-seven cultures worldwide, evolutionary psychologist Dr. David Buss found that there are two human natures, one male and one female. In his book, The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating, Dr. David Buss explains the evolutionary roots of what men and women want and explains why their desires differ so radically.

            “Within human beings perhaps the most obvious universal patterns of sexual differences are: Female: (1) Beauty, attraction and glamour (Including body adornment) and (2) Bearing and nurturance of new-born infants and young children. Male: (1) Physical protection (strength) and (2) Risk-taking,”

says Dr. Seager.

            Dr. Seager goes on to say,

“In all human cultures throughout history and prehistory there is consistent and incontestable evidence of males taking high levels of risk to protect and provide for their family, tribe, and community or nation either collectively as bands of hunters and warriors or as individuals.”

            Some view male risk-taking as foolhardy, immature, self-destructive, and harmful to women and children as well as men themselves. But both Dr. Seager and I recognize that protecting women and children and risk-taking behavior are archetypal, instinctual, positive, and evolutionarily important for survival strategies.

            In the second part of this series, we will continue our exploration of ways we can improve our understanding of male depression and suicide and how we can be more effective in helping men and their families.

            You can learn more about the work of Martin Seager at the Centre For Male Psychology.

We need more programs for men that are evolutionary-archetypally informed. You can learn more at MenAlive.com and MoonshotForMankind.org. If you like articles like these, I invite you to become a subscriber.

The post Homecoming: An Evolutionary Approach for Healing Depression and Preventing Suicide appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 5 —Male Menopause: Speaking Out About the Unspeakable Passage

This is the 5^th in a series of articles on the Future of Men’s Mental Health. In Part 1, I addressed the questions, “Men and Mental Health, What Are We Missing?” Part 2 focused on the way that “Mental Health Crises Are Putting Everyone at Risk.” In Part 3, I explored Gender-Specific Healing and Man Therapy. In Part 4, I shared Recent Research From Leading Neuroscientists.

            The title of the first chapter of my book, Male Menopause, was titled, “Putting the Men Back in Menopause.” I detailed my initial explorations this way:

“When I began researching this book, I was skeptical about the concept of ‘male menopause.’ I had been a therapist for over thirty years and had worked with thousands of midlife men and women. Is there really a change of life that men go through?”

            I went on to describe my encounter with one of the earliest proponents of male menopause, the writer Gail Sheehy.

“While browsing through my local bookstore, I was drawn to a copy of Vanity Fair magazine. Well, to be absolutely honest, I was drawn to the cover photo of  Sharon Stone, nude to the waist, with her hands cupping, but only partially covering, her breasts. Sharon was staring seductively into the eyes of the reader, with two-inch letters emblazoned across her bare midriff proclaiming, ‘WILD THING!’ I was sure there was something important Sharon had to tell me.”

            I went on to say,

“However, I never read the article to find out, because just to the left of Sharon’s blond hair, right below the April 1993 dateline, were the words that grabbed me by the throat (actually a bit farther south than my throat)—‘Male Menopause: The Unspeakable Passage by Gail Sheehy.’ Those words spoke in a quiet but insistent voice.”

            Male Menopause was published in 1997 and soon became an international best-seller. It has since been translated into more than fifteen foreign languages. My follow up book, Surviving Male Menopause: A Guide for Women and Men, was published in 2000. There continues to be a great deal of confusion and controversy surrounding the whole concept of what goes on at mid-life for men. As Sheehy recognized in the 1993 article,

“If menopause is the silent passage, ‘male menopause’ is the unspeakable passage. It is fraught with secrecy, shame, and denial. It is much more fundamental than the ending of the fertile period of a woman’s life, because it strikes at the core of what it is to be a man.”

            I was one of the early researchers who was speaking out about Male Menopause (also called Andropause or Manopause). Here are a few of the important things I’ve learned over the years and have shared in my books and articles.

What is Male Menopause?

            Male Menopause begins with hormonal, physiological, and chemical changes that occur in all men generally between the ages of forty and fifty-five, though it can occur as early as thirty-five or as late as sixty-five. These changes affect all aspects of a man’s life. Male Menopause is, thus, a physical condition with psychological, interpersonal, social, and spiritual dimensions.

What is The Purpose of Male Menopause?

            “The purpose of Male Menopause is to signal the end of the first part of a man’s life and prepare him for the second half. Male Menopause is not the beginning of the end, as many fear, but the end of the beginning. It is the passage to the most passionate, powerful, productive, and purposeful time of a man’s life.”

What Are The Most Common Symptoms of Male Menopause?

• Loss of libido and sexual desire, particularly with the partner you are with.
• Increased fantasy about having sex with others.
• Difficulty developing and maintaining erections.
• Increased irritability and anger.
• Taking longer to recover from injuries and illness.
• Having less endurance for physical activity.
• Increased anxiety and worry.
• Loss of self-confidence and joy.

What Are Common Life Changes Associated with Male Menopause?

• Hormone levels are dropping, particularly testosterone.
• Sexual vigor is diminishing.
• Children are leaving.
• Parents are dying.
• Job horizons are narrowing.
• Friends are dying or getting serious illnesses.
• Martha Weinman Lear, writing in the New York Times Magazine summed it up this way.

“The past floods by in a fog of hopes unrealized, opportunities not grasped, women not bedded, potentials not fulfilled, and the future is a confrontation with one’s own mortality.”

