But more specifically, men should be working towards allyship with feminism. That should be the goal of masculinity. And like that is absolute horseshit. I don't know how else to put that, because what that paints the picture of is men are failed women. I think that's, you know, exactly what they're saying is that if you want to be a good man, be more like a woman. Hello and welcome to Awake at the Wheel. So in our previous few episodes, we've had a lot of discussion surrounding men in society, DIY and therapy. So we're going to kind of marry all of those subjects together today because in all of this talk about DIY and this is an unpopular but unfortunately true opinion, not even an opinion fact, but in all the DIY talk and all the talk regarding equity and inclusion and ensuring that representation exists across, let's say, health care, white men are being left out of the equation and it's to the point where in our profession it feels quite angersome from the perspective of me as a clinician. In preparing for this episode, I came across a lot of data, a lot of numbers just surrounding how men are being left behind when it comes to psychological services, mental health services. And it's a real problem. Oftentimes the response from feminists is, well, they had their time, but really it is starting to cascade into some actual tangible problems, which we will get into. But first or did you want to add anything about that? No, it'll all come out as we discuss, I'm sure. Okay. All right. So I'm going to be kind of calling out some stats here that I came across just regarding. First and foremost, again, the field of psychology. Who is entering the field of psychology and how this is, of course, impacting men. So data is showing that as the years go on, men are seeking therapy at a lower frequency. And oftentimes what's cited is their reason for ending treatment can be because they feel a lack of connection and or a lack of understanding from their therapist. And this is according to just one study. But I'm sure that this is anecdotally also the experience of many men and unfortunate it's this is because there is a higher proportion and a growing proportion of women in the field of psychology. So this is not to say that women are bad therapists or bad psychologists. I myself am a female therapist and think that I'm able to take a very nuanced approach to both males and females. But one of the challenges is with the increased number of females entering the field of psychology, a natural byproduct of this is that research is now being biased towards more female centered topics and areas of research. Subjects are often females or biased more towards female groups. And in turn, these results are being generalized to men. And what I find interesting is that in other fields of health, there's a lot of talk these days about, you know, women's health isn't taken seriously and research has focused on men. It's generalized to women. But not a lot of people are talking about the converse happening in psychology. Right. And I mean, and again, these are legitimate concerns from the past where a lot of the research was done on particular groups using males, whether it's psychological or mental physical health, You know that. Yes, it was a very narrow scope. It was often white middle class males. And so, you know, over the last 30 to 50 years, much more effort has been made to incorporate other cultures, other groups, other sexes and so on. So, yes, all of that is necessary. It's important. But when the pendulum swings in one direction and doesn't swing back, then we have a problem or it doesn't include a broader group. It wasn't like, okay, we're going to include everybody else and make it more comprehensive. It became more of a shift toward, you know, these groups, quote unquote. And as you say, it left a lot of white people in the dust, so to speak. And and this is not let's just be clear here. None of this is I think we've talked about this before. It's not boo hoo for white males or anything. It's not that it's like that. It's not a zero sum game. We can talk about one particular, quote unquote, group without, you know, taking away from other groups. It's just we're talking about the fact that there are a lot of, let's say, assumptions made about white males and there are a lot of, let's say, unfortunately, part of those assumptions are very negative. And that negativity, we see it. We're going to talk about one of the documents where I think this white male or anti white male bias and discrimination is very clear and I'll just make a mention of it now, but we'll talk about afterwards, which is the American Psychological Association's policy paper on how to deal with boys and men. I forget the actual name of the title or the name of the document we know we were talking about the other day, but it came out, it was published. I know it was talked about a lot in January, February 2019. I think the document shows was published, or at least it was prepared in August 2018. But the point is, ever since that time, so we're talking at least five years, five and a half, about five and half years, six years where there is a, let's say, a particular ideology that run that ran rampant through that document. And I really think that that ideology, which you and I will discuss, really highlights some of the problems that we're having with this shift within psychology and psychotherapy. And it's so interesting. And for our listeners, the APA, the American Psychological Association, you know, even here in Canada, we view them as an authority on providing guidance in the field of psychology. And what's interesting is in again, my reading in preparation for this discussion today, a lot of the older APA stuff is quite nuanced, quite balanced, and does seem to touch on things from, again, just a balanced view. Whereas I think starting 5 to 7 years ago, that's when the ideology seems to have crept in and it's so I don't know what word to use. It's it's very sneaky, I guess, because again, we as a profession really trust what's coming out from the APA. So there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance insofar as, you know, we're seeing documents like the one that you mentioned, and I think many of us think that it's, you know, they're the authority, so we should believe it. But there's there's many, many problems. But to my point about there being previous information that did include, you know, both men and women and how this is affecting the field of psychology. There's a 2011 APA article that indicated that women entering doctoral degrees in psychology outnumber men from 3 to 1. So that was 2011. So I imagine that as time has gone on, that has changed quite a bit. So I started my undergraduate degree in psychology in the early 2000 and I