Season 1, Episode 13: Men's Mental Health Mini Series – Toxic Masculinity and Mental Health
Men all over the world are struggling with their mental health. Anxiety, depression, and suicide rates among men continue to rise. There are many underlying factors to these challenges that need to be addressed in order for meaningful change to happen. To help address these issues we’re focusing on men’s mental health. For the next four episodes we’ll be talking about the challenges men are experiencing.
On this episode of Living Fully, Katherine Hurtig talks with registered clinical social worker, Stephen Walker, and registered psychologist, Joel Zimmerman about the concept of masculinity and how it can impact mental health.
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Katherine Hurtig
Men all over the world are struggling with their mental health. Anxiety, depression, and suicide rates among men continue to rise. There are many underlying factors to these challenges that need to be addressed in order for meaningful change to happen. To help address these issues. We're focusing on men's mental health and for the next 4 episodes we'll be talking about some of the challenges men are experiencing.
Welcome to Living Fully, a Calgary Counselling Centre podcast. Each episode we’ll bring you insights from our expert counsellors and tips and strategies to improve your mental well-being. I'm your host. Katherine Hurtig.
Calgary Counselling Centre and Counselling Alberta, provide effective counselling for anyone in Alberta with no wait list and no financial barriers. Find us online at calgarycounselling.com or counsellingalberta.com.
On this episode, I talk with Stephen Walker, registered clinical social worker, and Joel Zimmerman, registered psychologist, about the concept of masculinity and how it can impact mental health.
Katherine Hurtig
Do you want me to call you Steve? Because I always say, Stephen.
Stephen Walker
Oh yeah, Steve is much better. Stephen always feels like I’m in trouble. Steve’s great
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. Excellent. So Joel Zimmerman and Steve Walker. Joel, you are a registered psychologist, correct?
Joel Zimmerman
That is correct. Yeah. I'm a registered psychologist and counsellor here at the Calgary Counselling Centre. I have been practicing for about 5 years now and I'm pretty much from Calgary. I have a background in working with youth, teens, high school teens, and summer camps and stuff like that. And yeah, now I'm a full-time counsellor. I work with mainly adults, 16 and up, individuals, couples, and I do work with some families, adult families. And then yeah, group therapy as well. I'm one of the facilitators for some of our group programs as well.
Katherine Hurtig
Excellent. Thank you so much. And Steve, you are a social worker. Is that right?
Stephen Walker
That's right, I'm. A fancy social worker. I'm a registered clinical social worker.
Katherine Hurtig
What does that mean?
Stephen Walker
That means I did a rather robust exam that was not required, but I can't help myself sometimes and I've been practicing for 10 years now, particularly like in the area of working with men’s mental health, people in conflict with the law. A lot of prioritizing, working with mandated folks, people who don't immediately look forward to seeing me for one reason or another. Prior to that, I did, like with Joel, I did a lot of youth work. I worked with on the subject of youth, homelessness and youth in conflict with the law. Calgary Counselling Centre, much like Joel, sometimes involved with groups and facilitating groups like our Responsible Choices for Men Program, oftentimes working with men who find themselves in conflict with the law on the wrong side of law, but also working with victims as well. Sort of the recipients of those sort of injurious moments.
Katherine Hurtig
Well, I'm really excited to talk to you guys today. We're gonna get into toxic masculinity and the kind of stigma around men's mental health and them seeking support. So it's definitely, it's an issue. We've got a stat from Alberta Health Services that 3 out of 4 suicide deaths are men. We know that men are less likely to seek help. And stigma and the lack of openness. It seems a lot more common in men. That acts as a barrier to seek help. So yeah, we're going to get into that and yeah. So let's dive in. Steve, how would you define masculinity?
Joel Zimmerman
I'm so happy you asked him first.
Stephen Walker
Oh man. It's a really interesting question. And actually the question itself is a really valuable one because prior to being a counsellor or social worker, I was in anthropology. Much like it's kind of sister discipline, sociology, there's been a lot of research and study around ideas around gender. And so masculinity refers to characteristics that we define as being part of being a man or male. And so what's interesting is people will, depending on the generation, the time, the place in the world, people ascribe or kind of attach different ideas, different labels to that group, to that identity. And it's a bit of a mix in the sense that some of those things that people attach to that word are born out of biology or born out of things that are sort of, manifest or kind of take place as a result of physical functioning, but then some of them are purely cultural, purely sort of ascribed based on ideals or preferences and things like this. And so it's a bit of a mix between sort of nature and people's own ideas about what it quote unquote should or shouldn't be.
Katherine Hurtig
Right. I mean like us as people, we like to label things and put things into boxes. This is what this means to be this kind of person, but it's so much more complex than that.
