it is confusing. And this is not a simplistic topic. It demands nuance. Children, young boys, they can't handle nuance. And I think that those are the men that are most susceptible to this terrible messaging that we're talking about. how are men supposed to access care that allows them to find that identity, find their masculinity, find ways in which to portray that in a healthy way if there isn't a space for them to do that Hello and welcome to awake at the wheel. So I want to start this episode just by asking a simple question. Our men. Okay. Assess because of this video that I came across the other day. And then did some subsequent reading, which we'll talk about later on. But let's start out by watching this video. I saw a TikTok the other day of somebody saying that part of the reason why so many women are choosing to stay single and not get married is because there's way too many grown men that don't know that you're supposed to wash a booty hole in the shower. And it reminded me of the time I was dating this guy. And this TikTok from Nicki Minaj came up on my For You page where she was like, you need to wash your ass in the shower. And I saw that Tik Tok and I just like, I was in. So like, if you move so I asked him, I was like, when you're in the shower, do you, like, spread your cheeks so that the water in. And he was like, nobody does that. And I was like, what do you mean? And he was like, I just asked both of my roommates and they said, they don't do that either. Like literally nobody does that. And he was like arguing with me about the fact that you're not supposed to wash your booty hole in the shower. Okay. So I was like. This can't be for real. This, this this must be a joke or something. So I made the mistake of looking into this further. As to like what? What is the rationale behind this? The sentiment. If it is actually a sentiment or is, as you know, just trolls saying stupid shit. I don't know, apparently. And I, I, I heavily preface this because I don't know if this is actually the case, but the sentiment is surrounding the fact that if you, do thoroughly bathe yourself, it's considered gay because you're touching your rear end or touching your front. And I'm choosing these words very carefully here, but what? Like, what do you mean? We've talked about toxic masculinity before in this, that everything that men do, apparently is, you know, terrible and questioned and so on and so forth. I don't even know what to say or. And what are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I don't know either. I've never asked people and I've taught human sexuality for many where I used to teach it until, it's no longer offered, at the place I used to teach. But I taught it many, many years. I've spoken about so many of, you know, we'll talk about something related to it, that I do know about. Okay. But this washing your, you know, your booty hole. I had never heard that. So I've got to say, if I if that had come up during the time I was teaching that course, I would have asked people and anyone who says, oh yes, it's gay or whatever else. I say, are you insane? Okay. And I would set them straight and I hope this is not the case. And I again, I didn't know that this was gonna be our the theme of, of our podcast today. So I would have looked a bit more into it, but like, what are you seeing? I mean, is this a real thing or is this just like a tiny subset of guys, or you think this way. I, I think it's a real thing. And like, again, at the risk of feeding the trolls, like, it seems like there's real discussion online about this and young men in particular, not wanting to do this out of fear of the perception of their sexuality and it not being like manly to do that. Like and again, I take issue with attribute being gay not being manly. That's ridiculous in and of itself. But that aside, I think the insinuation is that, if something is quote unquote gay, it means that it's not masculine. Right? So, you know, in my class, I used to always talk about that. I talked about gender, you know, these gender stereotypes and so on. Many times, whether in human sexuality or in my gender psychology, gender class, about. So one thing I did talk about, and this I know for a fact is an issue, okay, I would say to students, look, even Freud was saying that the anus is an erogenous zone. And so I said, there are so many men who refused to go there because, of course. And I asked the students at everyone who know that there's some stigma that, God forbid, if a guy touched himself or if his female partner was touching it, you know that he's gay. And I would say to them, I say this look like and I, I spoke to many men, in fact, not just in class, but I would go out and, when I was writing another book, we were, I was, interviewing many men, right? Especially in groups in I look at them talking, they talked the manner was different when it was an individual versus a group, but the theme was the same, which was so many men were terrified that if a woman put her finger near his body or they weren't terrified that they were offended, sorry that, you know, that she would ever do that, because, you know, again, she's questioning