            Over the years, I have found two common extreme views: (1) Male Menopause doesn’t exist.            Only women go through a hormonally driven change of life. (2) If men do go through a change, it is only a hormonal change, and can be “cured” by giving  men supplemental testosterone.

            I’ve learned that neither of these views are true. Men do experience a change of life, whether we call it Male Menopause, Andropause, or Manopause. I called it Male Menopause because I believe there are more similarities than differences between what women and men experience. I also believe, as does, Gail Sheehy, that it is much more complex than simply a loss of hormones and

“It is much more fundamental than the ending of the fertile period of a woman’s life, because it strikes at the core of what it is to be a man.”

Surviving Male Menopause Together. How Can Couples Navigate the Change of Life?

            After Male Menopause was published and become an international best-seller with 15 foreign editions, I received letters from women all over the world asking questions about the relational aspects of what men go through. I wrote the book Surviving Male Menopause: A Guide for Women and Men to answer questions including the following:

• How does male menopause differ from the midlife crisis?
• Why do men have affairs at this time of life?
• What are the best methods for treating erectile dysfunction?
• Why do menopausal men act so much like adolescent boys?
• What can a woman do to help a man get through male menopause?

Is There Anything Good About Male Menopause?

            Like so many complex aspects of life, when we try to oversimplify things, we lose the very essence of what we are trying to study. When we deny the reality of a “male change of life” and reduce it to a “midlife crisis” or simply see the change in medical terms, we give men few options.

            For most of human existence our lifespan was quite limited to around forty years. Men and women rarely lived long enough to experience a “change of life.” Life was a climb up a mountain and we reached the peak when we were in our 20s and had produced children to keep our species going. Then, it was a quick decline down the mountain once the children were old enough to survive.

            But now humans can live into our 80s, 90s, and beyond. Now there is another mountain to climb and what we call Male Menopause is simply the transition to the second mountain. If top of the first mountain is called “Adulthood,” the peak of the second mountain, is “Super-Adulthood” or “Elderhood.” That is why I say that

“Male Menopause is not the beginning of the end, as many fear, but the end of the beginning.”

Too Many Men Are Dying Before Their Time

            These are confusing and challenging times for most people, but particularly for men. It has been said that “Old age is not for sissies.” While many men are embracing the later years, too many are losing hope and giving up. The suicide rate for men is much higher than the rate for women and gets even worse the older we get.

            Take a look at this chart from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

Suicide rate among adults age 55 and older, by age group and sex: United States, 2021

We see the men’s death rates on the left and women’s on the right for four different age groups. It is clear that death by suicide is a huge problem for men as we age. The male/female ratio for ages between 55 and 85+ are almost 5 times higher for males. This is a tragedy and a crisis. Clearly older men are feeling pressures that women do not experience and are losing hope for a better future. This needs to change.  

Welcome to the Second Mountain and an Expanded Understanding of Midlife and Aging

            My friend and colleague, Chip Conley, is transforming our understanding of midlife and what we can look forward to as we prepare for and climb the second mountain of life. Says Conley, “The midlife crisis is the butt of many jokes, but this long-derided life stage has an upside.” In his new book, Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age, he expands our vision.

“What if we could reframe our thinking about the natural transition of midlife not as a crisis, but as a chrysalis: a time when something profound awakens in us, as we shed our skin, spread our wings, and pollinate the world with our wisdom?“

            We know midlife and aging is not all sweetness and light. It isn’t easy letting go of old ways that no longer work for us. We all know what happens to the caterpillar. As Conley reminds us,

“When it is fully grown, it uses a button of silk to fasten its body to a twig and then forms a chrysalis. Within this protective chrysalis, the transformational magic of metamorphosis occurs. While it’s a bit dark, gooey, and solitary, it’s a transition, not a crisis. And, of course, on the other side is a beautiful, winged butterfly.”

            You can learn more about Chip’s work and his book on his website, https://chipconley.com/

Learning About Men’s Health, Male Menopause, and How to Live Well in the Second Half of Life

            There is a lot we need to learn about life in the second half. Chip Conley suggest that there are three stages of midlife:

• Early midlife (Age 35-50)

            During early midlife we tend to experience some of the challenging physical and emotional transitions—a bit like an adult puberty. We realize we are no longer young, but not yet old.

• The second stage of midlife (50-59)

            This is the core of midlife in our fifties when we’ve settled into this new era and are seeing some of the upside. We begin to see opportunities for growth and finding passions we never knew we had.

• Later midlife (60-75)

            We are still young enough to see and plan for what’s next, our senior years. Says Chip,

“At 63, I am just getting acquainted with this third stage, but I do know it’s also when our body reminds us it doesn’t want to be forgotten.”

            I turned 80 last December and am well into the stage of Eldership. It’s a time where we are called to share what we know and have learned over our lifespan. Three years ago I started the MenAlive Academy for Gender-Specific Healthcare. The Academy offer programs for both men and women who want to learn about the unique mental, emotional, and relational issues that men face. It also offers programs for healthcare providers who are working with men and their families.

            As my colleague Marianne J. Legato, M.D., Founder of the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine says,

“Everywhere we look, the two sexes are startingly and unexpectedly different not only in their normal function but in the ways they experience illness.”

            If you would like more information about the MenAlive Academy for Gender-Specific Healthcare, drop me a note to Jed@MenAlive.com and put “MenAlive Academy” in the subject line. If you’d like to read more articles like these, I invite you to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter.

The post The Future of Men’s Mental Health appeared first on MenAlive.