Mental Health

Part 2

            In Part 1, I described my own work over the years as Gender-Specific Men’s Health Practitioner and why I believe it is a great career choice for the future. Here I will describe in more detail who might be interested in an upcoming training program I will be offering in 2025. If you might be interested, or know someone think would be interested, this may be a great gift for the holidays, one that keeps on giving.

            Although I have had an interest in mental health issues since I was a child growing up in a family with an angry and depressed father and a worried and anxious mother, I first became professionally interested in men’s health in 1976 when I read a book by psychologist Herb Goldberg, The Hazards of Being Male: Surviving the Myth of Masculine Privilege. Goldberg wrote,

“The American man an endangered species? Absolutely! The male has paid a heavy price for his masculine ‘privilege’ and power. He is out of touch with his emotions and his body. He is playing by the rules of the male game plan and with lemming-like purpose he is destroying himself—emotionally, psychologically, and physically.”

            In 1979 I attended a men’s gathering where Herb Goldberg was the invited speaker. Following the one-day event, a group of guys gathered to continue our explorations and interest in our mental, emotional, and relational health and formed a men’s group. That group of guys has been meeting regularly since then. My wife, Carlin, will tell you that one of the main reasons she and I have had a successful 45-year marriage is because I have been in a men’s group for 46 years.

            I continued my work helping men and their families and focused my attention on the changes men experienced at midlife and the “change of life” that men experience how it is both similar and different from menopause in women. In 1997 my book, Male Menopause was published. It soon became an international bestseller published in 14 foreign languages including Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Greek, and Hebrew. I followed up with Surviving Male Menopause: A Guide for Women and Men published in 2000.

            I have long recognized the importance of an evolutionary and gender-specific perspective on health.

When Dr. Marianne J. Legato’s book, Eve’s Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your Life was published in 2002, the world was introduced to a new field that would forever change our understanding of healthcare.

            “Until now, we’ve acted as though men and women were essentially identical except for the differences in their reproductive function,” says Dr. Legato. “In fact, information we’ve been gathering over the past ten years tells us that this is anything but true, and that everywhere we look, the two sexes are startlingly and unexpectedly different not only in their normal function but in the ways they experience illness.”

            Dr. Legato went on to become the founding President of the Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine in 2006. Though she says that the field “is not just about women’s health, but about the health of both sexes,” she acknowledges that men’s health has been neglected. In her book, Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan, she says,

“The premature death of men is the most important—and neglected—health issue of our time.”

            Premature death is the endpoint of differences between men and women that begin with our different biological makeup.

“Everywhere we look, the two sexes are startlingly and unexpectedly different not only in their internal function but in the way they experience illness,” says Dr. Legato.

            Dr. Legato’s findings are consistent with another clinician and research in the field, David C. Page, M.D., professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

“There are 10 trillion cells in the human body and every one of them is sex specific,”

says Dr. Page. He goes on to say,

“We’ve had a unisex vision of the human genome,” says Dr. Page.  “Men and women are not equal in our genome and men and women are not equal in the face of disease. All your cells know on a molecular level whether they are XX or XY.”

Dr. Page concludes, “It is true that a great deal of the research going on today which seeks to understand the causes and treatments for disease is failing to account for this most fundamental difference between men and women. The study of disease is flawed.” 

The Importance of Focusing on Men’s Health

The science of gender-specific healthcare includes multiple fields including sexual biology, evolutionary psychology, and environmental ecology. To be an effective practitioner we need to have an understanding of genetic, hormonal, and biological differences between males and females as well as the rules, roles, and expectations that society places on men and women.

The MenAlive Academy of Gender-Specific Healthcare focuses on men’s health for three reasons.

First, men as a group live shorter and more unhealthy lives than do women. 

“The premature death of men is the most important—and neglected—health issue of our time,”

says Dr. Legato in her book, Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan.

Second, our interpersonal relationships are critical determinants of our overall health and wellbeing. Men have a vital role to play in the health men, women, and children. 

“What men do in relationships is, by a large margin, the crucial factor that separates a great relationship from a failed one,”

says world-renowned relationship expert Dr. John Gottman.

“This does not mean that a woman doesn’t need to do her part, but the data proves that a man’s actions are the key variable that determines whether a relationship succeeds or fails, which is ironic, since most relationship books are for women. That’s kind of like doing open-heart surgery on the wrong patient.”

            Third, men who are unhealthy and unhappy are not only harmful to themselves, but often harm women, children, and society. Comedian Elayne Boosler captures this reality with these humorous and insightful words:

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

            We recognize the problem of male violence in our personal, interpersonal, social, and community lives. According to the World Report on Violence and Health published by The World Health Organization,

“No country or community is untouched by violence. Violence pervades the lives of many people around the world, and touches all of us in some way.”