his masculinity. And I said, I'm pretty certain that most women, okay, if they're playing around and they, you know, they they think maybe it's a place to explore, let's say if they tentatively, you know, start fingering, you know, fingering up there or around there. Okay. I said, it's not like there's something, you know, sticking and go, I knew it. Your gay is it's not right. I said, I said, if you're at a bar and a man comes up to you and a stranger and he shoves his finger up your anus, I said he might be making assumptions about your sexuality, but your female partner doing that know. So I would talk a lot about that. Now. Try to get them to overcome this stigma and this fear, okay? And if you think about it, what is the there are besides being called gay, which, you know, or the another a worse pejorative term. Okay. The one of the greatest insults that you can say to a man to, not to, to attack his masculinity is to accuse him either of being a cuck Okay. Which, you know, and by the way, little side note here. I hate to do it, okay? But, you know, that term became an insult a number of years ago among a certain demographic. All these, you know, these right wing, trolls and everything like that. We're we're calling one cuck and nobody knew what it meant at first. Then people did, and it was almost like a little special called like, we know this term, others don't. Ha ha. Okay. Then it became so pervasive. Almost everybody knows. But I would tell everybody, go, you don't even know there's even cuck porn. Okay. And I say, the irony is, you fools, this terminology, the real meaning of cuck is from cuckold. To be cuckolded is that the man was basically like his woman. His wife was cheating on him, but he didn't know about it. And usually everybody else knew. Okay. And I mean, that was the, the, the, the, the premise of it. And so now the porn or this idea that you enjoy watching your partner have sex with other men, I see that's not actually where it's supposed to come from. And by the way, the cuckold comes with the cuckoo bird. Where, the cuckoo bird. Right. It would knock off, it would, put its eggs in the nest of a, of another bird, and then the baby would be born. And anyway, so that's the the, the history of it. Little that digression there. But the point is, besides calling a man a cock, besides call him gay, the worst thing that you could call a man is, you know, or saying that he likes to get pegged by his partner. Okay, basically having a female wear a dildo, strap on dildo and, you know, and have, you know, penetrate him from behind, okay. Or whatever position. So if you think about this, this is all an attack on the man's masculinity. And think of the things that are right, you know, that are inherent in this. So anyway, that's so we've talked a lot or I've talked to in my class a lot about that and tried to help men overcome that shame and stigma and everything. I used to say if as a man, you say I'm not into any anal sex because I feel that, you know, the anus is not in erogenous zone I think it's a one way exit only, you know, like, if that's how you are, fine. Then, you know, there's nothing wrong with not wanting someone to, you know, to say, to play with your own anus. Okay. Are you doing yourself okay? As if. However, you have no problem penetrating a female's anus. So it's not about, you know, penetration of the anus per se. Okay, then I say, then you really are, you know, unfortunately, you know, a victim of, you know, of this bias of the stigma and shame. That's unnecessary. Because, again, if you think it's okay for a woman to be, pleasured there, why wouldn't you want to be pleasured there? And in fact, it's far more pleasurable for a man because the men have so many women don't have the prostate. The prostate, truly, if stimulated properly, is very pleasurable. So I tried my best. It was in front of thousands of students, you know, over the years to just help them to get rid of these, you know, unnecessary burdens of shame and stigma. And in those lectures, I try to end off that segment by saying, the most masculine men, the ones who have true masculinity, not just, bravado, are the ones who are so confident in saying yes, whether it's exploratory or whether I've already mastered the art. You know, if I like to have certain body parts, touched or penetrated or, you know, licked or anything else like that, that they're able to go, yeah, that's what I like and that's what I'm going to do. And that's something I ask my partner to do. That's true masculinity, to not be told what to do by others, but to say I enjoy it is not harming anybody. I'm going to do it. So that's my rant. But how sad then. And I think this is representative of a much larger issue. But how sad that men, young men, are so confused by the messaging out there that it would impact their personal hygiene like that. That's the crazy part to me, is that out of this, like, clearly real fear of being portrayed or seen a certain way, they're sacrificing their hygiene. Like, that's absolutely insane. So again, the larger issue here is the lack of appropriate, examples of proper masculinity. And we've spoken about this in many