Men will do literally anything other than go to therapy, but is it all they need? And what are women really longing for when they insist their partners get help?
I’d love to see how this connects back to Tracy’s excellent conceptualization of heteroexceptionalism. Like is it a hope that if men just read bell hooks and did therapy they would somehow not be capable of reproducing the harms of patriarchy within their intimate relationships with women? Talk about magical thinking. Not to always be bringing up my total blindside divorce in the comments section, but my ex husband who suddenly left me without warning was in his own therapy for years, shared household labor equally, and also phone banked for reproductive rights so I’m pretty cynical that therapy and feminism can prevent men from treating their female partners with deep cruelty when the chips are down. I think it does come back to men taking responsibility for sharing the emotional labor of a relationship - that’s something I never felt like my ex could get to even though we had endless discussions about it.
Please always bring up your divorce in the comments section!! And yes to this: "I think it does come back to men taking responsibility for sharing the emotional labor of a relationship"! Also totally agree there is some magical thinking happening (or some dire hope? hetero-optimism? hetero-exceptionalism?) involved in the "if only he'd go to therapy" longing.
Such a good episode! I have SO many thoughts about it. I will limit myself to these two thoughts about why men don't come to therapy: internalizers vs. externalizes, and privilege. Women are more often internalizers, meaning they self-reflect and tend to blame themselves if things are going wrong, whereas men are more often socialized to be externalizers who blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong, and lash out instead of introspecting. On the micro level, this looks like men blaming anyone but themselves for their loneliness and isolation. On the macro level, they start wars. Usually the only thing that gets an externalizer to go to therapy is when they are either mandated, or the consequences for their choices are so extreme that they are left with no other choice because their life has totally fallen apart (i.e. a lot of people in recovery from substance abuse are externalizers).
But the other part at play (and you touched on this) is that men avoid going to therapy because it's work, and they have the privilege to opt out. Men have been raised to believe that the world (women) should accommodate them, and not the other way around, so why would they do all that hard work of showing up to therapy week after week to reflect on how they could grow and change? I think this is also why so many men refuse to go to individual therapy and will only show up for couples therapy. They think if their wife is there, she will do the emotional labor for him, and he can get credit for the group project without actually contributing to it.
#notallmen, I have had some lovely, wonderful, insightful men come to see me for therapy over the years, and worked with some male therapists who were great, but they are a small minority. The other trend I see among men who show up for therapy is that they want to work on a single issue, i.e. resolving panic symptoms, and they want to do the bare minimum of therapy required to achieve that goal. Far fewer men come to therapy for personal growth.
Love the podcast, and this episode particularly hit home.
I wrote a book that came out last summer, Take the L, that is exactly about this plea. It's an attempt to make feminist literature—bell hooks, Andrea Long Chu, Pauline Harmange, and many more—to men for the purpose of encouraging true introspection. It uses love as a vessel to push men towards looking at their power, place, and space in society, with the hope of making this world—and the current dire dating landscape—a little less shitty. I'd love to share with you guys, and either way, love all the content you guys put up for us.
This will be a listen-twice episode! I really enjoyed your conversation. I would like to add a point though.
Over the past year I've been feeling increasingly frustrated whenever I see the 'Men would rather do [x] than go to therapy' trope. I've been trying to source mental health help for my eldest son (18yo), and it is so hard. I'm a solo parent working part-time, so most private therapy is beyond our means. And even the subsidised therapy has long wait lists, if you can get in at all (and then I have to hope that the therapist will fit with my son, etc). And my kid takes the failures of the system as further proof of his own irrelevance, which is heartbreaking.
It's become so hard not to see the jokes about 'men need to do therapy' as coming from a place of privilege and kind of dismissive about the realities of health care under capitalism. I tell myself that the trope is actually about men not being willing to look after themselves, with 'therapy' as a stand-in for this (and I really appreciated Amanda acknowledging this throughout the episode). And it is! But still, it can really get to me.
But this is my problem, and I really did I love hearing your thoughts on men not being willing to even counternance the idea of therapy, irrespective of how easy it is to source. And, you know, if I had to pick between never again hearing 'men need to go to therapy' and 'there is a male loneliness epidemic' I wouldn't even need to think about it!
I was an exuberant boy. When that behavior got quashed, I became sullen and rebellious. Parents threatened to send me to a psychiatrist "to find out what's wrong with me." I stubbornly resisted, expecting it to be a process of judgement, censure and punishing restrictions. I'm older now, I've been through lots of therapy, some helpful, some not, all discomforting to me. I can't speak for all men, though I suspect many are resistant to suggestions (or court orders) to "go to therapy" for the same reasons I was.
