Why Therapy Can Often Feel Uncomfortable for Men

By Eric Kang, R. Psych


Learning to Subvert Emotions from a Young Age

Let’s be honest, for a lot of men, the idea of sitting on a couch and talking about their feelings does not hold a strong appeal.

At a young age, a lot of males are inadvertently taught to function as problem solvers over emotional entities, and they often learn to manage physical and emotional pain through action rather than comfort. For example, if a young boy falls and scrapes his knee, the response may often be centered around him picking himself up off the floor and getting back into the activity rather than lingering on the emotional content of the incident. Similarly, boys tend to receive praise and validation for what they do, such as creating, altering, and exerting their will on the environment around them, especially if such actions align closely with familial and societal norms. The emotional content of such activities is often not emphasized in the way that it is with females of the same age.

Additionally, when young boys display sadness, vulnerability, or fear, they might be subtly or overtly redirected so that such feelings are suppressed. Adults and peers can often affirm the notion that vulnerability, overt emotion, as well as any sensitivity towards deeper emotional states are signs of weakness. Eventually, the energy of these repressed emotions must go somewhere, often subverting into socially acceptable—though consequential—forms like frustration, irritability, or rage.

Shifting into Adulthood

As boys become young men, and subsequently develop into men, they are often tasked with functioning as emotional beings to their partners and families. This often entails being able to feel and create emotional safety for others as well as to express contrasting and diverse emotional states. Romantic relationships with women who have typically had much more practice in the emotional realm often become fertile ground for conflict and resentment. Learning emotional connection and vulnerability at this stage is often like learning a new language to many men, but one that is accompanied by a sense of resistance due to their prior programming.

Without all of the practice and encouragement in this realm that would prepare men for such a role, this becomes a difficult task. Large swaths of the emotional spectrum can feel uncomfortable to many men; especially those centered around vulnerability: sadness, fear, and grief among others. We are so conditioned to fix things that it is difficult to hold emotional states for those we care about; mostly because we don’t even know how. These are common themes that show up in many of the men that I work with at Vital Mind Psychology.

Emotional Avoidance Becomes Burnout

What tends to happen to a lot of men is that we have a tendency towards overidentifying with an action-oriented dynamic to serve those we care about. We will often work ourselves to the point of exhaustion to provide for our families at the expense of our health and wellbeing; and without a lot of complaint. Doing allows us to feel competent, useful, and that we are improving our circumstances. However, this buildup of burnout can persist to the point where the engine completely seizes prior to even considering asking for help. I can attest to this tendency in myself which allows me to notice it when it comes up in counselling sessions.

Why Therapy Becomes Uncomfortable

The problem is that when men struggle with anxiety, depression, or burnout, it rarely appears as sadness. More often, it manifests as having a high sensitivity and reactivity to even trivial annoyances. It is often exhibited like having a noticeably short fuse with one’s partner and kids. It also often looks like retreating into a garage, a gym, or a cell phone to avoid interacting with others. Or it feels like a numb, heavy realization that you’re just going through the motions.

Because of this action-oriented mindset, the main resistance to counselling often sounds like “talking won’t fix it”, “I should be able to handle things myself”, or “complaining about things won’t solve anything.” Therapy often feels vulnerable in the ways that men haven’t been encouraged to practice.

A Different Approach to Therapy

I completely understand the hesitation. If therapy were just sitting on a couch venting without a plan, it wouldn’t appeal to me either. Instead, effective counselling works on creating a strategy, being accountable to someone who can walk alongside you on your path, and connecting with a non-judgemental person who can provide you with insight into your circumstances. Often, we need to be able to change our patterns and ways of coping to create the shifts that we desire and having help with this can accelerate progress significantly, preventing the further traversal down a road of exhaustion and relational disconnect.

The good news is that because emotional suppression is a learned behavior, it can be unlearned. It is absolutely possible to expand your capacity to handle emotional discomfort, but doing so requires stepping outside of the familiar territory of action and into a new way of navigating the world. Learning this new language takes time, practice, and patience, but can make a meaningful difference.

Unpacking decades of conditioning is heavy lifting, and you don’t have to do this work in isolation. The therapy office is an open and non-judgmental space to practice this new approach. If you recognize yourself in these patterns, reaching out for professional support is one of the most courageous and practical steps you can take. I hope that you will be glad that you did.