different contexts throughout, various episodes of this podcast. But I think, you know, it certainly bears revisiting at least from this perspective, that what are the male role models out there that are actually portraying the the true, attributes of masculinity, such as, you know, you know, being protectors, being, problem solvers, being able to tolerate risk, all of these things that, you know, have been turned into the, are termed as toxic masculinity. So my point in saying all of this is that the messaging is incredibly confusing. And on top of it, there are terrible examples out there. So where does this leave men? Well, yeah. It's it's all part of the same picture, or the same puzzle, which is, this toxic messaging, you know, and harmful and divisive messaging, you know, pitting males against females. What is it? What meat? What what makes a good male? What makes a good female? And you know that there are very few good males out there, very few good females out there. And I mean, the one thing that she did say right in that video is that more and more women are, disinclined to date men, at least their age or, you know, even a bit younger because they're having a hard time growing up. They're having a hard time, you know, finding in themselves what would make me a good man. Not a boy, not a man child, but a man. And there aren't that many good role models. And, you know, that's the real men. The most alpha males also carry. They are the ones who often not all, but many of them are extremely toxic, in their beliefs, in what they say, in their, in their alleged actions. So it is really confusing. And again, it's people might think it's weird that we, you know, we're taking from this angle and pardon I said perspective again pardon the pun. Okay. But you know, it's to me because I'm a huge fan of metaphors and of symbolism and that to me, truly that thing about not washing your bum because it's, you know, it's it's, it it's not masculine, but I think I think it's a great metaphor. And I'll say the interesting thing is, I that I wonder, I don't know if you looked into this, whether these guys then would never, ever use a bidet because God forbid you have, you know, water shooting up there. Because there are a number of men, you know, like pretty masculine men on podcasts who wax poetic about the beauty of having these bidets. And a lot of them, I think, have bidets are sponsors of these cheap bidets or, you know, these, you know, these attach ons, right? There's a lot of these guys, who talk about most raunchy things, who are men, men in many ways. They love it. So I just want to say that there are some people out there who are kind of, you know, broaching the topic in that way. Okay. But I think that. Yeah, but I think that a lot of men, if they're afraid of spreading their cheeks to wash in a shower, I would think that they would see the bidet as a gayest thing. And then the fact that the bidet is most famous in France and the French are not known for their masculinity at all, but that would further, you know, their their fear. Oh, yeah. What is this? It's, you know, so. But it's. I had to tell you that is ridiculous. But again, on a more connected to a bigger picture, so many young men and boys and no time in the history has it been like this or having access to so much bad messaging, right, about what makes a good male or and so on. And, and it is confusing. And this is not a simplistic topic. It demands nuance. Children, young boys, they can't handle nuance. So somehow like it's hard. So they're just getting the simplistic message very, very simplistic. And they're only getting a part of it. So I really hope that, like, I'm gonna say right now, I'm going to start asking people, just so you know, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to post it all over the social media and ask, is this true? Have you heard of this? And I hope that I'm going to do my part to help spread the word that, no, you know, like, you know, basic hygiene and, you know, and if you, I'm just again, to me, I'm not even thinking about that so much. I'm just thinking about that. And I'm thinking about all my, patients, male and female, gay, young, you know, teens, early 20s, even into 30s, who in so many other ways they are, expressing or manifesting other, you know, proof, basically, that they've, they've been the recipients of some either, toxic or simplistic or stupid messaging that is preventing them from moving ahead in life, right? Whether individually or with a partner. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, to tie this back to like why this is important to me. So when planning for the podcast I'm like what's something that's really irritated me lately that I've seen online. And this is immediately what came to mind was, was this and the, the the way that this, ties into the work that I do is I think it's important for me to know and understand what's happening out there and the, you know, the online world, what are the messages that are influencing the way that people conduct themselves, either in their personal life and their relationships, or in society at large. So this then takes me to okay, then how do therapists handle things like this? Are there actual good therapists out there who are able to provide sound guidance to, again, men and young men about either masculinity, identity, or both? And that you go hand in hand. And my answer to that is, unfortunately, I think the number of available individuals, professionals who are able to provide this sound guidance is dwindling. And this goes to something that we've been discussing ongoing, outside of this podcast, which is the changes that are happening within our profession, within education. And the inability for these programs to equipped equip therapists to be able to actually take a critical thinking mindset and nuanced approach to all demographics. So this is a long winded way of me saying that, unfortunately, our profession is really shitting on male therapists and men in general, specifically cis white heterosexual men. And I think that those are the men that are most susceptible to this terrible messaging that we're talking about. Yeah. And, you know, I'm going to be self-serving here and just, you know, by synchronicity, I have been engaged in or embroiled in back and forth discussions or discussions is a fun. Yeah, is not the best word for it. But, with a, you know, a Facebook group of psychotherapists who one of them, was a is a student. And he said that every single case that he saw, about problems like in dealing with the sick, clients with problems, he said that, it was always about, people who like, let's say, people in the minority, okay, that they were always having problems. Now he didn't say that's the only that's the issue. What he said was that they are always victimized because of their sexuality, the color of their skin or something like that. Okay. Or their sex. And the perpetrators are always white, straight, non trans men. Okay. And that was and he was trying to say and people I see this like he was saying rightly what message are we giving. It's either implicit which is very insidious or explicit, which we can also see which is just as bad is toxic that, you know, the white straight man, is the problem here, okay. And everybody else suffers because of him. And when he posted it and it was a very respectful, very polite, very, you know, articulately, conveyed message. And most of the people in this group, many of whom were remained anonymous, he remained anonymous as well, because he doesn't want to get in trouble. He's still a student. And if a student, sadly, in this day and age, were to post this very reasonable concern, you know, on a Facebook group page with. You're killing your career before it even started. Right? You you'd be like a graduate. Maybe. So all these people started, and they totally missed his point. None of them are very few of them. I don't actually, I don't think any of them, who went against him? You know, they were talking about how good it is. You have to understand about the minority experience. Well, and yes, we understand that, but it's the portrayal, again of the white man, blah, blah. So only one of only a few people spoke out, okay. And then I spoke out as well. And, I've always said this. I said for a long time, when you see somebody speaking out against the majority, whether the majority is like 100 people or even 3 or 4 people, and that majority is attacking them, okay. And sometimes it's a blatant attack. Other times it starts off very well. We understand what you're saying, bla bla bla, and they seem so civil and ready to engage in good, in good faith. But as soon as you don't bend the knee and as soon as you don't say you're right, everything you say is correct, I stand corrected. I will change my thinking. Then, you know, the mask comes off and then they slowly, sometimes slowly, sometimes rapidly start getting aggressive. They start attacking the person. They start trying to go into reputation destruction. And that was happening here. So I start to happen. So I spoke up and I said, I've always told people when you see that happening, even if it's one against 100 or 1 against three, still that one person feels so isolated and they feel so disempowered and you know, and they're not inclined to keep going because they feel like, am I the only person who's seeing this? Like, am I the only one who sees the Emperor has no clothes? So in order not to, you know, to suffer any worse fate, they shut up. Not only then, but probably in future encounters. So I have always done this. I did this on X. I've promoted this as everywhere I can where I say, if you see something like that, join in. Show them that they're not alone. Speak up, be polite, be respectful. So I did that. And of course I'm a magnet of controversy. All these people are coming after me. They started misconstruing what I was saying and it started getting ugly. And these are, you know, professionals. Psychotherapy was going to add that, right? Like it's one thing if it's on X, but these are colleagues in the same profession who are behaving this way and, and attacking others instead of having a discussion. So if people in our profession, I do hold people in our profession to a high standard when it comes to emotional intelligence, critical thinking, and