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It’s fair to say that women are generally more comfortable than men when it comes to talking about their feelings and emotions. However, this trend seems to have shifted in recent years thanks to an increasing awareness of mental health issues and more men speaking out about their struggles in this area.
Today, it’s quite common for a high-profile male celebrity, athlete, or other public figure to share their story and normalize seeking help if needed. Whether it’s covered in their new book or discussed over a podcast, this openness has led to much of the stigma around men’s mental health needs to lessen and encouraged more men to receive mental health treatment and support over the past couple of decades. According to the latest figures, the percentage of men who received mental health treatment or counseling doubled between 2002 and 2022.
In this article, we’ll dive deeper into how therapy can help men improve their mental health and overall well-being.
Therapy Offers a Safe Space
Societal norms and cultural expectations have created gender stereotypes around emotional expression, often depicting men as weak for showing vulnerability or a more sensitive side. This has led many men to adopt a ‘tough guy’ persona or be stoic in the face of emotional challenges. Whether it’s due to their upbringing or pressure from society, the result is that many men tend to avoid discussing their feelings as they do not feel it is appropriate or that they will be received in a caring or supportive way by others.
Therapy can overcome these challenges as it offers men a safe space to be fully heard and allows them the opportunity to freely express their thoughts, feelings, and emotions without judgment. For many men, this could be the first time they have felt able or allowed themselves to do this.
In this way, therapy can be a powerful tool that empowers men to share their inner struggles and seek guidance from a trained professional, enabling them to resolve and overcome their difficulties in healthy and productive ways.
Therapy Can Alleviate Stress
Men are faced with many unique stressors in today’s modern world. Some take on the role of the provider and primary breadwinner, causing them to shoulder significant financial responsibilities and the need to bring their A-game to their work or business. This pressure, when combined with personal issues, and social obligations can take its toll leading to high stress levels and eventual burnout.
Therapy can help men balance the various demands they face, enabling them to manage stress in more effective and healthy ways. By bringing more awareness to certain stressors, therapists can help their male clients develop coping strategies that enable them to better deal with stressful thoughts, feelings and situations.
This might involve therapeutic techniques like Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), or behavioral therapy as well as introducing them to helpful practices like yoga, meditation and deep breathing exercises which they can incorporate into their daily lives.
By integrating therapeutic approaches like this, men can gain a better understanding of themselves and their triggers, allowing them to approach stressful situations with greater calm, control and confidence.
Therapy Can Improve Body Image and Self-Esteem
When it comes to the way we look, women have traditionally been viewed as more concerned with their body image than men. However, this is not necessarily the case anymore.
With images of male perfection splashed across social media and advertising, men are increasingly exposed to unrealistic ideals of appearance that they feel pressured to live up to. From gym-buffed bodies accentuating every muscle possible, to the rise of comic superheroes with unimaginable physical prowess, these depictions of masculinity can begin to chip away at male self-esteem and cause many men to develop a poor body image.
Therapy allows men a safe space to air any feelings or concerns they may have in relation to their perception of themselves. This can be concerns around their masculinity due to a physical appearance that does not match societal standards or feelings of inadequacy in the bedroom due to insecurities around penile size or sexual performance.
By addressing these topics, men can begin to uncover the roots of their feelings of inadequacy and develop strategies to see themselves in a healthier and more self-affirming light. You can learn more about permanent girth enlargement by visiting this site.
Therapy Can Help Heal Trauma
Unresolved trauma can be detrimental to male mental health and personal development. Whether it’s the suppression of painful memories and emotions or simply a lack of awareness about why certain people, places or situations cause upset or irritation, these unresolved issues can cause unhealthy habits and behaviors to form, creating havoc in their lives and relationships with others.
Unhealed trauma is also often the root cause of many mental health conditions like PTSD, anxiety and substance use disorder (SUD). Distressing thoughts, feelings and emotions can often surface creating a general sense of unease or malaise in a man’s life or leading to destructive or dangerous behaviors that can be harmful to themselves and others.
Therapy can act as a valuable support system for men who are struggling to deal with their thoughts and feelings about a traumatic event. Many men may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable talking about certain experiences in their past so therapies such as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) can offer them a powerful and effective method to resolve the underlying feelings and beliefs they are carrying without the need to discuss or delve into the trauma in great detail.
Therapy can also equip men who have suffered trauma to develop practical skills and techniques to better regulate their emotional responses and release their reliance on unhealthy crutches. In doing so, therapy can be an important and transformative tool to help men recover from traumatic experiences and regain control over their inner and outer worlds.
These are just some of the ways that therapy can empower, enable and enhance the lives of men, providing them with a greater sense of mental well-being, emotional stability and personal fulfillment.
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Hi there! I am Emily Evert, the owner of Emily Reviews. I am 28 and live in a small town in Michigan with my boyfriend Ryan and our two pugs. I have a large family and I adore my nieces and nephews. I love reading memoirs, and learning about child development and psychology. I love watching The Game of Thrones, Teen Mom, Sister Wives and Veep. I like listening to Jason Isbell, John Prine, and other alt-country or Americana music. I created Emily Reviews as a creative outlet to share my life and the products that I love with others.
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This blog article on Emily Reviews provides such relatable and practical insights—I’ve found myself in similar situations and love how it makes everyday life easier. Speaking of practical help, if you’re ever in need of top-notch physiotherapy services, Benchmark Physio is worth checking out for their personalized care!