Male mental health problems need more attention

Over the past 30 years three to four times more men have taken their own lives than women, and at no point during this period has the rate of suicide in women been higher than that of men. This raises questions about why we haven't been thinking about the psychological needs of men and boys sooner.

Men's Health Week aims to raise awareness of this and other mental health problems that men face. Traditionally, men are reluctant to seek help, have high levels of isolation, high rates of drug and alcohol misuse, are at greater risk of homelessness, display more externalised and destructive behaviours, and are more involved with the criminal justice system. Underlying many of these experiences are complex psychological problems, but rarely do we empathise with their causes.

Men are more often portrayed as villains, perpetrators and the causes of problems, and we can become too focused on the externalisation of mental distress in men through alcohol abuse, aggression and other anti-social behaviours. Such behaviours also attract a punitive response from services.

If these behaviours are the result of unacknowledged complex traumatic backgrounds and mental health difficulties, a punitive response is only likely to make a bad situation worse. Anger, one of the few sanctioned male emotions can often indicate that someone is feeling bad about themselves, seems to have been excluded from mental health services. It is not surprising that 90% of the male prison population is estimated to have mental health problems. A more empathic approach to understanding the psychological wellbeing of men and boys is needed, says Luke Sullivan of The Guardian.

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