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Need Therapy? A Good Man Is Hard to Find

Mental health care is a profession increasingly dominated by women, giving rise to concern that some men in need of help may go without

Full article in the NYTimes this week: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/22/health/22therapists.html?_r=1&hp

Mr. Carey writes, “Researchers began tracking the “feminization” of mental health care more than a generation ago, when women started to outnumber men in fields like psychology and counseling. Today the takeover is almost complete.” He goes on to say, “The result, many therapists argue, is that the profession is at risk of losing its appeal for a large group of sufferers — most of them men — who would like to receive therapy but prefer to start with a male therapist.”

I don’t believe Mr. Carey has heard of Naked Therapy yet

That said, I don’t think it’s a problem that therapy is becoming dominated by women. The problem is that therapy has not changed to match the times. We live in a world vastly different from the age of Freud, yet our therapeutic practices have not fully evolved with us. Men aren’t going to therapy because therapy isn’t relevant to men’s lives, whether it’s being carried out by a man or a woman. Perhaps this is partly due to the “feminization” of therapeutic methodology that Carey refers to – so instead of evolving along with the times (ie, the internet), it’s tied to a time period with Victorian values. Men live in a world saturated with arousal, and yet therapy forbids arousal, so therapy forbids the very thing that men are most eager to learn about. Or, as I say, men “think through arousal,” so how do therapists expect to get men to think about themselves in an environment neutered of arousal?

That’s why men are flocking to Naked Therapy. To learn, not be prohibited, from their arousal.