Stephen Walker
Well, you're right though. When you go to the grocery store, imagine going to the canned section of the aisle and there's no labels, right? They're all tin cans. People kind of want to know what's inside and have a sense of what to predict. As human beings, we generally don't like uncertainty that we in fact really do prefer things to have like a stable quantity and a predictability and so gender labels like masculinity, are in part, an attempt at making the world comprehensible, understandable and predictable as well.
Joel Zimmerman
I like that that’s… you know I think it's Stephen, I'm so happy that you have that background anthropology, and that greater kind of social context. Yeah, just even, like contemplating this question about masculinity. I think, yeah it really did kind of hammer home for me just that cultural, social, contextual nature of it. And that it's so important for human beings to, as Stephen mentioned, have those labels. Because it does help us make sense of the world, but then you rightly kind of bring up the utility. Like, what's the point? Why do we have these things in the first place? And especially from from a helping context, right? How do we help people? And having an understanding of these really almost like philosophical kind of understandings at a level is really beneficial. It allows to communicate things in in different ways to have a better understanding of like what something might look like. But at the end of the day, we're sitting with people or we're trying to help people understand their own experience. What's working for them or what's not working for them, right? Having these kind of frames of reference, these contextual, social, cultural, characteristics that we can point to that you know you were trying to fit in or you don't fit in or you're having difficulty if you want to fit in, in those contexts it helps people to kind of have that reference point. Like, “oh, that's what I'm experiencing, that's what that’s called. That's why this is difficult for me because I'm trying to do this other thing or live by this other characteristic and all of a sudden I'm not lining up with a should or a could be doing kind of.
Katherine Hurtig
So, there is kind of this common understanding or thought of what masculinity is. I mean, especially in North America. How do you think – I don’t know if stereotype is the right word - but how do you think that concept can have an effect on mental health?
Stephen Walker
In so many ways. It's like any tool. Sometimes I choose to invite people to think about it that way. I've got this pairing knife in my kitchen that does a great job. It really helps with pairing my son's apples or various different things, but the jerk sometimes cuts me too. When I think about masculinity, I think about it as it serves as a way of forming community. It serves as a way for some people, it's identifying with others. You are like me or I can relate to you in this way or I can understand you in that way. And helps us to form bridges and a sense of not being alone. At the same time, every preference is a restriction, so every time you define what a man is, you are simultaneously defining what he cannot be in equal measure. So the more you define masculinity, the more you're creating its limitations.
Katherine Hurtig
Right. And there, do you think is where we run into problems?
Stephen Walker
Exactly. And mental health… one way to understand mental health issues, I think, and again, this isn't going to be sort of a way to capture everything – I’d be curious about Joel's thoughts on this too - when people are at their most healthy, they tend to be adaptable and flexible. They can respond to things. They can adapt. To the circumstances going on around them. Labels and structures like masculinity, sometimes in some situations don't have that flexibility, in fact they actually reduce the flexibility. So for example, a man whose definition of masculinity involves being really emotionally restricted and not having knowledge of their own emotions or expressing their emotions or conveying that really valuable information, if that person becomes really chronically depressed, that's going to be a big roadblock to their ability to adapt to what's causing the depression, that's going to be challenging for them. Not because masculinity is bad, it's just because that particular definition of masculinity is gonna create the roadblock in that circumstance. So for every preference there's a limitation attached to it.
Joel Zimmerman
I think that's a really important component to throw in, this idea of if you're going to label something, you're not only defining what it is, but you're defining what it might not be.
I think one of the challenges, especially we're gonna talk about gender roles, and we're gonna go to masculinity, I think the first person that comes sometimes out of people's mouths or at least pops into their head is it's not feminine. It's not this other thing. It's sometimes where we go and then now we're starting to define what it means to be feminine. It's this whole other discussion that has its own other set of challenges that we can start kind of going down. So I think having that recognition of the restrictions implied in creating labels and these formations of constructs, putting that out and Stephen, I really appreciate that you did that and that does kind of start that conversation. Because at the… exactly kind of like you said, I think a lot of the challenges, and I'll agree with you, a lot of the challenges that people face when they're coming in to seek help is because they've lost that ability to be flexible and see what they're doing as enough or figuring out how to do it in a newer, different way. So I'll throw in the kind of common other example of provider, somebody who provides for the loved ones and the people around them. Which I think is a pretty common, again, if we're going to keep the kind of cultural context and we're going to talk about the North American culture of masculinity, or of a provider, but I think most cultures have a provider provision in maybe some of their gender roles. But if you lose your job and that's how you are considering provider and that's the only definition you have of a provider, it's going to be really hard to see how you might be able to effectively provide in other ways. You can provide a whole heck of a lot without bringing in a dime, and people who might be struggling to recognize the flexibility inherent in these roles are gonna have a hard time coping with I have to fit into that provider box, and if I don't, then what am I? Because if I'm not that, again through this if I'm not this, then what am I? And we haven't figured out those other things out. Yeah, It can be very challenging for people.
