Psychologists: Masculinity Can Lead to Depression

Submitted by Mastodon on Sun, 2014-09-28 20:50

Article here. Excerpt:

'Masculinity has been found to play a significant role in causing depression among men, psychologists from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) say.

About six million American men suffer from depression every year, yet few of them are likely to seek help from medical professionals. Traditional masculine traits, which confine emotional expression and encourage ideas of success, power and competition, often compel men to hide their emotions and avoid seeking help. This, in turn, can lead to depression, according to researchers from the NIMH.

Traditional signs of depression, such as sadness, worthlessness and excessive guilt, may not always characterize many men’s depressive periods. Instead, researchers have coined the term “male-based depression” to signify a type of depression which is reflected in symptoms including irritableness and anger, a loss of interest in work and hobbies, insomnia, and a higher likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse. When coupled with substance abuse, these symptoms can mask more commonly-recognized signs of depression, making them harder to detect and effectively treat, said Dr. Aaron Rochlen, a Psychologist from the University of Texas.'

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... I think "masculinity" is a misattribution. Societies with less judgmentality toward men have happier men living in them. Those that judge men on whatever criteria have lesser-happy men to the degree its men can't generally meet such standards and/or internalized them as if they're objective standards of a person's, more specif'ly a man's, worth.

It isn't masculinity per se that contributes to heightened depression among men or men turning to "maladaptive behaviors" such as drinking, etc. in a vain effort to deal with undealt-with feelings. It's the society's way depressed men are treated and judged that is making it worse, and it starts in men's childhoods when they're taught to be less emotive, sentimental, etc., than are little girls, who aren't just allowed but encouraged to be that way.

Best thing at this point men can do if they see or others tell them they see these maladaptive behaviors in them is realize what these behaviors imply and go see a head shrinker, then spill their guts, confess (as it were) everything they've been doing to "deal with" life. Then go from there. Because if a man doesn't look out for his own life's best interests, no one else will. We don't get that kind of coddling, seeing as how we don't have vajay-jays or breastages. :)

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Submitted by Matt on Mon, 2014-09-29 17:16

...ought to be showing up in the medical journals here shortly. They have been trying to "cure" men of being men for some time now.

It's only recently, as I recall, that male depression has been identified as to different symptoms than classical depression, which has been studied mainly in women - men have not typically presented for depression in the past. Identifying Masculinity (whatever they mean by that) as a cause of depression is more of a political than medical assessment, IMO.

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Submitted by TomP on Tue, 2014-09-30 00:19