Written by Chuck LeBlanc

One of the reasons I decided to focus my practice on male mental health had a lot to do with my own experiences as a male with anxiety and depression. I’ve spoken at length both on my podcast and in various blog posts about my mental health struggles as well as my difficulties expressing grief, hurt and sadness. So today let me tell you the heart of why I do what I do and why I feel that therapy is so damn important for the men in our lives. Its all about vulnerability.

Vulnerability is all about understanding how we are feeling, why we are feeling it, what we need and how to express it, all without being held back by shame. In our culture we as men are raised to be fixers, problem solvers, in some cases providers, to be stoic, and strong. Strength in this context means to hide our emotions, pull ourselves up by the bootstraps when we are hurt and suck it up when we are sad or upset.

Now, if I am being honest, I do not see anything wrong with being fixers, problem solvers, in some cases providers, to be stoic, and strong, but I do see something wrong in being taught not to feel, or even understand both how to feel and how to express how I am feeling. When we are raised this way from a young age, we run the risk of not understanding how we feel, what emotions we are having or how to express that to the outside world. This is highly problematic, and we see the consequences of this way of being in the high suicide rates of men in Canada. The reason it is so problematic is because we end up feeling alone, unheard, and misunderstood. It can also lead to difficulties in creating or maintaining lasting connections and bonds with other people.

Part of seeing a therapist is having a safe space to get to know these pieces of ourselves including having a space to unpack the difficult pieces of our lives we are looking to understand better. It’s a space to hash out our needs and wants and to get honest feedback and strategies to move forward. Most importantly it’s about learning how to be vulnerable in a space with a therapist willing to be vulnerable right there with you.

In the next few blog posts which will be released once per day to correspond to Men’s mental health week I will walk you through several topics which we encounter in the therapy room relevant to men’s mental health such as:

  1. What are emotions and what’s the point of having them?
  2. Loneliness
  3. Dealing with Regret
  4. Grief
  5. Fear of Judgement

~Chuck LeBlanc

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