            In the Foreword to the World Report on Violence and Health, Nelson Mandela reminds us that

“Violence thrives in the absence of democracy, respect for human rights and good governance. 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 experienced it.”

            Mandela’s experiences can act as a warning about violence today. He goes on to say,

“It is also true that patterns of violence are more pervasive and widespread in societies where the authorities endorse the use of violence thought their own actions. In many societies, violence is so dominant that it thwarts hopes of economic and social development. We cannot let that continue.”

            There are three major areas of violence-related health problems detailed in the World Report: Homicide, Suicide, and War-related violence. Although violent deaths from mass shootings grab the headlines, they make up a small percentage of all homicides. What is less well known is that death by suicide is where most deaths occur.

The proportion of deaths by category are as follows:

• 18.6% are war-related deaths.
• 31.3% are a result of homicide.
• 49.1% are the result of suicide.

Men do most of the killing and men are the ones most often killed in all three categories of death.

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 (2021) from the National Institute of Mental Health, the suicide rate among males was, on average, 4 times higher among male than females. It was also higher for males at every age, particularly for older males.

Suicide rates are based on the number of people who have died by suicide per 100,000 population.

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 similar 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 for those over 75 years old.   

Who Is Likely to Benefit From Advanced Training with Dr. Jed Diamond?

            Those in previous trainings answered “yes” to one or more of these questions:

• Are you currently working as a healthcare provider?

• Do you now provide, or are you interested in providing, gender-specific healthcare services for men?

• Would you like to join a community of like-minded practitioners who recognize that supporting each other is good for those we serve and good for practitioners?

• Are you interested in being trained by one of the world’s leading experts in the field?

• Do you want to increase your knowledge and skills in the emerging field of Gender-Specific healthcare and men’s mental, emotional, and relational health?

• Would you like to increase what you earn doing work that you love?

If this sounds like you or someone you know, I would be happy to send more information. Drop me an email to Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Men’s Training” in the subject line.

If you would like to receive my free newsletter with timely articles and information to help you in your life, your relationships, and your work, you can do so here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/.

The post The Gift: Becoming a Gender-Specific Men’s Health Practitioner in 2025 appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 1

            During the holiday season, we often reflect on what we’re grateful for and what gifts we might want to receive or give to those we love. One of the greatest gifts I have been given involves my family and my work with men and their families.

            It has been said that the two most important days of our life are the day we were born and the day we found out why. I was born on December 21, 1943. I found out why was November 21, 1969, the day our first son, Jemal, was born. When I held him in my arms, I made a vow 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 engaged with their families throughout their lives.

            Following the birth of our daughter, Angela, on March 22, 1972, I launched my website MenAlive.com. Like many parents who have boy children and girl children, I soon became fascinated with their similarities and differences. Many things followed the gender norms that we tend to associate with male or female qualities. Despite giving them a range of toys to play with, our son was drawn to toy cars and our daughter was drawn to dolls.

We usually think of boys and men as being the risk-takers, but in our family, Angela was the risk-taker. Growing up in California, summer fun usually involved water sports so getting the children accustomed to water was something we started early. Angela loved the water. As soon as she could walk she toddled into the deep end of the community pool in our neighborhood. She immediately sank to the bottom and I had to dive in to rescue her. Pulling her own and admonishing her, I was sure she would never do that again. But I was wrong. As soon as our heads were turned, she scampered to the pool’s edge and repeated the process. She learned to swim very quickly or she wouldn’t still be here.

When I finished college at U.C. Santa Barbara in 1965, I applied and was accepted into several medical schools. I chose U.C. San Francisco and had visions of becoming a psychiatrist so I could help men like my father who had taken an overdose of sleeping pills when I was five years old after he had become increasingly depressed because he felt he couldn’t make a living to support me and my mother.

I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and how I could prevent it from happening to other families. I wrote about my father’s healing journey in my book, My Distant Dad: Healing the Family Father Wound.

I found traditional medical education too restrictive at the time and I transferred to U.C. Berkeley’s School of Social Welfare where I earned a master’s degree in Social Work in 1968. I began a PhD program at the same time, but found I was doing research about issues with which I had little life experience. After many years working in the field, I returned to school and earned a PhD in International Health.

Even before I had children sex and gender issues were on my mind. When I began medical school in 1965, nearly all the students were male. When I transferred to social work, nearly all the students were women. When I graduated in 1968 and began getting interested in men’s health issues, there were very few professionals working in the field.

In was a time when feminism was on the rise. I still have my paperback copy of Betty  Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique with the $.75 price posted on the cover. I had bought the book when it first came out in 1963 and discussed it with my wife as we contemplated marriage. After publishing The Feminine Mystique, one of the best-selling books of the 1960s, Betty Friedan led a life of political action on behalf of feminism that led to a reformation of American laws and culture. She helped found the National Organization for Women in 1966, an organization that won notable legal and political victories for feminism. Friedan believed the future of civilization depended upon women choosing a new, career-focused way of life.