Katherine Hurtig
Right and these labels and roles like you were talking about Joel, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but people will kind of attach those to their identity and in turn their self-worth. We're talking about, this is what a male is. This is what it means to be masculine and all of these things are not, so if you are any of these, then there's something wrong with you.
Joel Zimmerman
Or you might not be, yeah.
Stephen Walker
You're referring, Katherine to how we use labels to create social norms. Right. We use labels partly to kind of help us contextualize who's in my community and who may not be a part of it. And that goes way back, in terms of an important human behavior. And it's sometimes really helpful, like in the ways that it draws us together, when we see the similarities. But it also creates a lot of friction when we're overly focused on the differences, right and how people don't fit an expectation that we have for them and there's a lot of tension and friction that comes out of that experience. And so when we're talking about masculinity, I really want to emphasize, we're talking about a moving target. For example, I remember meeting a friend of mine in university from South Sudan and we started walking down the street and our friendship was just starting to grow, we're starting to get to know each other and he holds my hand and I was shocked. You know? As a young 20 something you know, I thought, goodness, my first thought, my first reaction was what would be the consequences of this if people see and if people witness this. And so again that we kind of create these labels around norms for men. It's not about being a good or bad thing, it's about that it has advantages and has restrictions depending on which community you're in. Depending on the situation you’re in and like what Joel describes, like you can have a definition or an understanding of your masculinity that can accommodate job loss, or you might have one that can't tolerate it at all. And so sometimes our role as clinicians is to help people expand their understanding of these labels. Not so they abandon the labels necessarily, but that they can expand them to accommodate more.
Joel Zimmerman
And I think to build on that and what you talked about Katherine, about the identity formation that comes with some of these characteristics, the consequence of having your identity wrapped up in any one thing is dangerous. There's a lot of people who can become very successful and who can have a very strong identity that is based on some thing or something external to them or something that they might not necessarily have a lot of control over. So regardless of what that is, that can again have its own risks. But what I think about how this kind of fits into this discussion is, I think it's healthy to be able to identify with something, components of something. I can identify with the elements of what it means to be a psychologist, what it means to be a counsellor. Because if I just identify as a counsellor, period, full stop and that's who I am, then yeah, if that's ever taken away from me or I'm unable to fulfill that role for whatever reason, I'm going to have a hard time, but if I if I can identify with portions of this role, then if I don't fulfill the role, I could still find the portions, I can still find the characteristics. So again, I think about masculinity and just by asking the question like, what does it mean to be a man, what does it mean to be masculine, everyone's going to start to fill in the gap in their head. They're going to start to fill in those characteristics. And there's nothing wrong with those characteristics. Being and identifying with those characteristics or fulfilling those characteristics isn't inherently wrong. However, when you are only them and all of a sudden that is causing issues or your ability to meet those expectations is in jeopardy, that's where we start to have a hard time sometimes.
Stephen Walker
And then we sort of enter the thought, you know, discussion around people whose gender identities don't fit standard traditional labels, and how this process that all people to some extent are engaged in kind of creates a sense of otherness. At the same time that kind of creates a sense of community like I am a part of a group of men, right? That means that there is a whole group of people that are not men. And they are not me. There's, like Joel says, I start to identify with these broad labels instead of the characteristics within them. That can create tension between me and other people. Sometimes men can get under certain views or understandings of their labels can come into conflict with people because of how they're emphasizing that otherness rather than the characteristics they can recognize in those other people that they see in themselves. So sometimes as counsellors, were working with men because they're experiencing a profound type of isolation or alienation, or they're experiencing a really profound sense othering. Whether it's their views towards another person or a certain group, it's becoming painful to them and really stressful or that's being applied to themselves. And this isn't unique to men. Women encounter their own version of this in terms of the labels they're working with, and people who have a more fluid orientation to their gender, or fit into different labels that are being experimented with have this as well.
Joel Zimmerman
And Stephen, I think you'll agree with this as well this it isn't just a gender topic. I am enough or I am not enough. Is like a really general concept of just like what it means to be a person. And so many people will sit down with a counsellor with that being their primary concern that for whatever reason, they have internalized or either created this concept of for themselves or been imposed upon them, this idea that they're not enough, period. And then, you know, enough what? is the next question so often. But it's there, it's that when we don't feel like we're meeting an internal or external expectation or obligation and we fall short or are uncapable or not able to do it in a way that fits the context of societal norms or what our own expectations or the expectations of others, that provides conflict, it's hard. And so you know, when preparing for this discussion and thinking about masculinity and male and gender roles and expectations, I was like, “ohh, OK. This is a challenging topic,” but then when I really step back, I was like, we're talking about personhood. We’re talking about what it means to be a person. What it means to be a decent human being at best, which thank God is kind of a relatively low bar, I think. And you don't have to do a lot, but you can really challenge yourself. Really we're talking about like what it means to be a person and a decent human being at the end of the day, regardless of if we’re talking about masculinity, femininity, male gender norms, whatever, that's how I see this.