being able to have a conversation with people who are maybe opposing in views. I think that if anyone can, it should be people in our profession, but clearly not always. And I'll tell you, I once said that years ago, in the Ontario Psychological Association, and I got somebody who attacked me saying, that's the craziest thing you can say. That's so, elitist and it's offensive. And they couldn't believe that they literally said that. And I said, why. Is that elitist? Because how dare I say that psychologists should be able to have, you know, to be able to analyze, research or analyze facts and evidence better than the average person. Least that's what I think. If they went to school for 7 to 10 years to be able to do that. Exactly. And I said to I said I would expect a basketball player to be able to jump higher than the average person. I expect an accountant to be able to do math better than the average person, and that's our our readers. But that's the kind of thinking that has taken over our, professions, whether it's the in the mental health field proper or in academia that's churning out these weak minded, weak willed people who get emotionally dysregulated, they start acting like teenagers. And, you know, again, if you want to do that on X, fine. I can just, you know, shrug it off. But if you're the person who is responsible for the care of somebody for for making decisions about someone's well-being, if you're doing an assessment, a report, if you're, you know, trying to help a family or an individual or couple or whoever, these people are the ones who are teaching, who are training and who are becoming, you know, these the therapists in the field, psychologists and psychotherapists, and, you know, people are going to think that I'm blowing this out of proportion. I have seen this happen far too many times. It happened in another group of psychologists recently as well. Okay. And once again, I just brought up certain topics and I was basically told, you're wrong. This is the orthodoxy. This is the truth. You know, it's just like gravity. And if you dare question it, you are a bad person. You are a harmful person. And again, I am not going to back down because I am not trying to promote hatred. I'm not trying to, you know, to harm anybody. I am saying that the inability to recognize these realities is causing harm. And back to the whole discussion here I have you and I have both worked with many males who have felt that they are being told that they are the, you know, the cause of all the problems in the world, especially if they're white, especially if they're straight and especially if they're not trans. And so, you know what? Yeah. And and so not only does it do something to their sense of self, but they also recognize even if they even if they know, even if they're able to go, you know, I know this is B.S., I know this is just propaganda, an ideology. I'm not going to fall for that. They do know they're going into society trying to go on dates, trying to speak to people, trying to speak up in a profession, you know, that they are going to be, you know, treated a certain way. This is not hyperbole. This is not fear mongering. This is reality. And you and I have both worked with many people who've been suffering because of this. Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, I know that we're talking about men and masculinity, but I do want to just talk a little bit more about the changes in our profession and how harmful that is and the fact that, you know, you mentioned that people are getting dysregulated when having these difficult conversations. What's the plan then, when you're working with a client because nobody's coming to see us because you're having a great day. So what is the plan when a client is in, you know, the worst position they've been in in their life? How are you going to deal with that? You know, perhaps they have differing views than you. Perhaps they come from a different background than you. Perhaps there are cis white male. What are you going to do? How are you going to be able to properly provide this person with health care? Because that's what we are as health care providers like I am. I'm you can tell by the way I'm saying this. I'm very, very concerned, with not only the impact this is having on men, but the profession as a whole. Yeah. And, you know, you and I did a talk, a podcast last year on the American Psychological Associations document trying to help, you know, males and er, boys and men. And we went through it and talked about just how ridiculous it was. So that's their attempt to try to, you know, to try to help. And it was so biased and so, you know, harmful, I would say. And toxic. So, yeah, it is a problem. And the biggest problem and we have to say this and, you know, I'm not doing this to shit all over any profession. I'm saying this to you guys, a warning, both to people who are entering the profession and to any clients or patients who are hoping to, you know, to get help, you know, the fact is, so many of these people a lack the insight to be able to recognize, you know, that these problems are there be lack the knowledge and critical thinking and