Social Work Practice with Men at Risk

South African Journal of Psychology, 2019

In a society-and world-grappling for answers to different forms of male violence, against each other and against women and children, and what is called toxic masculinity a la US president Donald Trump's well-known pussy-grabbing remark, psychotherapists can play a massive role in working towards psychologically healthy masculinities. In this editorial I want to draw out six key pointers for psychotherapists of what I have learnt from my therapeutic work with men in the past 10 years: (1) celebrating men as fully human; (2) male vulnerability; (3) centralizing personhood, not a diagnosis; (4) men as moral beings; (5) the peer-centred men's group; and (6) explicit gender framework. Celebrating men as fully human Men are whole human beings, of course. Yet expressing this simple understanding disrupts what has become the common and dangerous narrative on male emotions, especially in South Africa, and particularly about Black males. The narrative is most aptly captured by the psychological term alexithymia-the inability to express emotions, especially tender ones (Parker, Taylor, & Bagby, 1998). Alexithymia does not mean that men do not experience all the human emotions, but simply that they do not give themselves the opportunity to express soft emotions like empathy, joy, sadness, and love. Disproportionate rates of male-driven violence perpetration and victimisation in South Africa (Ratele, 2014; Seedat, Van Niekerk, Jewkes, Suffla, & Ratele, 2009) co-exist with observations of human beings as ethically organised persons and as emotional to the core (Alcaro & Panksepp, 2017). The often-extreme brokenness of men's group participants expressed in addictions, relational failures, identity issues, severe childhood trauma, and socioeconomic frustrations or aggression does not erase men's emotional character but rather draws attention to their imperfections as human beings. When we genuinely trust and celebrate men as fully human we are able to therapeutically engage them as such and they are expected to respond accordingly. With amazing speed small groups of strangers from diverse social classes, ethnicities, cultures, and religions form cohesive

motivational interviewing and cognitive-behavioral therapies are consistent with trauma-informed care. The discussion, however, highlights how better understanding the role of trauma in the development and maintenance of harmful behaviors can lead to greater opportunities for building an understanding of how harmful behaviors can be adaptive, and thus examined to identify different coping strategies that lead to healthier outcomes.

American Psychologist, 2003

Research on men's help seeking yields strategies for enhancing men's use of mental and physical health resources. Analysis of the assumptions underlying existing theory and research also provides a context for evaluating the psychology of men and masculinity as an evolving area of social scientific inquiry. The authors identify several theoretical and methodological obstacles that limit understanding of the variable ways that men do or do not seek help from mental and physical health care professionals. A contextual framework is developed by exploring how the socialization and social construction of masculinities transact with social psychological processes common to a variety of potential help-seeking contexts. This approach begins to integrate the psychology of men and masculinity with theory and methodology from other disciplines and suggests innovative ways to facilitate adaptive help seeking.

Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2003

Men are a unique population to work with in psychotherapy, but what does research indicate about how masculinity relates to therapeutic issues? Summarizing research on masculinity's relationship to a range of presenting issues, this article organizes and discusses the findings according to masculinity "scripts" that clinicians are likely to recognize when working with male clients. The article then addresses how masculinity is also associated with less help seeking and with negative attitudes toward psychological help seeking. This irony, that traditional masculinity scripts contribute to men's presenting concerns and act as barriers to help seeking, is then addressed through recommendations for training and practice that incorporate a sociocultural context into working with men. JAMES R. MAHALIK received his PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Maryland in 1990. He is an associate professor in the Department of Counseling, Developmental, and Educational Psychology at Boston College. His specialty interests include understanding the sources of gender role conformity and how it affects developmental, psychological, and relational well-being for individuals, families, and communities, along with how gender role conformity affects men's utilization of and experiences with psychotherapy.

Men and Masculinities, 2001

This article argues that Codependents Anonymous-a group often criticized for overlooking gender politics-can encourage an awareness of hegemonic masculinity among men. The psychospiritual codependency discourse requires that people examine their lives for sources of dysfunction and make changes where possible. Drawing on data from ethnographic research and interviews, this article reveals that men can come to attribute dysfunction to stereotypical male behavior. Traditional masculinity has failed to provide the men in this research with its customary privileges, including successful marriages and intimate relationships. The experience of failure left them with no typical male resources on which to draw. This lack of resources, consequently, made change possible. Illustrative cases follow several men through the transition from hegemonic masculinity to egalitarian personhood.

Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 1996

The central theme of this paper is that men are at one and the same time both damaged and damage-doing. The process of being damaged through the agency of masculinity predisposes men to exploit, dominate and abuse-not only as boys, as partners and fathers, but as priests, teachers, therapists, lawyers, nurses, psychologists and psychiatrists. Mental health services need to see both aspects of this male equation: a focus on male abuse alone leads to punishment, containment and, very likely, the continuation of abuse; a focus on male damagedness alone preserves the ideology of male unaccountability. However, evidence reviewed here suggests that most traditional psychiatric services fail to acknowledge the impact of inequalities on men's mental health as comprehensively as they fail to acknowledge the impact of these inequalities on the mental health of women. This is a significant problem, and we suggest ways that a gendered analysis of masculinity can be used to help address this deficit. This analysis is used to develop a map of men's mental health that not only accommodates traditional categories of mental health difficulty, but other important consequences of the close association between masculinity and sexuality inequality, especially the use of violence and the capacity to do harm. This analytical framework also invites consideration of the invisibility of male distress, the disallowing and desensitizing of 'vulnerability', and their submersion in a kind of psychology of entitlement. Finally, we consider the implications of this mapping exercise for mental health services and for working with men.

Cases on Cross-Cultural Counseling Strategies, 2019

The purpose of this chapter is to provide counseling students a framework that will allow them to broach gender with male clients and to navigate conversations that may elicit anxiety for beginning counselors. This will be done through the case example of Whitney, a graduate student who just started internship. Her client is Rick, a client in his 50s, who is coming to services after receiving a DUI and needing to complete counseling for a diversion mandate. Whitney is younger than Rick and has the experience of having some discomforting exchanges with him, such as remarks on how "bright" she is and a passing comment on her outfit. The strategies proposed in this case study are grounded in the Multicultural and Social Justice Counseling Competencies and in Relational Cultural Theory and will give students a framework for understanding clients who may respond like Rick.

2004

This paper will address the need for gender issues and the discourses of power to be explored within resilient frameworks for successful outcomes for at-risk males in intervention programs. Due to the western valorisation of traditional masculinities, the 'backlash politics' debate internationally constrains the challenges to the existing gender order within intervention programs. The discussion will deal with the notion of hegemonic masculinities and how boys with behaviour problems act out traditional masculinities to gain a sense of male power. It will focus on the notion of at-risk which defines these boys into the new victims of accepted social values and does not address the issues of how men victimise other men from different ethnic, class and sexual preference minority groups, through violent and aggressive tactics. For these boys to explore the interplay of hegemonic masculinities within society, will enable them to move into connecting protective processes/factors ...

Men and Masculinities, 2019

In August of 2018, the American Psychological Association (APA) published a new report entitled, "APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men." These Guidelines summarize the extensive scholarship documenting dilemmas associated with masculinity that harm boys' and men's lives. It discusses many elements of what is labeled "traditional" masculinity, which requires boys and men to suppress certain feelings and emotions (e.g., sadness, loneliness), limiting their psycho-social development and shaping their behaviors, relationships, and identities. In other words, subscribing to ideologies of conventional or "hegemonic" (i.e. currently and situationally valorized) masculinity (Connell 1995) comes with psychological and interpersonal costs. These constraints can lead to boys' and men's lack of empathy for girls and women, as well as for gay and "effeminate" boys, and for LGBTQ+ individuals. At the same time, they operate within a culture where "himpathy" leads people to identify with even poorly behaved white boys and men (Manne, 2018). The Guidelines explain, however, that even as men face "costs" of masculinity (see Messner 1997), the expectations of and privileges associated with masculinity mean boys and men are less likely to seek support or treatment for mental health struggles. Ignoring mental health needs indeed becomes an enactment of masculinity itself. As the authors of the report summarize, "compelling evidence exists supporting the need for guidelines for psychologists who provide services to boys and men" (2018; pg. 4). They outline ten separate guidelines for psychologists helping boys and men to seek happiness as well as to establish more intimate and egalitarian relationships. The Guidelines begin by urging clinical psychologists to understand masculinities as socially and culturally constructed (Guideline 1), and as constructions that look different over the life-course (Guideline 2). They encourage practitioners to recognize how power and privileges associated with masculinity are structured by broader systems of inequality, as well as how this inequality deeply harms boys and men and their relationships (Guidelines 3 and 4). They encourage "positive" (i.e. active) involvement from fathers (Guideline 5) and support the role of educational and healthcare institutions in expanding boys' understanding of their intellectual capacities and occupational potentials (Guideline 6). However, what constitutes "positive" and "healthy" are at times unclear, or in the case of fathering implicitly presumed to mean present rather than a reimagining of fatherhood beyond providing and playing. The Guidelines also acknowledge and suggest that psychologists work to reduce risk-taking behavior, address trauma that result in boys and men harming themselves and others (Guideline 7), and encourage

Rethinking Feminist Theories for Social Work Practice

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