Monday, November 20, 2017

Toxic Masculinity and Mental Health pt.2

I’ve posted previously about the link between toxic masculinity and mental health issues in men. The study I referenced was published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology examining conformity to masculine norms and mental health outcomes in 78 research samples involving nearly 20,000 men. I recently came across an article referencing the same study, but it also included testimonials from a few men describing their experience at the intersection of masculinity and mental illness. I found that these personal testimonials were able to really give perspective and a deeper understanding of the concept than the cold data was able to do on it’s own. I highly recommend taking a look at this article, but more than that, we need to start having these discussions with the men in our lives as well. As one of the men, Daniel Briggs, says in his interview, “Men need to accept that talking is good and that the hardest part is showing emotion. Walking around with a smile on your face, telling jokes – that’s the easy part. But talking about life and your feelings, rather than how your football team did or how many pints you drank on Saturday night, is much harder.”



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