nuanced the capacity to see nuance, to recognize that they've been, you know, they've been educated or properly propagandized, you know, to believe certain things. And they taking it as fact. And these facts are not necessarily facts. So much of the, you know, the supposed research that informs our knowledge supposedly knowledge on gender roles on, you know, minority stress on all these different, issues that may have some reality to them with. Okay. But the way that the portrayed in the research takes it beyond what reality is, reality, and it starts veering into ideology, but it's taken as fact. So these people, they don't recognize that they've accepted all these things and they're just, you know, they're just, reiterating just, you know, regurgitating the propaganda that was fed to them without recognizing, you know, maybe there are some problems with these things so they don't see that. So they truly so and again, I'm talking from personal experience, having the head direct, into your interactions with these people. And again, I'm not just complaining about it. That's not what this is about. This is saying, please, you know, be aware of this. And it's also, by the way, I'm trying to encourage people who have seen the same thing, whether they've been the targets of it or whether they just observed it. I'm saying what you're seeing is real. The emperor does not have clothes, and there are many emperors, you know, walking around and, you know, and I just the fact is, they truly do not recognize they're not capable of seeing it seems, you know, that that they are just, they've, they've, they've internalized, and they're, promoting some harmful ideology and it's truly having an impact on people. And again, when you ask the question of what are they going to do, you know, when someone comes there, what does this person, you know, they they they're going through an ugly divorce. So they say some sort these and salty language and they're talking about their ex-wife, you know, with some maybe not not some of the nicest language. Are you going to police them? Are you going to start getting dysregulated and not be present for them? And by the way, just so you know, I pointed out in this, group, okay, that somebody I forget what exactly what saying by saying that they were actually being irrational. Okay. Because they were missing what somebody had said. They were like they were putting words in people's mouths. Eight -12. Okay. I was pointing out specifically this is being irrational. And someone wrote, well, you know, like something basically, isn't it okay for them to get emotionally triggered or something like that, or mostly just regular? I forgot which word they use, but it is about emotional dysregulation. And this is to a post, a post written by a colleague. You're going to get a mostly dysregulated in a form that you're reading. So you know, on the screen, what the heck are you going to do when you have someone in front of you who's acting in a way that doesn't align with how you think a man should act? So these are and I, I'll tell you what came to mind here. Oh, I don't know if I should say this. I will say it and will determine if we keep it or not. But my my thought is then how are how are men supposed to access care that allows them to find that identity, find their masculinity, find ways in which to portray that in a healthy way if there isn't a space for them to do that because, you know, these these individuals who are entering the profession and are in the profession, can't even tolerate a differing opinion, can't even tolerate, something difficult. And I did just clean up what I was going to say. But that that's kind of my stance here is like, I feel like, what are we doing here? What how are we actually helping people? Right? I mean, our job, no therapist or psychologist should ever be expected to take abuse. Okay? They shouldn't. I mean, I've taken a lot of abuse because I know where it's coming from. And look, I'm like, I'm not physically threatened. Mostly by by my patients. Like, I, I'm pretty large. I'm not afraid that they're going to physically attack me. If I were a woman, especially if I had a certain history, I would understand that, you know? Right. If someone's getting upset or I think I could feel myself. But our job is to both contain and regulate ourselves first and foremost, and then would be able to create a space where somebody can, you know, can vent, can unleash, can can you let it out? And we're not ranting, raving with them. We're helping them to be able to contain it. And we're modeling for them self regulation so that they don't become an abusive person in the real world or they don't continue it if that's who they are. Right? That's our job. And again, seeing how people act online, I have no confidence. I'm not saying it's everybody, of course, but the people I'm seeing, the young people, older people, okay. A I am seeing that they don't have that capacity to self-regulate their especially their emotions, their emotions, and be that they don't have the insight to recognize that they have this problem and see, despite not having the insight, they say, I do have lots of self-reflection. I