didn't notice this big change, but apparently it's been going on since the seventies and eighties. In the seventies, like 70% of psychology graduates were men. And then by the late eighties it was dwindling, dwindling even further. And perhaps I didn't notice it because the majority of my professors were male or in What was your experience in entering psychology? Were you like odd man out, no pun intended, or what did it look like for you. At my time? Still like I saw the growing numbers, it was quite clear that there were, you know, a larger number of females in psychology, especially as we came to more like as you go in the third and fourth year now it's becoming more specialized. These are the people who are more likely to enter the field, whereas in the first and second year, you know, everyone takes intro psych and you get a lot of breadth courses. So people from all the different departments can take these lower level courses, right? So, you know, you can see more females in those lower level courses. And then when it became, again, the higher level courses, it became 70, 80% females. And here's the part that's going to seem unpopular and and this is being stated as just an observation, there's no judgment. I want to be very clear on this. It's not a judgment, but it is relevant to what we're talking about, which is I started noticing that among the males and I see this now as an instructor, I've been in teaching psychology for 25 years, and I've seen this become more and more prominent, which is when we get into the in the later years and into the grad school years, you are more likely, significantly more likely to see that the males will be gay, bisexual and gender non-conforming. They may belong to the quote unquote LGBT Rainbow Alliance or Alphabet gay. So and that's important because when we talk again about this document in this document, the EPA document kept referring to traditional masculinity. And of the words you're looking for, I think earlier was insidious. Maybe that this problem that we're discussing, because here's a document where it's like, hey, let's not under let's let's recognize that, you know, males are being underserviced males have issues that need to be dealt with. Let's have some compassion and empathy for males. So you go, okay, let's let's look at this. If I'm not a male or if I'm not a typical male or I come from a different culture, this is a good guideline for me to see, you know, what are we dealing with basically, and how can I approach this population? That's what you would think. But when you read the document and again, you and I read it cover to cover, okay? It's so clear that there's an ideology that underpins the document and that ideology clearly it's so clear and anyone can read the documents about 20 pages and it clearly discusses anytime it talks about, let's say, maleness, masculinity, whiteness, they don't use the term they call it, you know, white male or traditional masculinity. It's always this assumption that there's some harmful elements to it and they talk about competitiveness, stoicism, self-reliance. Okay. Now this within a context of saying that those those types of individuals, if they adhere rigidly to these concepts, then they're less likely to seek treatment. I understand that. Look, there's less. Rigidity in any sense is problematic. So. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. But again, it's just the way that it's it's put in there it is. And when it when it's taken into consideration with all these other, let's say, condemnations, either direct or subtle against traditional masculinity, then it seems like it's not that okay, rigid adherence or extreme version of this is bad. No, it's this in of itself. The self-reliance, the stoicism, the competitiveness, this traditional these traditional traits in of themselves are harmful and toxic. And the whole document is like that. So and I'll I'll, I'll hold off for now because there are other points to it. Okay. But the point being, once again, that I started seeing this shift away from, let's say, traditional masculinity being either a good thing or even just accepted like it is what it is. You know, we've seen it becoming. No, this is now it's being edged out, it's being marginalized, is being said that no, no, no. We've got to be very careful because there are harmful undertones to this and we must be careful, especially and here's the part and the whole document's basically saying this. It keeps talking when it talks about traditional masculinity. Basically, the entire document is either that traditionally masculine males are more likely to harm others, whether it's the nontraditional males or females. Okay. Or if you can't live up to these traditional, you know, masculine roles and expectations that causes harm as well. So if you're gender non-conforming, trans, gay, etc., that this is you know, it's an additional stressor that, you know, other males don't have to deal with. And yes, if you said that if you said a couple of times that, you know, some people have a hard time living up to these expectations, etc.. So if that was said at the beginning, once or twice, that's one thing. But the way it's framed, it's like is basically saying all males have to live up to this impossibly difficult standard and trying to live up to it is what causes all the distress and anxiety and stress and suicidal intention and committing of hate and so on that that's how it really comes across. Okay, That is an impossible ideal. It's an unfair ideal and it harms everybody that is confronted by it. And it's so crazy, like to touch on or to elaborate on what you touched on there. Like it's and I don't think it explicitly says this, but it really is implied that when they're talking about traditional masculinity, it's framed around the context of like violent behavior, sexually deviant behavior, like really negative stuff. So they've created this association of to be masculine is to be, you know, criminal or, you know, the most heinous behavior. It's it's absolutely ridiculous that that's the way it's been framed. And in reading some I read some criticisms, but also some who are in favor of the way that this is framed. One individual said that, you know, what this should teach us is that mass masculinity, traditional masculinity, is is toxic. We hear that word all the time. But more specifically, men should be working towards allyship with feminism. That should be the goal of masculinity. And like that is absolute horseshit. I don't know how else to put that, because what that paints the picture of is men are failed women. I think that's, you know, exactly what they're saying is that if you want to be a good man, be more like a woman. And, you know, we've said it over and over and over again. And so many different