The first chapter of Friedan’s book was titled, “The Problem That Has No Name.” She described the increasing dissatisfaction that women were feeling in the 1960s.

“The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women,”

said Friedan.

“It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered…She was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question, ‘Is this all?’”

My wife was questioning the roles that she and other women were being told they must follow. I was dealing with similar questions about the male role. I had seen my father nearly die because he felt he was a failure at the traditional “breadwinner” role for men. I certainly wanted to be successful in the world of work, but I also wanted to be successful as a husband and a father. 

I saw the emerging women’s liberation movement as being a movement for men’s liberation as well. In my mind, if women were breaking out of old sex and gender roles that meant men could break out of the complementary roles that were restricting men. Although some feminists I encountered in the 1960s saw men as allies, most did not. 

I remember going into San Franciso one Saturday in 1965 and visited a feminist bookstore. I was alone, but always loved to explore bookstores and look for interesting books. I was immersed in the glorious world of reading and didn’t notice the young boy who kept bumping into me as the walked the isles pulling out books that could my attention. I finally noticed him and smiled as he walked by. On the next pass, he pushed a piece of paper into my hands.

At first I thought this was a playful game the boy was initiating until I read the note. My heart broke when I read it. In the scrawling handwriting of an eight-year-old it said, “We don’t like men in this store.” I looked up and saw the woman behind the desk looking at me, obviously the boy’s mother. I don’t know whether she would have approved of the note he left or what messages she passed on subconsciously, but it pained me to think about what this boy would feel about himself as a male as he grew older.

Training Men to Work in the Helping Professions

            Richard V. Reeves is the founding president of the American Institute for Boys and Men (AIBM) and author of the book, Of Boys and Men: Why The Modern Male is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It. He says,

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

He goes on to say,

“Men account for only 18% of social workers and 20% of psychologists, down from a male share of 38% in social work and 68% in psychology in 1968″.

            I was fortunate to have been healthcare professional who specializes in working with men and their families for many years. It has been a wonderful profession that I have enjoyed for more than fifty years. I have been able to do work I love, with people I care about, and make a great living for myself and my family.

            Beginning in 2025, my MenAlive Academy for Gender-Specific Healthcare is planning to offer trainings for the following groups:

• Men who are trained and licensed professionals in fields including medicine, psychology, social work, marriage and family counseling, who want to specialize in working with men and their families.

• Male practitioners including coaches, facilitators, healers, who currently work with men but want to add to their skills and professional success.

• Male professionals, including those from the business world and other fields, who would like to develop expertise to work to improve men’s mental, emotional, and relational well-being. 

If you would like to get more information about me and my work, you can visit me at www.MenAlive.com. If you would like to get more information about upcoming trainings, please email me: Jed@MenAlive.com and put “Men’s Training” in the subject line. If you know men who may be interested, please share this information with them.

I will be writing a series of articles to share more information about why men should consider becoming professionally involved with helping men and their families. If you are not already subscribed to my free weekly newsletter, you can do so here:

https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/ .

The post The Gift: Becoming a Gender-Specific Men’s Health Practitioner in 2025 appeared first on MenAlive.

Part 3

Understanding Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES)

            You can read:

• Part 1: Where I’m Coming From, My Own Story, here.
• Part 2: The Day My Uncle Drove Me to the Mental Hospital.

            For most of my early adult life if you’d asked me about my early life experiences following my father’s hospitalization or the year I dutifully went with my uncle to visit my father, I would have said I didn’t remember much or made a vague reference to those early years. Even when I remembered some of the events that were painful at the time, I dismissed their significance and impact on my life.

            That’s just how things are, I thought to myself. No big deal. Stuff happens. Get over it. Forget about it. Don’t complain. Grow up. Be a man.

Most of us block out painful and traumatic memories from our childhood. We don’t want to remember times when we felt vulnerable and confused. We want to feel strong and in control of our lives. However, these old wounds don’t go away. They often come back to us in the form of bad dreams or childhood illnesses. I had a recurring dream from the time I was six years old (the age when I stopped visiting my father in the mental hospital) until I was nine or ten years old:

            I’m in my bed at night and something wakes me up. I get out of my bed and walk into the kitchen. There is no one there. I continue walking through the house afraid of what I might find but compelled to keep looking. Suddenly a dark figure lurches out of the darkness with a knife in hand. I begin running back to my bed. I know if I can get back before he catches me, I will be safe. But I don’t make it in time and I am stabbed in the back.