Stephen Walker
Again, I'm just thinking that perspective now thinking of our clients Joel, you know, sometimes that's where we're helping, trying to help people arrive at that more flexible, adaptable, inclusive understanding themselves. But sometimes when we meet people who are really struggling, they have much firmer, more rigid ideas about what they're expected to be as Joel's referring to. And it causes a lot of pain, causes a lot of hurt and isolation.
Katherine Hurtig
In your opinion and from your experience, do those labels and expectations of what it means to be masculine or male? Have you seen that that impacts men's willingness to seek help? Does it impact their vulnerability when they eventually do?
Joel Zimmerman
I want to go back to Stephen’s metaphor of the paring knife because I don't think any of these expectations are inherently bad, right? It's just they might become problematic in certain situations or in certain context. Just like the idea of “I'm a winner. I want to be successful.” There's nothing inherently wrong with that right? On one hand, the benefit of having that kind of mindset like, “I fight until I succeed. I don't give up. I don't quit.” On one hand that can be really beneficial. Lights the fire under your butt sometimes to say “OK. I gotta get back up. I gotta keep trying.” But when it's over used or used inappropriately, or you know, it can come off as we're beating ourselves up, you know, we're banging our head against the wall. That isn't going to move no matter how much we fight, that's where things start to backfire. So any of these characteristics, any of these expectations in my opinion, just like paring knives can be really helpful, useful, beneficial in certain situations. But when inappropriately applied, that's where we start to have challenges.
Stephen Walker
Really well said Joel. I think, connecting back to your question, Katherine, is thinking about then like an inappropriately applied tool in the wrong context that happens for a lot of men and. It relates to some of the suicide statistics that you're looking towards is a lot of that…a particular version of stoicism or understanding of kind of powering through and applying grit to simply get through the hard times. In North American views of masculinity these are really prevalent characteristics like idealized characteristics. I always like to think of Clint Eastwood movies - the man on the white horse, going it alone. And there's a lot of resilience and a lot of strength in that, but as Joel kind of explains, there are. situations where your ability to solve the problem is not alone isn't going to match the circumstance. There are some circumstances, events in life, challenges or dilemmas that solo, do-it-yourself, grin and bear it strategies aren't going to cut it and for those people that can really lead to a type of despair. The other piece of two is those same characteristics that create a lot of those strengths and those quality. Also, sometimes lead to quite a bit of silence on the part of the person who’s suffering. Think about it like the way I like to imagine it is somebody who has like an outrageously high pain threshold. For example, my mother when I was young she would always attend her doctor's appointments with my father, because one time she impaled her hand on a nail and she rated that at two out 10 for pain. And so she would go to physician appointments and they would ask how she's doing and she'd say “ohh you know, the pain’s at about a three” and they think of course you know 3 out of 10, that doesn't sound too bad. Let's get you some Advil.” Then my father would have to be there to explain 2 out of 10 is the nail in the hand. So you know, sometimes these characteristics that we ascribe to men create limitations in communication, the conveyance of their pain and what they're dealing with. So it's hard to get adequate help when adequate information kind of isn’t being provided. People find themselves really stuck in situations like that.
Katherine Hurtig
I don't know if I really full out came out and asked, but like the buzzword of “toxic masculinity” - what are your thoughts on that and how do you see that weaving into the idea of men's mental health?
Joel Zimmerman
I think this is really where this discussion has kind of taken us, this idea that inherently masculinity isn't bad. It's not bad to have grit, or it's not bad to be a provider. It's not bad to be tough. But inappropriately applied or thought of in a skewed way or you know, that's where that can start to leach into a challenging or difficult situation or create its own kind of pool of problems.
Stephen Walker
And I mean, even the word kind of captures it - like something that's toxic is bad for itself as well as its environment. So something that's toxic effects itself and affects everything around it. So like these characteristics Joel's pointing to, when they're inappropriately applied or applied to extremes, they don't just affect the person, they affect the people around them quite immediately as well. It's kind of like, you know you can take too much Advil. Like, it can become toxic. You can use it inappropriately and to great extremes and you could do a tremendous amount of damage to yourself or another person, right? Done inappropriately, absolutely.