episodes and different contexts and different topics that, you know, men have their unique qualities and women have their unique qualities. You know, we we aren't the same. And that's okay. And that's a good thing because that's what creates societies that are home harmonious and, you know, all types of unique individuals are needed. We can't all be the same. Right? And when we're talking about the shifting demographic, right, if this is the messages being promulgated and there's fewer and fewer people to stand up against it. Right. Because if you're a feminist, you're going, yeah, hell yeah. What you just said makes sense. And if you're a gender non-conforming male or I just call it like, let's say a non traditionally masculine male chair and again, more and more males in psychology are it seems this is my observation. I could be wrong, but I've seen many people over the last 25 years and I'm pretty certain that it's I am correct in saying that again, there's a disproportionately high number of non traditionally masculine males in psychology. So if that number is shrinking and more people are the nontraditional and they're being told that this, you know, these these traits, these tendencies, ideals, the expectations that they had a hard time maybe living up to, they're being told that this is toxic or harmful or not good enough, then yes, they're going to be more likely to encourage this type of thinking and there's not going to be the pushback. And anyone who does pushback we know this anybody in academia today who pushes back against this is going to be called, at best, a sexist. Okay, Then it goes to misogynist, then it goes to racist, homophobic, transphobic, fascist, right wing colonialist, and you get all these other labels and and so more and more people are scared about, you know, speaking up against this. And again, it's simply stating either common sense or science and saying the science doesn't necessarily support what you're claiming. So much of what we're seeing when we're talking, even that whole document, so much of it, the assumptions that it's based on, these a lot of these some of these are from research, others just come from like theoretical papers. These are more ideology than science. It's just assumed that that, you know, let's say stoicism is a bad thing or that it causes harm. Or if I may say something, here's just an example to some people to understand just how biased this document is. It states, and I quote, research also suggests that insecurely attached men. So they're talking about insecure attachment. Great. We should talk about this. It's a you know, it's it's a phenomenon that affects everybody. But it says insecurely attached men not only rigidly adhere to sexist gender or ideology, but they may act on those schemas in ways that promote or justify intimate partner violence. So now we're saying not only that, so they're saying insecure attachment. So they originally adhere to these, you know, these traditional male's roles. So basically what they're implying is that if you are a traditional male, there's a pretty good chance that it's actually you're insecurely attached. So maybe you're compensating for it by, you know, becoming, you know, a real man very supposedly. And also that's being a real man is also linked to intimate partner violence. The reality is take a look at and the research is pretty clear on this. I don't have the numbers to bring it up. Okay. But if you look at gay men, if you look at trans people who are, let's say, natal males or biological males who identify as women, if you look at bisexuals, if you get anyone under the, you know, the queer spectrum, how many of them have healthy attachments? You're going to see many having insecure attachments. So I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that when they present this document in this way, saying, well, you know, these traditional males really they have insecure attachment. Yes, but so do all of these nontraditional males. So what are you saying? If we're going to talk about insecure attachment, let's talk about insecure attachment. Exactly. But it's going to framed in a way. And again, it goes back to their being insidious. It's just someone's reading this and the average is, again, it's a 20 page document, someone's reading it, I want to do right by others and so on. They're not going to do the critical thinking necessarily. Step back. Okay, But wait a second. How about all these other you know, again, people who are insecurely attached and everything like that. So, again, it's just there's so many of those examples where it just takes a tiny little it takes a fact and it makes it look like this fact is specific to traditional masculinity. And of course, tourism is bad for these reasons, and it just ignore so many other factors that don't apply to traditional masculinity. Yeah, and I think that the biggest thing that it ignores is the two things. I think first and foremost, that one of the main principles of psychotherapy is to not bring our own biases into a therapy session. But this thing is riddled with bias and is encouraging people to be biased. So that's the first problem. And secondly, it is in turn turning our our work and our profession into ideological complaint sessions instead of clinically focused. And in reading this document, I felt like I almost live in in a bubble of maybe the way things used to be in psychotherapy, because I feel that our team is so clinically focused and so research and fact focus that when I read this, I'm like, Wow, I was completely blown away because I'm like, This doesn't fit at all with the way that we do things. And I don't mean that in a non ethical, non professional way. It's again, that difference between ideology and clinical focus. Like we are very clinically focused and well we should be. And that said that doesn't mean don't be aware of the way that things are shifting in society and the different issues that impact people. But knowledge is different than ideology. Exactly. Exactly. And and this is sharing knowledge is different than promoting promoting ideology or inculcating people with ideology. And that's what students are seeing again, from the undergraduate to the graduate to then the professional level. This is what they're being inundated with. And this, again, is just wrong. And so so one thing that's missing from the document and you and I have talked about this a number of times when it talks about, again, it keeps talking about traditional masculinity and being so bad and everything. At one point there's like one paragraph near the end where they're talking about therapies to be mindful of their own biases or expectations or whatever. And they give a couple of examples. Once again, very stereotypical examples will put that aside, but it doesn't