            The dream would recur without warning, every three or four nights. I always ran for my life, but never make it back before I am stabbed. I became afraid to go to sleep at night and would spend hours trying to create a safe place among my covers where I would be safe. I would try and stay awake as long as I could, but eventually I would fall asleep and the life-like dream would capture me again and again.

            I eventually told my mother about the dreams. She listened but dismissed the dreams as simply unwarranted fears of childhood, like being afraid there were monsters hiding under my bed. She tried to reassure me by telling me there was nothing to worry about. I didn’t stop worrying. I just stopped talking about my feelings. During that same period I developed asthma, a chronic lung disease that causes inflammation in the airways, making it difficult to breathe.  

            It was only later in life that I learned about the ACE studies and how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) impact our lives. The ACE studies began as a collaboration between the CDC and Kaiser hospital in 1998 and more than ninety research papers have been published since then.

The ACE studies found that adverse childhood experiences—including such common events as growing up in a family where parents were divorced, had alcohol or drug problems, or suffering from mental illness—harm children’s developing brains. The studies found that disrupted brain function leads to changes in how we respond to stress and damages our immune systems so profoundly that the effects show up decades later.

I learned that ACEs cause much of our burden of chronic disease, most mental illness, addictions, and are at the root of most violence. The original research listed ten possible adverse childhood experiences or ACEs. I had four. Having four aces is good if you are playing poker, but not so good for our health and wellbeing.

Even though there has been greater understanding of the impact of ACEs on our lives, many doctors and even mental health experts are not fully aware of the connection between adult problems and childhood trauma. In my article, “7 Surprising Reasons You Should See a Trauma Informed Counselor,” I said,

“Most people in the U.S. have at least one ACE, and people with four ACEs have a significant risk of developing health and relationship problems as adults. These include heart disease, cancer, diabetes, lung problems, depression, divorce, suicide, addictions, and relationship problems.  I’ve had chronic lung problems, bouts of depression, divorced twice, was suicidal at a number of stages of my life, and had numerous addictions.”

I went on to say,

“When I reached out for help, most health practitioners saw me through the lens of the mainstream medical model and tried to figure out what was wrong with me, what diagnosis I should have, and what kind of medications I should take. I did receive some help over the years with this approach, but the benefits were limited.”

Life Lesson #5: Rather than asking “what’s wrong with us?” a more helpful question is “what happened to us?”

In their book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, child psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Bruce C. Perry, M.D., PhD and Oprah Winfrey say,

“Healing must begin with a shift to asking ‘What happened to you?’ rather than ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Many of us experience adversity that has a lasting impact on our physical and emotional health. What happens to us in childhood is a powerful predictor of our risk for health problems down the road.”

In my article, “The Myth of Mental Illness and the Truth About Mental Health:  A Man’s Journey to Freedom,” I describe my describe my own healing journey, the original ACE questions, and an expanded understanding of trauma and healing.

What adverse childhood experiences did you experience in your life?  What adult problems have you experienced with your own physical, mental, emotional, and relational life as a result of those early experiences?

Life Lesson #6: Understanding what happened to us is the first step in healing. The second step is understanding the limiting beliefs about ourselves and our world.

My life changed dramatically when I stopped trying to deny and escape from the reality of my childhood wounding and how it impacted my mental, emotional, and relational life. It changed even more dramatically when I realized the beliefs I had about myself and my world because of my early trauma.

In their book, Code to Joy: The Four-Step Solution to Unlocking Your Natural State of Happiness, George Pratt, PhD, Peter Lambrou, PhD with John David Mann, say,

“Beliefs are stronger than feeling and  deeper than thoughts. Beliefs are patterns of thought so ingrained in our neural networks they have become automatic, like entrenched habits of thinking. They are the bedrock of our psychological architecture.”

Drs. Pratt and Lambrou have found seven common self-limiting beliefs that are connected to our early traumatic experiences:

1. I am not safe.
2. I am worthless.
3. I am powerless.
4. I am unlovable.
5. I cannot trust anyone.
6. I am bad.
7. I am alone.

I realized that a number of these beliefs became embedded into my body, mind, and soul and were like automatic programs operating outside my awareness yet colored all my relationships. Deep down I believed, I am not safe. Something could happen to me at any time. The world is a dangerous place. I cannot trust anyone. I never know when someone I love is going to leave me. If I do the wrong thing, they might die or be taken away. Ultimately, I am all alone. There’s no one I can rely on but myself. Its better to stay guarded and closed than to risk loving someone who will leave me.

Fortunately, as I have learned over the years, all these beliefs can be reversed. We can learn that we are safe and secure, worthy and valuable and have the power to be the loveable selves  ourselves we all are deep inside. We can trust others because they are good and we are good. And we’re never alone but connected in a web of wellbeing now and forever.

If you would like to read more in this series and other articles about improving your mental, emotional, and relational health, I invite you to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter.

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