Joel Zimmerman
I think medication is the perfect example and a lot of these things that we use in certain situations are very, very helpful and make perfect sense, but taken inappropriately or used inappropriately. That's why there are child blocks on these things. That's why you need to have a doctor or you need to have sort of specialty to provide these certain type of medications. So any of these characteristics. And I think when we start to go into toxic masculinity and people start to talk about these things, again, if we say masculinity, we're going to fill in the gaps with terms and characteristics that fit our cultural and social experience of what we think, that is: how we were raised, where we live is gonna determine those things. Toxic masculinity is likely just some extreme. I shouldn't say extreme version of, but an inappropriate use of or an inflexible use of or an experience where those start to become problematic in their own right.
Katherine Hurtig
Man, you guys are smart! So what can we do about this? How do we shift the idea of masculinity? How do we help men feel more comfortable with their mental health and reaching out for help?
Stephen Walker
It seems to be two parts you know. There's a lot of different ways this happens. But maybe like in terms of where listeners might be, maybe wanting some advice, there's two things - it's kind of like honoring the perspective a person has and also inviting them to consider expanding that. Or at least acknowledge that alternatives exist. And what I mean by that is human beings, we have this really predictable quality. If you directly violate my sensibilities, like if you say something that is in direct contradiction to something I believe to be true, I have a really predictable response to that. As does most humans. Like in the sense that we have a tendency to want to protect our ideals, we want to protect our labels. We want to protect our understandings of ourselves, even if they're toxic, and so people tend to respond well when their views aren't necessarily agreed with, but certainly respected.
Like I acknowledge this is your perspective. I acknowledge this is kind of the view you hold and how you see it is honorable and important. And then the second part is then to sort of invite that to expand in some way. To then say “would you be open to hearing about my experiences, would you be open to hearing about my understanding as well?” or “have you considered there are these other views or these other attitudes that exist. Is there space for that? and so I'm really generalizing what these conversations might look like. But I mean at the end of the day, it's kind of one people tend to respond well to inclusiveness, and people who are kind of toxic, we even see this in research with people during the pandemic who are really suspicious about medical interventions advocated by the province, or advocated by government, they don't respond well to criticism. If anything, the more criticism you level at people who have a really rigid understanding of themselves and their values, the more they dig in and the more that tension grows, and so in this context as well, I think working with men, it's helpful to be deeply acknowledging. You don't have to agree. Just kind of being respectful and then inviting them offer you the same. Inviting them to consider that what more is there? And grow the can, like fit more into the can. So to speak.
Joel Zimmerman
Stephen, are you… So I kind of take it from your answer. How do we fix this? Where do we see ourselves coming in to shifting this discussion?
So I really hear your part of your answer really coming in from the if we're on the outside, per se, of watching somebody experiencing this or seeing somebody with a particular set of views, we'll call it toxic masculinity, that says “I'm looking at you and I'm saying the way that you're expressing, you're going about your life with your views is causing harm. It's toxic in in some way,” right? So what I hear you kind of talking about is that inclusive understanding because when you do kind of come directly at somebody and say what you're doing is wrong or bad, we dig in and we resist against that because a lot of the times, taking again, that understanding where these ideas come from. They're taught, they're taught a very young age and they're all around.
They are part of our existence, kind of from the ground up. They are learned by watching and we're learned by modeling and observing people who we love and also have challenges with. But they're also learned by seeing something being done and saying, “hey, I like that because it worked. So that's how. That's how the world works. If I use aggression, I'll get what I want. Or if I act a certain way, it's gonna, it's gonna be beneficial. It's gonna help me,” or, “I never want to do that. You never want to see myself being a pushover. I've seen somebody being a pushover over my whole life. I vowed for my whole life. I was never gonna be that. So I'm gonna stand up for everything.” And so when people… how we create these ideas is very often very deeply held beliefs. So challenging them directly is not only affront to you, but it's affront to everybody that you love potentially or every bit about your culture. And so it really does become a real point of contention. When somebody says “hey, I don't like the way you do that,” when the way that they do that was something that they hold really dear because the person who taught it to them or the way they learned it was something really important to them or someone really important to them. The communication or the tying it into what people experience over the pandemic and the medical kind of model, I think that also makes a really good connection because when you come at something really directly it can be really affronting. So I think kind of talking about understanding and trying to go for understanding, like “tell me about that. where did this idea come from?” This very often … where us cause counsellors are going to go. We're not going to challenge directly. We're just going to be really curious and want to know more about where those things came from. I don’t know if that’s your experience, Stephen.