take nowhere in the document. And that's I missed it by a number of times. Does it basically say to the therapist, Hey, just because you might think that a more emotion focused approach is better or that they should do A, B or C, maybe you should read up on the benefits of traditional masculinity. Nowhere does say that. Nor does this show the research where in some cases in these circumstances it's not necessarily necessarily necessary that men necessary for man story to let it all out or to share his feelings or whatever. Sometimes you got to put the guard up, Sometimes you got to look at, you know, take it more rational than an emotional based approach and so on. So nowhere does it indicate that it's only talking once again about traditional masculine being bad. And one of the other insidious things they do is sometimes it says traditional masculinity. So social research about traditional masculinity, and then sometimes it's traditional common sexist masculinity. And those are two different things. Okay? It's like they aren't traditional feminism or traditional femininity versus traditional sexist feminine. Again, they sneak that word in sometimes. But if you read enough times that it basically becomes anonymous. Traditional means sexist means violent, it means toxic. So I don't know the answer to this. I'm truly asking what you think. What are they seeking to accomplish then, with this? With this like absolute shedding on men, promoting feminism, turning psychology into something that it shouldn't be like, What do they seek to gain? And we can go tinfoil hat here, which I'm not going to I am going to think I do believe that they are seeking to educate. They believe the people who wrote these documents do believe that they are doing good. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that they're just trying to again, they believe, you know, rightfully so, that males are a it's a what's called a neglected topic. So we need to consider the male, you know, the male condition, the male mentality, etc., etc.. So I believe that that's an element of it. But I think with good, as we always say, good intentions executed poorly leads terrible consequences. And the people who wrote this document, I don't know anything about them. I know a few of the names, but I don't know. I don't know if this describes themselves or if they're just being exceedingly compassionate toward people like this. But it really seems like a treatise on how to to help the non traditional males function, because almost every single section of this document always talks about how, you know, how all of this traditional actually harms gays, bisexuals, trans people or black people or people of color. It's always talking about the harm it does to them. So again, they had this one idea and then we started focusing on a very narrow scope because to these people and these people, I mean, the people who maybe and again, I'm speculating here, either the ones in academia, the ones who wrote the paper or the ones in practice, to them, they have a very myopic view. Right. And they're seeing it through that lens, you know, this, this. And they believe that the right and I think that there's an arrogance there because, again, as you say, it's almost like the the the the proper male is a male who's more on the feminine side or feminist side. Right. And they see that and they're trying to say, well, we see the problem and so we're going to help the problem. And the problem is, again, you know, that we should we should we should make traditional males recognize how harmful they are being to society, especially to the people who are not like them. Okay. And we should also help the psychologists see how, you know, we need to help this underprivileged or this or this this smaller class, the nontraditional males like, again, it just it's all over the place. But those are the two real main message I think helps showing through some males that you're toxic, You need to change and help therapy, see what they have done so much damage. And you know, again, that we need to really focus more on the sexual minorities, basically, because that's all you're talking about. Yeah. And my my numbers are probably not accurate here, so correct me if I'm wrong, but what the nontraditional men are, what, 5 to 10% of the population. So we are now to then make a generalization about an entire gender, half the population based on this guidance. Like it's just it's it's very confusing. And again, especially to new people entering this field, I can see it being really confusing and problematic. There's there's no other way to look at it. Well, yes. And when you say about five 10%, well, it depends on how you define it, because. Okay. Right. And and in terms of what age group we're looking at, because now that we know, we know in the States, you know, there are numerous polls showing that up to 20% of youth granting youth identify as something other than a straight non trans, you know, person. So whether it's gay, bisexual, quote unquote, queer, whatever that means. Now, these days, you know, transgender, gender nonconforming, non-binary, take your pick. More and more people are are identifying as that, but they don't know what it really means. I think we've talked about this before, right. They're just they're hearing these labels and they're just and here's the problem. Okay? So they're either getting these labels, it's not that's a typical it's not common is not normal, God forbid, to be called normal. So they want to identify with these different groups. And then again, if you have a growing number of people in the field of psychology who came from those same types of backgrounds, they're more likely to normalize it rather than saying, well, okay, are these people truly gay? Are they truly pansexual? Okay, When an eight year old child identifies as an asexual, blah, blah, blah, does that make sense or is this child just spewing out these things that he or she saw on social media or in the classroom and so on? Right. Instead of having the people there, you know, the safeguards, basically saying what's happening here, what you know, how much of this is social contagion, how much of this is just, you know, it's just a representation of biological reality or psychological reality. It's like we don't have enough people. They were saying, whoa, wait. Again, this goes back to ideology. May be what we're talking about. Okay. Maybe it doesn't apply to very, very many people. And if it doesn't yet, we're throwing it out into the classrooms, into the social media, into these younger people, pretending that it is common, it is normal, is healthy, etc.. No, I'm not. Just to be clear, if someone is gay and so on, so it doesn't mean it's not healthy. But we've seen many examples. You know, I've talked about