James Barrett, PhD

A fascinating new study came out last week that found that boys and young men feel “weird” about talking about their problems and feel talking about problems is a “waste of time.”  The key to this study is that the authors were clear that the boys did not feel embarrassed about talking about feelings or that they wouldn’t want their friends to know they talked about feelings, they really just did not want to talk.  The boys in this study felt that if there was a problem that could be fixed, fix it, otherwise best to move on.  These findings are especially important in light of traditional models of psychotherapy and counseling that rely on lots of talking and processing feelings.  As helping professionals we need to recognize the importance of letting boys know how we are going to help them take action to improve a given situation from school problems to arguments at home.  If we rely too much on face-to-face “feelings talk” we run the very real risk of turning boys off to therapy and counseling.  It is not uncommon for me to see young men in my practice who have avoided “shrinks” for years after a bad experience in early adolescence.  So, next time we hear a boy tell us they “don’t want to talk about it” lets not assume it is resistance or social pressure…they may really not want to talk about it.  Our job is to take this sentiment seriously and communicate to them that we can help problem-solve.