Stephen Walker
Yeah, well, I find people tend to be open to new ideas when they're in relationship with people like what you're describing where you know like if somebody has a viewpoint or an attitude that I think is quite toxic to me, it's oftentimes if I need people to kind of acknowledge that, that that's the effect it's having on me, they tend to do so much better if they feel that there is a relationship exists between us and that when they're when they believe that there isn't a relationship between us, like a relationship anchored in respect and positive regard, right. People don't really take in information. People don't really listen, they kind of prepare their response. And so again, like creating those conditions where the person feels listened to. The other thing I think maybe it's good to mention as well here is there's a difference between being involved in the tense dialogue of masculinity and alternatives to masculinity, which is an uncomfortable dialogue. Which can be intense. And there's a difference between that and an unsafe dialogue. In a circumstance where abuse may be taking place or there's an imminent risk to your safety, and I just want to characterize these as very different conversations, but that being said, I think what Joel and I are both describing can be very uncomfortable, difficult conversations to have.
Katherine Hurtig
For sure.
Stephen Walker
So I think part of it is - maybe it's an oversimplification - but to kind of create space for these conversations in men's lives. Just create as many opportunities as possible for men to discuss this.
Katherine Hurtig
If there is resistance to that or if someone’s not used to having those conversations…
Joel Zimmerman
Your point stands and I think it kind of makes sense. I think your question… Safety is nice. Everyone likes to feel safe and things are easier when we feel safe. And so I think, to Stephen’s point of if we're gonna, we're gonna recognize that talking about this stuff might be uncomfortable. And is a type of conversation, and if there are situations where there's not safety, we have to take responsibility for that. We have to be able to keep ourselves safe, first and foremost. So yeah, we're not encouraging to go blindly into something just expecting this to go well. You have to take responsibility for that safety.
But I think to bring maybe, let's pinpoint a little bit of that other point, Stephen, how do we facilitate these conversations? How do we create the atmosphere or the opportunities for them? I think it has to do with safety because at the end of the day when, again someone’s challenging my sensibilities about what I think it means to be potentially my entire identity is being questioned. If I feel safe, it's going to be easier for me to respond to that. So cultivating safety for ourselves and everyone around us and making sure that people feel safe is, I think one of the ways to do that, both making ourselves feel safe and making the people who we're inviting into these spaces and conversations feel safe because, you know, I hesitate kind of going to the idea of like the dog backed into the corner might bite. There’s nothing wrong with the dog and the dog's actually wounded or hurt or injured. And that's why it's fighting. But if it's made to feel safe, then all of a sudden the pressure might be off a little bit or it's not in a corner per say, it's less likely to bite. So I think the idea of, you know, we can be uncomfortable, but as long as we're cultivating safety in some of these conversations, again inviting them in and creating a sense of safety for ourselves and for everybody else. I want to say maybe it's less likely, not guaranteed, but less likely to have a more positive outcome.
Katherine Hurtig
I love all the analogies, it makes it so much more comprehensible.
Stephen Walker
One of the things too is to characterize male expressions of some of these things as attractive and interesting. These things are ascribed to maleness or masculinity because they're seen as desirable, right. Like, that's why they're in the list.
When you put a label on a can, the stuff that's on that label is to attract you to the can. So you will buy it, so you will put it in your cart, right? And all human beings want connection, community and being sort of desired on a number of levels and included on a number of levels. When you see a man doing something that you really like and you want to encourage, express how that is interesting to you, like in the sense, “I feel like I know you so much better now because you're choosing to share this with me, I feel like our friendship is deeper now because you have chosen to express yourself and talk about your feelings. I feel like I can trust you more and that we have a greater connection because you chose to describe your feelings to me,” signaling that these other needed traits are also desirable.
Joel Zimmerman
And valuable and have value. If I may, I think that really helps rewire and tell people, “oh, when I do this it has value, it helps. And there's value to me trying this and taking risks to do some of these things, and maybe I'm traditionally not experienced with, so I'm trying it on for size. This is my first time doing something like this. Yeah, it's just difficult.” So when we understand, I think as individuals that understand there's value in trying these things and doing those things because others see value in it we’re more likely to do that. I think is the best way.
Stephen Walker
It's really important that it comes from other men. Sometimes guys get the idea that a woman or a person of the opposite sex is interested in them romantically when they're asking for their feelings and emotions, right? As opposed to just wanting to pursue a stronger friendship and things like this. So, sometimes people maybe just wisely choose to be cautious about how much closeness they try to approach with certain men, but then at the same time, maybe I just want to really encourage thinking like for any men who are listening to this, if you have a son or if you want to encourage this and somebody you care about, a man in your life, seeing these things, like “if you choose to share your feelings with me, I will feel closer to you. If you if you choose to use whatever words you have to describe how you're being affected now I am going to feel like I matter to you,” and again, letting them understand that those things that you're looking for, as Joel says, have value for you and that can help men to understand that they're not stepping into the void. They're not stepping out of their can and off the shelf. They're just entering into a bigger can that can actually hold more.