many examples where this type of ideology spirals out of control and then we see it becoming unhealthy. Right? That's the issue here. And again, speaking of healthy and unhealthy, I just want to go back to one more time because we've talked about so many times. I am not saying that the best way for a male or a female or anyone else to act is always stoic and hard core. And I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is many people benefit, whether, you know, usually or in these specific circumstances from a certain approach. And if that approach happens to be rational, if it happens to be stoic mind, it has to be both self-reliance or self advocacy and so on. That's something that we should be encouraging. And again, I am seeing less and less in that. I think I mentioned before, I think you have you've seen it before as well, where I've had so many clients who have said and I've never seen it this frequent, I've seen it increasing over the years, more and more clients saying that they were in either an individual or a couples or a family therapist session and that the person, all they did was empathize, supposedly empathize. It was only compassion. It was only feeling sorry for them or or commiserating. There was no guidance on how to help me actualize, how to help me solve this problem, how to help me, you know, look at things from a better perspective, take a healthier approach to deal with this internally or externally. We're not seeing enough of that. And that is the more feminized, quote unquote, approach. It's more passive, it's more compassionate. I think think compassionate because it's not compassionate to steer somebody wrong. Okay. Right. I know that. It's it's it's surface level. It's surface level. And it might just lead them into repeating the same problems, rather look, okay, what are the core issues here? How can I change again, these thoughts, feelings, behaviors, and and again, I see a feminized to be very clear here. I mean, for anyone who doesn't know us, again, I'm talking to a woman here who I know isn't good therapist and does not take a feminized approach. Right. You bring compassion and empathy, which is good and nuance to these these issues. But we bring in rationality. We bring in, you know, the reality. We really make sure that people see what's wrong. How do I you know, how do I tolerate what's my distress? How do I look at reality through a truthful lens, not through a self-aggrandizing or self preserving lens, But I want to see reality for what it is and how do I find the strength and the ability to to work with this and to get better? That's what we do. That's and that's not a feminized approach. I won't even call it masculine as I just that's a good approach. And we're seeing less and less of that and more, I think. We'll call it a balanced approach, right? Because I think when we look at, you know, what the true definition of masculine and feminine are like having a balance of both of those in a therapy session or in life in general is a healthy way to be. And like you said, there are certain contexts where leaning more on masculine traits can be helpful and beneficial. And similarly, having a more feminine approach to things can be beneficial and helpful. It just really depends on the context. And I think with regard to the types of therapies that you're describing, where your clients and my clients have both experienced that it's very surface level, very, you know, lots of smiling and head nodding. And like the real basic stuff, I think in part that that's a failure of the training programs that are out there who are absorbing this ideology and teaching more of this inclusion and diversity and all of these things that we're talking about, they're focusing more on that rather than the clinical approaches that are the point of our entire profession. Right. And let's remember when we talk about, you know, diversity and inclusion, equity and so on, let's be very clear here. People have to understand this. We've talked about it before. Those models are based on an oppressor oppressed by a dominant, suppressed or dominant in marginalized groups. And so if somebody is in the oppressed or the marginalized group for us to challenge anything they say now, this is the ideologues perspective, not you heard my perspective, but to challenge that somehow is contributing to the racism or the sexism or the transphobia or whatever this person has experienced their entire life. So a healthy, nuanced, balanced, real reality based approach is antithetical to DTI, because, again, if you have someone from one of these quote unquote groups or if their intersectionality stacks up a certain way, then we can't attack. We can't what also we can't challenge because challenging is attacking. It's denying their existence. It's being fascistic. And I do want to say just to that point, just because I have to squeeze this in, when we talk about these types of ideologies in the same document. Just one more point. I just want to say that in this document it talks about incarcerated men. And one of the things it says is that 35% of transgender people have been victimized while in prison by inmates and guards. So 35% of trans prisoners get victimized either by an inmate or a guard. You hear think, my God, that's terrible. And again, if we have a lens and it's so narrow this, it makes it, you know, again, this just one more example of how trans people have it so difficult. So if I have a trans patient, I have to come with complete compassion and empathy. And for me to deny their reality, if they tell me something, if they say it's a trans genocide, and if I say, let's really look at that, okay, if I if I realize that taking that that ultimate victim stance that everyone's out to get me, everyone wants to kill me, everyone's okay. And if I say, is that really true, is it really everyone? Is it you know, if I try to challenge that in any way that I'm being transphobic, I'm denying their existence and so on. Right? So the reason I say that those numbers is that 35% sounds terrible, but I had, you know, a 2018 study and I'm assuming it's only gotten worse where it shows that nearly I quote, nearly 40% of male and female inmates experience some form of victimization during a six month period. Okay. So 30, 35% sounds terrible. But when you look at the general population in prisons, it was 40%. Right. And again, this is the type of critical thinking one must take. A critical thinking says, wow, that looks terrible. Is there more to the story, someone who's been, you know, who've been brainwashed and that's what schooling is doing now, is brainwashing is telling us, how dare you challenge these narratives? Because once again, if you're challenging narratives, you're sexist, racist, transphobic, homophobic, bigoted, colonialist, white