Motivational

Why Men Don’t Like Going to Therapy

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man sitting on a couch and speaking with a therapist

Where do you turn when life gets to be too much? For some men, therapy is a relief. For others, it’s not even an option.

A November survey of 2,000 American men from Talker Research, on behalf of Talk Space, analyzed male friendship and mental health. Researchers found that 58% of men had never been to therapy, and 57% said they weren’t open to attending at any point in the future.

The survey also found that men frequently felt more comfortable talking to their male friends about their feelings, even if they had a partner. Of those surveyed, 61% said they often or sometimes were able to share more honestly with male friends than with their partner.

The National Institute of Mental Health reported that only 41.6% of men received help for any mental illness in 2022, compared to 56.9% of women. Of those diagnosed with a serious mental health illness, only 59.3% of men received treatment, compared to 71.4% of women. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America reports that nearly 1 in 10 men experience symptoms of depression and/or anxiety. Of those, less than half will actually receive treatment for it. Additionally, men are four times more likely than women to die by suicide. So, why the disconnect for men and mental health treatment?

“I’ve avoided going to therapy, despite the immense stress of running a men’s lifestyle website for the past 15 years. Here’s why: Imagine you take your car to a mechanic because it’s not working properly, and they go ‘a-ha, I figured it out.’ But instead of fixing the problem, they tell you to come back each week and discuss what went wrong and how it feels to drive a broken car,” says Chad Barnsdale, founder of Unfinished Man, a men’s lifestyle website, from Vancouver, Canada. “That’s how I feel about therapists. If I’m looking for advice, it’s because I’ve exhausted every other option and can’t figure out how to solve my own problems, not because I’m looking to delve into the feeling of my problems or commiserate.”

To be sure, not every man feels like that. “I wasn’t sure therapy was needed at first, but after experiencing it, I realized how valuable it could be,” says Dane Nk, owner and webmaster of thatvideogameblog.com from Honolulu. “It gave me the space to address my stress and anxiety and helped me find clarity around emotions that had previously been difficult for me to handle alone. It felt like having a guide through difficult levels in life, helping me gain clarity and perspective.”

One review of studies on men and therapy listed a few big reasons that men don’t go for counseling:

The perceived bias is a big one. Josh Jonas, a couples counselor in New York and longtime advocate of improving access for men in therapy gives the example of a virtual training he was in, in which therapists watched a couple’s counseling session. Comments from the mostly female viewers started flying in the chat almost immediately.

“It hasn’t been three minutes after the couple comes on… therapists start putting in the comment section ‘narcissist’… ‘on the spectrum.’ They just start labeling this guy within three minutes,” he says.

They didn’t back down, in spite of some therapists requesting that others not label the participants. Numerous sessions later, the therapists could all see that none of these labels were true, Jonas recalls.

“That’s one of the reasons men don’t want to go to therapy. They think, ‘I’m going to show up and I’m going to be what I am—shut down and closed off, and not knowing how to put my feelings into words… and I’m going to get labeled as fearing intimacy, shut-down, narcissist or on the spectrum.’”

Nearly a decade ago, Jonas published an article in Huffington Post called “The New Leather Jacket: How Therapy Can Make You Cool” attempting to dispel myths and the stigma of therapy, a battle he continues to fight today.

In the Talker survey, men considered “honesty” and “loyalty” as the top masculine traits, while “vulnerability” was last on the list. Jonas knows the “men don’t want to be vulnerable” argument well. But, pointing to Brené Brown’s ideas, he says that many of us don’t know what vulnerability really is.

“She says, ‘You can’t describe vulnerability without courage, and you can’t describe courage without vulnerability,’” Jonas explains. He gives the example of someone in the military sharing their most courageous moment and how they can’t do it without also describing a very vulnerable moment.

So when men in the study point to vulnerability as the least attractive trait, he cautions they may not fully understand its meaning.

Jonas looks to author David Deida, who writes, “It is time to evolve beyond the macho jerk ideal, all spine and no heart… It is also time to evolve beyond the sensitive and caring wimp ideal, all heart and no spine.” The work of therapy isn’t just in becoming vulnerable, but incorporating both of these, Jonas explains.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today without therapy—full stop,” says Kyle Elliott, Ed.D., a tech career coach in Santa Barbara, California. He started seeing a therapist during college when he was diagnosed with OCD and anxiety. “I was later diagnosed with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic disorder following a sexual assault in graduate school,” he says.

“However, the benefits extend well beyond the management of my multiple mental health conditions. Therapy provides a dedicated space to process my emotions and feelings, reflect on my goals and priorities and work toward living a life of purpose and meaning. Sometimes I bring an agenda of topics to discuss with my therapist, while other times it’s simply a place to slow down and focus on myself for the hour,” he says.

Elliott shares that men should consider reaching out to a new therapist if they’ve had a bad experience. “It’s like finding a barber or any other service provider; sometimes you have to give a few a try before you find the right one,” he says.

For some men, the search itself is a significant challenge. “The idea of finding the right therapist felt daunting. And the idea of ‘baring your soul’ to a stranger only to find out he or she isn’t a good fit seemed untenable,” says Marc A. Pitman, CEO of the Concord Leadership Group in Greenville, South Carolina. He adds that he was exceptionally grateful for this type of support when his wife went through an unexpected major medical incident.

“While therapy has been helpful for me, I completely understand why some men shy away from it. The stigma surrounding mental health can make it feel like a daunting step,” says Nk. “What matters is finding the right fit for you—whether therapy or another method of managing stress. I’ve discovered that seeking help is a strength, not a weakness.”

He adds that his job, which involves staying on top of trends and managing community engagement, has substantial pressures that showed him how important mental health is—especially for men who are told to “keep things bottled up.”

Jonas shares that therapy isn’t so much about being vulnerable but about “crumbling under the weight of your emotions if you don’t connect with them.” And that, he says, is exactly what therapists are trained to help people do.

Photo courtesy of YURII MASLAK/Shutterstock

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