Katherine Hurtig
Well, I think any of that would be really powerful to hear.
Joel Zimmerman
Full circle with the cans. I love it, Steve.
Stephen Walker
Well, going back to your question too, Katherine, to the resistance and something that I've been trying to do, I've been done as a clinician and I really invite other people to do as well is, resistance really is protection in disguise.
Katherine Hurtig
OK.
Stephen Walker
People protect themselves in various ways, right? You heard about fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It's kind of these different states of protection that people put themselves in. When somebody's resistant to the conversation, maybe they're argumentative, maybe they're not actually thinking about what you're saying, maybe they're sort of, yeah, butting you every time you speak, it could be protection, self-protection. In an aggressive stance, in a kind of domineering way. So linking it back to Joel's point, like how do you work with people who are resistant, or express a deep reluctance to engage in the conversation. It's really important to engage a type of safety that allows you to find out what the source of that reluctance is, like what they're trying to protect. There's an expression I like to use with folks called “talking about talking about it.”
Katherine Hurtig
Sorry, Stephen, just to go back, just for our listeners, you had talked about fight, flight, freeze and you. said fawn. I haven't heard of that one. Could you explain each of those and what they mean?
Stephen Walker
Sure. So I these refer to fairly automatic responses human beings have to intense scenarios. So it could be an intense danger scenario, it could be an intense emotional scenario, or social scenario and these are predictable behaviors, like in the sense that most human beings have at some point in their life demonstrated these under intense pressure. Fight represents being really aggressive in some way. So I think the easiest way that a person expresses that is with violence like hitting punching, kicking, biting, but also dominating behavior. Yelling, screaming, shouting. Then there's also flight retreat. Get the heck out of there. Run for it. Where you run away from the bear or you just walk away from the conversation. Away, gone. And then there's freeze. So if you imagine again, like I spend a lot of time in the woods. So there’s a bear again, right? Like so. In this case the bear approaches and what do you do? You freeze. You stay completely still, you're like an inanimate object, unable to move in in any meaningful sense. You may even have an experience of being a bit detached from your body. You know, just completely frozen and that can occur in a variety of scenarios not just physical danger, but like in a staff meeting where a person's feeling really under the lamp light and gets overwhelmed or can't speak anymore. And then fawn is…this has been sort of more recently introduced into these conversations. But Fawn refers to a behavior where it's very permissive. “Ohh, I'm sorry to interrupt you. You know what? I was wrong. You were right. Let me walk this back, please.” So fawning is a behavior where in this situation with the bear, you might lay out a sandwich and just be like here try to appease the bear in some way so that it’s less of a danger to you.
It's a violation of your own sensibilities, usually. Like the manner in which you fought is not typically something that you're necessarily going to normally be comfortable with or normally want to do, but may feel as necessary in that scenario to ensure your safety.
Katherine Hurtig
Right. Thank you.
Joel Zimmerman
Can we link? Because so I'm gonna just take this again. I know how these conversations sometimes weave themselves through, but like the fact that you brought in this kind of typical response, I think really goes back again to what I was talking about, about like, appropriate and inappropriate reactions to in response. Because again, fight, flight, freeze, fawn are not necessarily inherently bad themselves, sometimes they actually made a lot of sense. They're actually going to be the thing that's going to keep you safe or get you out of the situation in possibly the best way or like the only way. However, if you're reacting in some of these ways or this is the reaction that's coming out of you, but it is inappropriate given the situation, that's where we start to run into problems.
I think, again the two kind of ways, when we go back to the question what are we doing about this or how do we encourage change, or challenge some of these things. From the inside looking out the other opportunity for us to think about solving or fixing this is the individual. What are we seeing of ourselves? And you talked about understanding of the other. I think we also have to talk about the understanding of ourselves. “How am I reacting right now? What is my value? What is the thing that I'm doing?” And the metaphor that I often use is like if there is no bear, but you're reacting as if there is a bear in front of you, then your reaction may be inappropriate.
The idea of having fight or flight kind of into this, I think really ties home his idea that there are inappropriate levels of reaction because it's not always going to be appropriate sometimes. It makes sense. But sometimes going to be inappropriate and we have to start by looking at us. What is our behavior? How are we doing in this? and what are the values that we're bringing out right now? It has to start from that individual being able to see what they're doing or what they're not doing.
Stephen Walker
And I think, Joel, what you're describing though, is the conversation I think I really encouraged to take place more and more among men and boys. What Joel is expressing is something that I would love to have heard as a nine year old. These are the kind of conversations that could absolutely open a person up to understanding that there's other ways of moving through tense conversations and tense understanding. Not every man you work with or meet is equipped with that level of understanding and so how do we have conversations and experiences among men and invite them to consider these very things and introduce them to their experiences.