supremacist, far right, blah, blah. The challenge is, is is to say sorry, the sorry word, your the the tenets of psychology, the tenets of academia. This idea of challenging, of questioning, of finding out what is reality, not just what I think, not just what I've heard, but what does research or what is clinical experience. All right. All of that I'm just seeing being promoted less and less because if you dare challenge it once you have challenging ideology, one of these horrible people I just mentioned, and this is what I'm seeing more and more of, and again, I think this APA document is just evidence of that. And, you know, and I saw by the way, my colleagues reacting, some of the colleagues back channel are going this is ridiculous. This is insulting. It's embarrassing, as they should have said, and other people publicly. I am so glad, blah, blah, blah. All these psychologists, you know, again, because they're just lying themselves think we're doing something good, we're doing something good because we're following the dictates of our, you know, our organization and everything anyway. So I can't say enough bad things about it. And I can't emphasize enough that bad things are happening within the field of psychology. And part of it is because, again, we're moving away from or solutions that were moving, we're moving into certain ideologies. I'm not saying it's bad because we're moving away from white colonialist thinking, and I'm not saying that. What I'm saying is taking a subtle, nuanced, comprehensive approach. We're just like, you know, taking a sledgehammer to the whole system and breaking it and just, you know, replacing it with something that's not really fact based. It's more ideology based. It's so much ideology that will be the drinking for the day ideology. And if I can extract one maybe positive thing, I guess it is like you said initially, the goal of it was probably to draw attention to this, you know, this group that is marginalized or not as well, research. So that's good. But unfortunately it unfolded into something negative. And the fact is, when we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion and all of this stuff in representation, men are part of the equation, too. White men are part of the equation. That's why I started out this episode with is exactly that. And it's it's so concerning that in many different realms, but especially in the clinical realm of psychology, their needs are not being met, their needs are not being addressed and in fact are being like stuffed down as as as toxic and negative. Right. And again, it's in the name of ideology. And it's not just males. It's white males. And again, I'm going to throw one more thing into so people know that I'm not just, you know, ranting out of my ass here. Maybe I am. But in that APA document, any time they talk about white something, it's always in a bad light, okay, the white male norm or the western norm and so on. And any time they talked either black or African-American or they have American-Indian, Alaska, Native men, anytime they talk about those very specific groups, they talk. And there's nothing no nothing wrong with this. But they talk about bad things that are happening to those groups. So they're highlighting that marginalized groups right. Have, let's say, bigger problems or more problems or, you know, that that's layered on problems than the standard group. And that's perfectly fine. I get that. I'm glad that they're doing that, that they're saying, hey, let's be mindful that we can't take this very, you know, white centric lens. We need to be more, you know, again, what's the right word? You're sensitive to not aware of a knowledge, knowledgeable of all these other, you know, groups, etc.. Right. So I think that's perfectly fine. But one of the examples they give and I just have to say this, when when they're talking about suicide rates, for example, they specifically mentioned again, like the increasing rates among certain groups and these are nonwhite groups, perfectly fine. But what they fail to mention in the same document is that at all ages, essentially white males far outnumber any other group when it comes to suicide. So once again, I'm not saying poor white males. All I'm saying is if you read this document with a critical through the lens of critical thinking, you realize, again, it's insidious. That's the other drinking word. You know, it's insidious that they're framing if you are if you belong to the white group, you're part of the problem. Basically, ignore that We're not going to highlight certain specific problems that you know, that white people deal with. We're only going to talk about the more marginalized groups. Once again, I'm glad we're talking about the marginalized groups. We need to We neglected all these different groups for too long. I'm glad that we're talking about it. But again, it shouldn't be a zero sum game. Talk about them shouldn't come at the cost of talking about white people. And again, and the whiteness should not always be associated with something negative. It's always, again, the white is negative, the male is negative. The traditional masculinity is negative. That's all that's being promulgated. And I wish I could remember some more specifics about this, but I came across a study a few weeks ago that was talking about male suicide rates and contributing factors and so on, and I believe they I can't remember the number of them. I'm sorry I'm so vague on the details here, but the takeaway is they looked at a number of male suicide notes and what was the general theme of them. And feeling useless, I think was at the top of the list for all of them. And I bring that up because I don't think that documents like this document we're discussing is going to help men feel useful and meaningful and worthwhile. This is only contributing to those feelings of, Well, if I am a traditional male, I must suck, I must be useless, I must be fill in the blanks. So maybe that's a long walk, but I really don't think it is. I don't think this is helping the problem. No, it definitely is not. And it's not just among psychologists in society in general. At the same time, this document came out, I think was within a month or so, Gillette had that horrible anti male commercial I don't even remember. But it was basically showing, you know, males, okay, violence is good. You know, sexism is good and so on. And, you know, it was just it was a Gillette course led to a boycott and it was just so insulting against males. So it's not that this little document that no one's going to read, this document is supposed to guide people's practices. If you're if you're trying to stay up to date, if you're trying to be ethical, you want to be aware of what you know, what what these leaders dictate, you