I’d love to see how this connects back to Tracy’s excellent conceptualization of heteroexceptionalism. Like is it a hope that if men just read bell hooks and did therapy they would somehow not be capable of reproducing the harms of patriarchy within their intimate relationships with women? Talk about magical thinking. Not to always be bringing up my total blindside divorce in the comments section, but my ex husband who suddenly left me without warning was in his own therapy for years, shared household labor equally, and also phone banked for reproductive rights so I’m pretty cynical that therapy and feminism can prevent men from treating their female partners with deep cruelty when the chips are down. I think it does come back to men taking responsibility for sharing the emotional labor of a relationship - that’s something I never felt like my ex could get to even though we had endless discussions about it.
Please always bring up your divorce in the comments section!! And yes to this: "I think it does come back to men taking responsibility for sharing the emotional labor of a relationship"! Also totally agree there is some magical thinking happening (or some dire hope? hetero-optimism? hetero-exceptionalism?) involved in the "if only he'd go to therapy" longing.
Such a good episode! I have SO many thoughts about it. I will limit myself to these two thoughts about why men don't come to therapy: internalizers vs. externalizes, and privilege. Women are more often internalizers, meaning they self-reflect and tend to blame themselves if things are going wrong, whereas men are more often socialized to be externalizers who blame everyone but themselves when things go wrong, and lash out instead of introspecting. On the micro level, this looks like men blaming anyone but themselves for their loneliness and isolation. On the macro level, they start wars. Usually the only thing that gets an externalizer to go to therapy is when they are either mandated, or the consequences for their choices are so extreme that they are left with no other choice because their life has totally fallen apart (i.e. a lot of people in recovery from substance abuse are externalizers).
But the other part at play (and you touched on this) is that men avoid going to therapy because it's work, and they have the privilege to opt out. Men have been raised to believe that the world (women) should accommodate them, and not the other way around, so why would they do all that hard work of showing up to therapy week after week to reflect on how they could grow and change? I think this is also why so many men refuse to go to individual therapy and will only show up for couples therapy. They think if their wife is there, she will do the emotional labor for him, and he can get credit for the group project without actually contributing to it.
#notallmen, I have had some lovely, wonderful, insightful men come to see me for therapy over the years, and worked with some male therapists who were great, but they are a small minority. The other trend I see among men who show up for therapy is that they want to work on a single issue, i.e. resolving panic symptoms, and they want to do the bare minimum of therapy required to achieve that goal. Far fewer men come to therapy for personal growth.
Phew the externalizer thing is 🤯
Love the podcast, and this episode particularly hit home.
I wrote a book that came out last summer, Take the L, that is exactly about this plea. It's an attempt to make feminist literature—bell hooks, Andrea Long Chu, Pauline Harmange, and many more—to men for the purpose of encouraging true introspection. It uses love as a vessel to push men towards looking at their power, place, and space in society, with the hope of making this world—and the current dire dating landscape—a little less shitty. I'd love to share with you guys, and either way, love all the content you guys put up for us.
This will be a listen-twice episode! I really enjoyed your conversation. I would like to add a point though.
Over the past year I've been feeling increasingly frustrated whenever I see the 'Men would rather do [x] than go to therapy' trope. I've been trying to source mental health help for my eldest son (18yo), and it is so hard. I'm a solo parent working part-time, so most private therapy is beyond our means. And even the subsidised therapy has long wait lists, if you can get in at all (and then I have to hope that the therapist will fit with my son, etc). And my kid takes the failures of the system as further proof of his own irrelevance, which is heartbreaking.
It's become so hard not to see the jokes about 'men need to do therapy' as coming from a place of privilege and kind of dismissive about the realities of health care under capitalism. I tell myself that the trope is actually about men not being willing to look after themselves, with 'therapy' as a stand-in for this (and I really appreciated Amanda acknowledging this throughout the episode). And it is! But still, it can really get to me.
But this is my problem, and I really did I love hearing your thoughts on men not being willing to even counternance the idea of therapy, irrespective of how easy it is to source. And, you know, if I had to pick between never again hearing 'men need to go to therapy' and 'there is a male loneliness epidemic' I wouldn't even need to think about it!
There is definitely a bigger conversation to be had about the privilege and availability of therapy, especially good politically engaged therapy!
I was an exuberant boy. When that behavior got quashed, I became sullen and rebellious. Parents threatened to send me to a psychiatrist "to find out what's wrong with me." I stubbornly resisted, expecting it to be a process of judgement, censure and punishing restrictions. I'm older now, I've been through lots of therapy, some helpful, some not, all discomforting to me. I can't speak for all men, though I suspect many are resistant to suggestions (or court orders) to "go to therapy" for the same reasons I was.