Katherine Hurtig
And on that, you're both fathers too boys, are you not?
Stephen Walker
Mmm hmm
Joel Zimmerman
Yeah
Katherine Hurtig
Yeah. So let's get into that. How are you going to approach that with your own kids?
Speaker 3
Well, my son calls me weird. And I love it. Love it every time he does it. It's like confirmation to me that we're doing something right. I think one thing is that I try to do with my son is introduce a lot of language that I wasn't introduced to describing my… using me as a model, right, describing my emotional states, describing like, “I'm feeling jealous or I'm feeling irrational or I'm feeling hungry. I'm feeling...” and describing these things to him and then he's able to pick those descriptions up and apply them to himself. Because I'm introducing him to these ideas and then like any child he plays with them and figures out how they work and when they don't work. And where they fit, where they don't fit. And there are some amazing things I've heard him say, like insightful, deeply, self-aware things. I mean he’s still a child in the sense he doesn't know how to do everything but. Just giving people the opportunity to experience the information, to experience the awareness and then the other piece too is, going back to something Joel said earlier in the conversation is asking him what type of man he is drawn to being to give him the understanding or the expectation that masculinity is not defined by others but can be built. It's something that you can explore and understand and make your own decisions about and do so slowly in your own time.
My son's nine. We're kind of at that phase in his life. But I've noticed that just having the conversations regularly and just giving him that exposure to that variability is having, I mean those things he's saying and doing as a 9 year old that I don't think I was introduced to until I was in my early 20s.
Katherine Hurtig
I have an 11 year old stepson and I'm no counsellor, but I hope what I'm doing with him is the is the right thing. I'm trying to just express to him that whatever he's feeling, it's OK to feel that.
Joel Zimmerman
So my experience as a new father - my son is just over 1 ½. He's still a baby in a lot of ways and there's a lot of big emotions there, and one of the things as a parent does for a young child, is mirroring or what's called mirroring, but it's just being able to see that there are big emotions and letting him know that I see those. And that's the level of communication. So yeah, being able to let the people around you know that they're seen that what they're going through, whether they're difficult, big emotions, if they're afraid or scared. They might not be able to communicate that effectively in in kind of the traditional sense, but they're communicating it none the less.
And our ability to be there and say, “hey, I see you. I see that this is scary for you.” I think a lot of masculine traits, that come up in the North American culture are like provider, protector. And when somebody's not able to protect or provide the problem with that is it's scary that you can't protect or provide. And so the actual thing that somebody who's trying to do those things and is incapable of doing that they're actually going through fear. They're scared for not being able to protect or provide for the people that they love. And it's coming out in a lot of different ways, but at the bottom is fear. And so being able to see that and speak to that fear and give opportunities safely to bring out that and let that be talked about again is what we want to be able to foster and the people around us to talk about those fears in a safe and healthy way. Yeah, let some of that pressure out, I would imagine.
Stephen Walker
You mentioned something you do for your 11 year old stepson. it's beautiful. Any opportunity to invite a man of any age to declare or understand themselves, and to express them.
Katherine Hurtig
I just think there are those common concepts of masculinity like not showing emotion
Joel Zimmerman
Boys don't cry.
Yeah, exactly. That kind of thing. And I grew up with that as well so I just want to change that. I don't want him to feel any kind of shame around an emotion.
Thank you so much. This was an amazing conversation. Is there. Anything else that you guys wanted to add? Anything you think we really need to get across.
Joel Zimmerman
I'm just grateful for the conversation. I think these are the conversations that are worth having, and maybe the things that we said maybe, I don't know, we got super duper specific on anything. I think we were talking pretty generally I think that's important. But as long as you guys are and people out there are encouraging these discussions and having these discussions in s safe and healthy way, I think that's that's the ticket.
Katherine Hurtig
For sure, I mean, looking at all my questions, we could have done this for like 3 or four more hours, but I just want to be respectful of the time. So yeah, thanks again, this was excellent.
Stephen Walker
Thank you
Joel Zimmerman
Thank you
Katherine Hurtig
You've been listening to Living Fully, a Calgary Counselling Centre podcast. Thank you for tuning in. This episode was produced by Luiza Campos, and by me, Katherine Hurtig. A special thanks to Stephen Walker and Joel Zimmerman.
To stay up to date on our latest episodes, be sure to subscribe. We're available in your favorite podcast app. Living Fully is a production of Calgary Counselling Centre and recorded in Calgary on Treaty 7 territory. Living Fully podcast is not a substitute or alternative for professional care or treatment. If you're in Alberta and need help, please go to calgarycounselling.com or counsellingalberta.com for help across Canada and the United States. Call 211 if you are outside of Canada and the US seek help from your General Medical practitioner.