know, is the best way to, you know, evidence based or best practices. And it's certainly not that it's ideology based. Again. So you keep saying it again, and that ideology spreads beyond the classrooms, beyond the psychologist's office. It's within society in general. You may again, that point about white males or males feeling useless right this way. We've talked about this in different podcasts, right? This whole idea that men are superfluous at best, a menace at worst, evil at worst. Right. And at worst. So it's when you think about young kids seeing this young boys from the youngest of ages. And again, nowhere in the document does talk about and talk about education, everything. It didn't talk about. Who's most likely to teach a young boy? I don't know. Women, The teaching or the education system. It's mostly female. So again, it's it's in psychology, it's in the media it's in education where there's this female centric view and it might be okay for women. And not all women are going to be you know, there's a lot of not, you know, gendered non-conforming women who aren't going to, you know, go along with this, for example. Okay. But again, the point is, if you try to apply this so broadly to everybody, a female centric way of learning, of thinking of dealing with problems, of treating, you know, treating your issues of conflict resolution and so on, if it doesn't fit the person themselves and you're forcing you're saying, no, no, this is the approach that you must take. And but what about this for no, you're a sexist for thinking that it's forcing people into a type of a being of existing that's not necessarily healthy and not just for males, even for females. It's just again, it's so myopic, it's so narrow minded and it can be so destructive. And again, it's coming down saying this is the best way. And there's no evidence, no evidence whatsoever that all of these things that they're claiming is necessarily the best way they're determining this because they have a set of conclusions already baked into the you know, into the document and so on, and so that they're trying to make everything conform to those conclusions. And again, that conclusion is this very feminized view of things. And once again, balance as a whole. We're saying we're not saying it's bad. You know, if if it's if it's part of it. It's not bad if it's all of it, it's harmful. And I'm sorry I'm repeating this, but it's just it's such a sour taste in my mouth that I'm seeing the damage doing is not doing damage to me, quite frankly. That's the thing in my perspective, in my position in life and everything, it's not harming me at all. But I am seeing the damage it's being done to old men, to middle and older middle age twenties and teens and younger and younger. And to the child. Or to the point that you made about the pendulum swinging too far the other way. And it's so contradictory as well, because I read a lot about female leadership and, you know, things surrounding that. Being a female leader, I think it's important for me to understand, you know, what's works for others. And something really great that I read was female leaders need to remember that we bring unique qualities to leadership and, you know, some progress that's been made in in that space is that we no longer have to act like men to be good leaders. That's great. I think that that's such a great way to look at it. And it's a reminder of that balance that we're talking about, that male leaders bring strong qualities, as do female leaders, and they are unique in their own way. But in the same breath our society is saying that, but then also saying, however, men should be more feminine, right? We're saying it's a good thing that we're now being told don't be more masculine, but they're being told to be more feminine. It's so contradictory and so ridiculous. And, you know, the greatest example of that was just recently in the DNC with the DNC, whatever they call it, the thing they had the debacle for four days and they were talking to the media. We're talking about how the VP, Tim Waltz or the presumably Tim Walz and and Kamala Harris's husband are the Doug Emhoff or whatever are the new men, the nontraditional males. And they're trying to say these are the real the proper male role models. They were literally saying that, yeah, they're saying that this is the new wave of men and this is what they're trying to make. And guess what? That they might serve. They may have certain roles, great, But if you don't have a bunch of traditional men, whatever you're looking at now, whatever system you think, this is really good. Well, guess what? It's going to be gone. Because absent traditional men, you will not have a fighting force to defend this way of life that you're trying to promote. Women. No offense. Women are not going to talk their way out of regional conflicts. They're not going to say, here comes a hug. If that's what you know, that's not going to stop. You know, these other forces trying to take over the ways of life. So I don't know. And again, I don't want to Arlington for wearing hats. It's not necessarily a conspiracy in that regard, but it's the consequence of this approach. Again, overly feminized, has never worked anywhere in the world because, again, there are unless the entire world became like that, maybe, maybe in this hypothetical world, maybe it would work. But we don't know that it's never been like that. So we are putting ourselves in a lot of damage. And again, just in general, there are a certain proportion of boys. I'm not advocating violence or anything like that, but if there are certain boys who have that strength, who have that ability to, if it's channeled properly, that they can be the defenders, they can be the police officers and women as well, it doesn't matter. Okay. But again, that's not a feminist approach. But if we put them in the proper jobs as police officers, as military, as, you know, security, you know, we need that as part of the balance. But again, we're exercising that. We're saying, no, no, no, cops. Cops are bad. Bringing the social workers on once again, myopic. It's destructive, Can't last. It's not tenable. And it's just and if these were high school students saying this, that's one thing. Okay. Even if this were media pundits saying it is something else, I understand there's an agenda. But when cycle exists and psychotherapists and psychiatrists themselves are and academics are spewing the same garbage, what chance do we have? We need more people speaking out and saying, No, no, no, no. This is not based on fact. This is based on some fantasy that you've created that has not been replicated in the real world. We haven't seen it play out the way that you think it's going to play out. Yeah, I guess then our our usual question of what can