Valerie Tarico (ValerieTarico.com) is a Seattle-based psychologist and writer. She completed the new six-hour online course Introduction to Male Psychology and Mental Health and then wrote this review for us to publish. Additional reviews can be found on the course’s homepage. WIBM is grateful to everyone who is interested in expanding their understanding of male psychology and mental health and would love to see more Washingtonians benefit from this online course.
Don’t let the cringy opening cartoon or rudimentary production value dissuade you from this male psychology course, which is approved for continuing education by the British Psychological Society. For a mental health professional who wants to better understand the needs of male clients, the reference list alone is worth the price of entry.
In 2019, when the American Psychological Association introduced their first set of guidelines for working with boys and men, they led with a blanket statement that “traditional masculinity is psychologically harmful.” It is hard to imagine that defining masculinity solely in deficit terms will lead to better therapy outcomes. (It is also hard to imagine a professional organization making an analogous statement that “traditional femininity is psychologically harmful,” even though feminine ‘ideals’ can contribute to, for example, eating disorders or sexual dysfunction.)
By contrast, the Intro to Male Psychology and Mental Health course from the British Centre for Male Psychology focuses on both challenges and strengths for men and boys. It examines biological and social/systemic factors and introduces (sometimes surprising) research findings that any therapist should take seriously. Consider:
1. On average, both men and women exhibit an “empathy gap,” showing greater empathy for females than males.
2. Even though traditional hierarchies persist in some subcultures, on average in the West boys now do less well academically than girls, exhibit more behavior problems and learning disabilities, and drop out more often. Men are graduating from college at a lower rate, struggling more with addiction, living shorter lives, and suiciding at almost four times the rate of women.
3. Though they may not do as much physical harm, women initiate somewhere between one third and one half of intimate partner violence—yet domestic violence agencies almost exclusively serve women and children.
4. When gender disparities negatively affect females, we often look for systemic causes and solutions; when disparities affect males, we more often blame individuals.
5. Psychological diagnoses and treatments for females focus more on internal experience (emotions and cognition) while those more common for males often focus on external behavior. This may mean that we mistakenly overlook possible diagnoses like depression, underlying emotions like sadness or anxiety, and interventions that operate at the level of emotional regulation, like self-soothing.
6. For mental health treatment, many men may be better served by group interventions and activities than individual therapy.
7. For many governmental and nongovernmental organizations, “gender equity” is interchangeable with empowering females, meaning disparities that adversely affect boys and men don’t get measured or addressed.
Related article: Major Spokane TV Station Airs Series on ‘Helping Our Boys’
This course was far from perfect. The amount of time devoted to different topics seemed inconsistent and not always proportional to their prevalence or importance. Also, the creators focused a lot on sociology—the negative impacts on boys of concepts like “toxic masculinity” (seemingly taken to mean all of masculinity, a view that is unfortunately reinforced by the 2019 American Psychological Association positioning). In their efforts to open space for a positive psychology of boys and men and pro-social/adaptive masculinity, it seemed like the authors ignored or even denied the existence of patriarchy, which continues to define the lives of many women and girls around the planet. I wish they had simply acknowledged this reality, as doing so in no way negates the challenges that disproportionately affect boys and men.
I hope that the British Centre for Male Psychology will continue to refine this course and complement it with others that go into more depth on specific diagnoses and interventions along with further research that examines both negative and positive aspects of masculinity. The course creators make a compelling case that we as a society are sending a message to boys that they are bad simply by virtue of having been born male and that their inborn differences are deficiencies. Ouch. Surely the mental health professions can do better.
Data from many sources tell us that boys and young men are falling behind and hurting. Psychologists and other mental health practitioners need to be part of the solution.
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