beliefs about what women and men ought to do is referred to as a

It is widely acknowledged that men are less likely than women to seek help for mental health issues. At the aforementioned fourth dimension, men'due south issues can be misunderstood or overlooked past counselors, the majority of whom are women, say Matt Englar-Carlson, Marcheta Evans and Thelma Duffey, the authors of A Counselor's Guide to Working with Men, published this past spring by the American Counseling Clan.

"Counselors might not think there is much to know in terms of counseling competency when working with men. By default, counselors might adopt a universalistic perspective that ignores male culture and minimizes the experiences and stresses of growing upwards male. … Like other dimensions of identity, masculinity wholly influences the well-beingness of men and therefore must be considered and assessed if counselors wish to create effective therapeutic outcomes," they write in the preface of their book.

70 percent of counselors are female person, according to statistics from the U.S. Section of Labor, and roughly 75 pct of American Counseling Clan members are female.

With this in heed, at that place are gender-specific themes that counselors should continue in mind – and be sensitive to – when working with men, say Englar-Carlson, Evans and Duffey.

Q+A:A Counselor'southward Guide to Working with Men

Responses from co-author Matt Englar-Carlson

Men are statistically less likely to seek help for mental health issues. From your perspective, what tin counselors do to assist this?

The data here is very clear. Referrals for mental health services are about the same for men and women, and beyond the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the incidence of disorders are believed to be equivalent for men and women. Nevertheless, regardless of demographic factors, men are less likely to seek help for mental/physical health concerns. So there is something almost how men are living their lives and as well how the mental health profession operates that maintains this discrepancy.

At that place is non enough space here to address the question fully, but counselors can recognize that seeking counseling often is stigmatizing for men and violates masculine norms about how many men should live their lives. Seeking help ways relying on others, admitting the need for assist, recognizing the influence of emotional bug — and if men are invested in a model of masculinity that values being strong, cocky-reliant and maintaining emotional command, then counseling is a tough sell, as the popular perception of counseling directly conflicts with this.

To address this, counselors can initially address men'south self-stigmatizing beliefs, normalize concerns and encourage expectancy in a positive outcome, reframe masculine-associated negative beliefs, validate the courage to seek help and the ability to overcome obstacles and, well-nigh importantly, meet men where they are. And that can mean getting out of the function and into the customs to the places where men congregate. Go to gyms and able-bodied clubs, fraternal organizations (Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.), churches, business organizations and other places where men get and see if there is a style to talk about men's health.

Often it is better to change the bulletin to reduce resistance. For case, I often talk about "men'south health" rather than just "mental health," equally I know that mental health is more stigmatizing. Other research indicates using terms like "coach" rather than "counselor" can exist helpful. All of this is really well-nigh being strategic in knowing the audience you are trying to target. And so you lot can see that counselors might find themselves borrowing tactics from public health to reduce barriers to help-seeking and working to create social norms where men come up to recognize their concerns as normal.

The key here is that counselors cannot practise this if they practice non understand the men they are trying to help. Counselors need to exist masculine-sensitive in their work so that that are able to actually assistance men when they do come.

What communication would you requite to counselors to forestall gender bias when working with men and to proceed away from stereotypes — men are "macho," unemotional, etc.?

The outset reply here is that counselors need to do their ain work to address their own barriers to working with men. Men and women alike need to examine their own stereotypes about men and their ain past experiences and so that they are non express in how they understand the total range of men'south lives.

It is important to know that many men are invested in presenting an image and seeing themselves in a style that matches the dominant masculine norm. Nevertheless research on masculinity indicates that nearly men are of middling masculinity. It doesn't matter how it is measured — most men score close to the middle of the scale. Enquiry also tells the states that most men think they're not as masculine as other men they know, and nigh men don't think they're every bit masculine as they ought to be. Then in other words, the average man thinks he ought to be more masculine. He's likely to believe that he's the least masculine guy in the grouping.

From that perspective, it's no surprise that men brand the effort to evidence their masculinity once more and again — and that it doesn't accept much prodding, even when information technology involves doing something stupid. Every bit counselors, we have to use this information wisely, and come across and experience the full range of the men that we encounter. We can easily reinforce masculine norms if that is all nosotros wait, or we can be wise and patient enough to understand that there is a duality to how many men nowadays. They will show you the toughness in lodge to protect their ain tenderness, and they may present every bit stoic and unemotional in order to protect securely painful and hurtful feelings. I remember counselors need to acknowledge the toughness in social club to experience the tenderness and understand why the toughness exists.

One of the key concepts here is beingness aware of the role of shame in men'due south lives (come across the commodity on men and shame by David Shepard and Fredric Rabinowitz in the Journal of Counseling & Development special issue on men and counseling). If counselors are sensitive to men, shame and emotions, and so they will quickly learn that what y'all see on the outside is not always what is going on on the within for many men.