people do about this? Because it sounds pretty hopeless, but we're putting out there, but it's not. I think that my recommendation is two fold here. So for people who are entering the field of psychology, I hope that more males do enter in because it's needed right? There needs to be diversity of therapists out there, not only diversity in terms of ethnicity, race, religion, but also in gender. And that includes men. So I hope that as people enter the field of psychology, they're able to view what they're learning from a critical approach and look at it from a non-biased approach and understand that there's multiple ways to look at things. That's the point of academia, and we've spoken about this so many times before that just because we're learning it in school doesn't mean that it's the and the only way of doing things. We need to approach things critically and think critically and be open minded. And when you enter the profession, find like minded individuals. And that doesn't mean live in an echo chamber, but it means find people who are able to challenge the way things are and who are able to view things open mindedly. And then secondly, for people who are seeking therapy, therapy can be a great thing, right? We've both been doing this for a while now and we've helped so many people and seen so many people grow. But I think from the client's perspective, it's important to just as some of these guidelines suggest, that individuals look for therapists who look like them and represent the same groups as them, I think that that should be true of men as well in so far as finding somebody who you believe can understand where you're coming from, who has a more open mind, who has a more critical approach to things and it's not inappropriate to meet with a therapist and see if they're the right fit, because that's going to probably be the most important piece of it is if this individual doesn't have, you know, any shared values or thoughts or approach or understanding, it's just not going to work no matter how good a clinician they are, whatever side they're on. So I would say that from a client perspective, just be aware of the fact that there are good therapists out there. There are ones that fit, there are ones that may not fit, and it's your right, a patient, your client to find what works right. And part of the process of finding what works is discussing those things with the therapist, asking them, any therapist and I've seen this by the way, sadly, any therapist who takes offense at being asked certain questions, you should really question their competence and their, you know, should they be where they are. Right. And I've seen I've heard way too many stories that if you do it rudely, that's one thing. But if you're just telling me that you said this or I'm questioning that, and especially in couples or family therapy, I think that's really, really important because oftentimes you're going to have a male and a female view perspective approach clashing. And if you have a therapist who automatically assumes, well, the more compassionate, quote unquote, approach is better or just listen to them. Yes, I know what they're saying is entirely irrational. I know that when they call you the certain name, it's hurtful and so on. But that's how they feel in the moment. So let them say that and that's their truth. That's okay. If that's the kind of person that you're dealing with versus someone saying, okay, well, you know that you're using that term incorrectly and that you know that when you use that term, you're going to be making this person upset and they're going to resent you and you have the cycle of whatever, you know, that keeps happening. Right. Instead of like, again, if the person's taking a certain approach and it's not working for you, it doesn't mean that your approach is better, but challenge, question ask and so on. And again, like I said, especially when there's, you know, two sexes involved, right? You have to find of the middle ground. And you know, I know you do this, I know I do this. I know the therapists that we we train and supervise do this, which is, again, as you said earlier, balance finding out in what context, at what time, to what degree is that masculine approach is a feminine approach is the boundary. Right? They all have their times and if you can integrate them, if you can bring compassion, but rationality, that's pretty damn good. If you can bring strength, but softness, that's good as well, right? Like having that. And once again, we're just seeing the two of us. We're seeing more and more people have a direct practice of this happening and be hearing from clients that that they're they're not getting this balanced, comprehensive approach. It's very narrow. And it's very again, it's very it's a feminized approach which may have its place in some in some small context, but it can't be the only approach. And yeah, so I know I said it over and over and over, but it just again, in today's society where we're seeing so many people, when we're seeing so many people wanting to get better, wanting to help out, trying to figure out what the hell is going on with all the changes that are happening so rapidly in society. You know, if we don't have some type of understanding like a common ground and saying, look, this is what empirically is the healthiest way, okay, not ideological but empirically this we know will help people, whether you're a male, whether you're a female, whether you're traditional, whether you're nontraditional. But these core tenets of healthy, you know, practice mental practices, of healthy actions and of a healthy interpersonal functioning. So if we don't have this, if it's a free for all, if it's if this is how you feel, let's go with this again, which is sort of the more feminized approach your special, Let's just glorify you and let's go along with you. You don't need to conform and fit in and and navigate the system. No, no, no. This system should focus center around you. That's again, I hate to say it, but that's more of a feminized approach. That's not right and it's not healthy. So in any event, like again, just to be nothing wrong with nontraditional, I'm not saying that. I'm saying an overly extreme, overly rigid and narrow approach. That's the problem. So I just misconstrue my. Yeah, and it's funny because I was going to give similar clarification that by no means every saying, you know, any of these areas that have been explored by our field are bad, but it's the imbalanced nature of it that can be problematic. Right? So. All right. So we want to hear from our listeners. Have you had experiences like this in therapy? Have you had positive experiences? Let us know in the comments what you think and On that note, until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.