Who is your target audience for A Counselor's Guide to Working with Men?

Our audition is rather wide, knowing that anybody has some contact with boys, adolescent males, men and fathers in their personal and professional lives. The ideas in the book are tailored for clinical work with men, but we think the insights gained about male socialization and men's health behavior could assist the reader with whatsoever of the men in their life. Near people know and so little virtually the socialization and psychology of men, and it is rarely discussed in professional circles or among men themselves. We believe that a little knowledge can go a long fashion, and we hope the book helps the reader develop more sensitivity to men's lives.

Nosotros likewise are aware that men may non ever follow traditional help-seeking pathways, so this book was aimed to aid professionals meet men where they are. If that means in a master care setting, a school, private practise, community mental health facility … whatever setting is fine, as any interaction is an opportunity to promote health and health.

What do y'all hope counselors take abroad from the volume?

That is a expert question, equally nosotros considered that idea on many levels. On a basic level, our hope is that counselors acquire most the broad range of men and masculinities and how male development can contribute to the difficulties many men experience around living salubrious lives. This awareness can shift not only how counselors conceptualize the needs of men, but as well how counseling is presented and practiced.

We also believe that ideas in this volume will challenge readers to do some self-reflection near their ain experiences, beliefs, biases and judgments most men. That process of reflection is disquisitional in existence a caring and compassionate advisor who works with men.

At a more technical level, there are many interventions and skills presented that can help counselors create better helping relationships with men and deepen the clinical experience. And I retrieve that is something that our book actually highlights — that men crave and can co-create deeper relationships. We put that idea front and center since it is critical to shaping how counselors work with men. You tin see that we view working with men through the lens of developing relational cultural competency. Thus, our volume looks at knowledge, beliefs and skills.

What would you want all advisor practitioners — school counselors, addictions counselors, mental health counselors, etc. — to know nearly the book'southward subject matter?

Start of all, we come across this as applied book with articulate ideas and example examples that illustrate concepts in action. Further, the book has multiple reflective questions embedded in each chapter that are designed to create a dialogue with the reader. We take an inclusive approach to understanding men and recognizing the wide range of identities associated with how men organize their lives.

We too present the book from a social justice perspective, recognizing the conflicts and barriers — intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal — that contribute to many men's difficulties in beingness healthy. We present that perspective with the realization that wellness needs of men are vast and that the health disparities encountered by many men, but particularly men of colour, demand our immediate attention. Information technology is easy to observe that men do not seek counseling as much as women, but the real question is, what are counselors doing to tailor their work to bring men to address why men might exist hesitant?

Considering that the majority of counselors are women, practise you recall men's bug and gender-specific needs are often disregarded or unrecognized in counseling sessions?

That is somewhat complicated to explore. I remember that everyone recognizes sex and gender in a counseling session, but non everyone realizes that gender is salient to many men who are in counseling. I retrieve that is true for almost any advisor. So in that sense, it might become ignored, or information technology plays out in sessions without any specific attention.

It is true that the most common counseling dyad is female to female person, so in many cases, information technology might but exist that counselors are not seeing as many men. Only every bit I mentioned above, that also is a pretty significant issue that we ought be to addressing. Some counselor educators do non call back the field should look at men's issues. Due to many factors, information technology is also true that few counselors receive any formal training near working specifically with men.

One of the ways that male power and privilege works is that it clouds others — men and women akin — from seeing the pain and suffering of men. Information technology leads many to assume that men practice not need, desire or will not accept assistance. It also deludes people — again, men and women alike — into not examining the function of gender for men. When gender is addressed in advisor training, it is frequently referring to women'southward problems — take a await at chapters on gender in most multicultural counseling textbooks. And so I practice see a gap between what many men feel in their lives associated with their mental wellness needs and the counseling profession'southward ability to comprehend and meet those needs effectively.

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A Counselor'southward Guide to Working with Men  is available from the American Counseling Clan bookstore at counseling.org/publications/bookstore or by calling 800-422-2648 x 222

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Nigh the authors

Matt Englar-Carlson is a professor of counseling and co-manager of the Center for Boys and Men at California State University, Fullerton.

Marcheta Evans is dean of the Schoolhouse of Professional person Studies and the Worden Schoolhouse of Social Service at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. She served as ACA president for 2010-2011.

Thelma Duffey is ACA president-elect. She is a professor and chair of the Section of Counseling at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

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Related reading: Run across "Men Welcome Here," Counseling Today'south embrace story from August 2010: ct.counseling.org/2010/08/men-welcome-here/

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Bethany Bray is a staff writer forCounseling Today. Contact her at bbray@counseling.org

FollowCounseling Today on Twitter @ACA_CTonline and on Facebook: facebook.com/CounselingToday

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Source: https://ct.counseling.org/2014/08/behind-the-book-a-counselors-guide-to-working-with-men/

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