understand what's going on. I you know, if that were the case, you would be you would be, behaving very differently, especially in an online forum. You should not be get be getting that triggered. So yes, this is a concern. And and and by the way just one last thing about this or one next thing many of the people and again I don't want to make this a, you know, a rant session about that, but it was just the most, most recent incident. And again, I've had I've seen this happen many times among suppose colleagues. But the point is they the some of them have such black and white thinking that when we talk this way, they think we're saying that men, you know, we're trying to make men stoic, you know, guys who don't get in touch with their emotions, blah, blah. And I try to say, no, you and I both, we help men get in touch with their emotions. We help them learn to identify them, to understand them, to regulate them, to engage with others in a healthy way emotionally, to be able to have empathy and so on. We do that, but we do that in a way that aligns with that, how they're process processing it currently. We meet them where they're where they are and we elevate them. We don't try to impose a certain, you know, type of emotional, you know, communication or whatever, a way of processing it in a way that that's to, you know, alien to them. We find a way to meet them and bring it up. And again, I'm just, you know, but these people with the responses, they're so black and white, they think that that's not what we're doing, and we're only going to be solution focused, you know, and not deal with emotions. It's and I think that's a big problem among a lot of the problems that we're identifying here. Is that that is a big shift in the profession. I don't think that a lot of therapists and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think, you know, I'll pick on newer therapists, have that deep understanding that our job is to help clients to identify the emotion, regulate, deal with it and move on. That's the biggest piece, I think, that is missing. You know, an example comes to mind of a male client of mine who, works in the construction industry. So a very male folk, or sorry, male dominated profession. They don't talk about their feelings, they don't talk about anything. But I've been working with him long term because of a very tragic situation that's occurred in his life. And he actually said to me the other day that he never understood therapy in the past until he started working with me. And this isn't to pat myself on the back, but to illustrate the point. He said that I always thought that, you know, because we live in a world where people are on this emotions parade and they're always talking about how they feel and so on and so forth, that's all therapy was BS. Like what I now understand is it's I feel all of these emotions, what do I do with them? And now I know what to do with them. And I think that's what's missing a lot. And again, especially for males who, you know, are in certain demographics and certain professions, in certain, parts of society where you just, you don't talk about it and in not talking about it, that's where we see the problems that arise. Right. And two things about that. So if someone who comes from that background comes in to a session, okay. And they're talking about, you know, again, they're not able to access their feelings in a health in a productive or healthy way. And the therapist again, doesn't meet them where they are but starts as well. How does that make you feel? And Baba okay. And they're getting frustrated because the guy doesn't you know, you know, he's not able to put words to his feelings and so on. Right. If they don't meet them where they are is he's going to go, okay, that's great. Okay. You know, like that. That's it. This is what therapy is. And they won't, stay in it. Okay. Or if it's couples therapy and, you know, again, the man's coming from a certain perspective. He's trying to be rational. Say, well, could you not just see your partner's feelings and blah, blah, and he's feeling okay. We spent the whole session talking about how bad of a man I was, okay, and and how I couldn't see her feelings. But what about the fact that she microwaved the cat? You know, like, things like that, like, thing? Okay, they, you know, I was upset about that, and I yelled at her for that. You know, that's all we talked about. And again, it sounds like you were being hyperbolic, but you and I have both worked with enough people. Both the clients and the therapists, because, you know, so it's not just us. We supervise so many therapists that we see so many of these cases of of people, you know, again, having had histories, with other therapists, like, like when, when like this, we're not exaggerating. It doesn't happen with everybody, but it does happen. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, and this is really interesting. So one of the people I know, I'm going back to that thread okay. But one of the people said, you know, what about cognitive behavior therapy, CBT, you know, as pervade the profession for so many years? Okay. So are you claiming that we're not, you know, the rational and and not male, you know, male focus and all this stuff, like, you know, logical thinking and so on. Okay. Like to say and I said, so here's the funny thing about CBT. All right. And I said this numerous times. CBT itself can be helpful. But it's only one tool. And CBT and the way the CBT is practiced by so many people, they are not really doing a great job because they're only focusing on the logic. Right? And CBT and again, I'm not saying this is the problem, the CBT itself, I'm saying with how it's been taught and how it's practiced. So many people, they talk about feelings, okay. And they give you a rating scale. Oh you were how angry were you? 80. Okay, let's start with that. And then they work with it. But it's done. So let's say, abstractly. Annualized. Annualized, rather than letting the person actually start feeling the feelings in the session and, having let's just say I have, I have worked with and I've helped facilitate workshops that deal with emotions like emotion focus therapy. Okay. And I've also seen I've been, you know, trained in CBT and everything as well. And I just watch how, again, people are so, such strong proponents of CBT who truly hide behind the manual. Can I used to do this as my teacher, I would say, like, you know, they basically they hide behind the manual and they're doing step one, step two, step three. Yeah, yeah. They are afraid of dealing with intense, you know, just scary emotions. And they just want to say no no. Let's bring it from 80 to 20 step by step by step. Logically we're going to fall down. And that's not how emotions work. So again and this is I'm speaking to anybody who's either going into, into the profession or any client, potential clients or current clients, they it's so important to make sure that you either the therapist themselves, if that's who you are or if you're client with your therapist, that they are able to truly handle your strong emotions. And again, I'm not saying that you know that they should tolerate abuse. I'm saying that they should be able to not get triggered themselves. And if they are starting to get triggered, triggered, they've got to be able to regulate modulating the so many of the people that I we're talking about who aren't again, they don't have the insight to recognize that they, you know, that they're being triggered at a, at a message on the screen is a strong sign that maybe you shouldn't be in therapy, you know, conducting therapy unless you truly take this as a warning. Go. Whoa. Okay, I see that. I am feeling this, you know, this physiological response or this emotional response I got to recognize maybe I have some blind spots here, maybe have to work on it. So I want to be very clear because someone's going to try to, you know, to complain. Misconstrue what you're saying. And misconstrue it. Okay. I'm not saying they shouldn't be therapist. What I'm saying is that if you're going to be a therapist, it's so important that you recognize your blind spot. You recognize your triggers, you recognize your vulnerable patterns, and you make sure that you're not projecting your stuff onto your client. And, you know, and by the way, and people don't know this, but there's nothing that says in in Canada, okay, I know it's in Europe. There are some places there's nothing that says that a therapist has to undergo their own therapy that should be mandated. I really think so. Psychoanalyst do they have to go through a couple of years of psychoanalysis before they can practice that themselves? Okay, I'm not sure that. I mean anyway, so I don't know what the correct. Yeah. You know. And we can utilize that as our professional development if we've undergone it. But it's not mandated at least with a psychotherapist in Ontario. And same with psychologist. It's not mandated like you know, so we see many people, who, you know, theoretically they understand certain things. But when it comes to practice, they're not the greatest. And again, I want to be clear here, there are many great therapists out there. May greats like there are there are. But we're just talking about the problems. What are the numbers? I have no clue. Okay. Because my anecdotes are just anecdotes. I just happen to maybe draw these people into my, world somehow. Then I do, too, because, you know, I I'm seeing the same trends and, you know, to the point about cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, it's it's evidence based. There's a lot of great science that supports it. However, the students and therapists that we work with at the clinic, I always will say this is one important tool. And it's it's great framing, but you can't hide behind the manual, right? You have to be able to sit with those emotions and be able to regulate yourself, to be able to identify, what we call transference and counter transference. Are there things that are, you know, the clients bringing up that are triggering you and vice versa, being acutely aware of that? And I don't know, because it's been a while since I was in, my graduate school training. But my fear is with this focus on, you know, I will say maybe political stances with regard to case studies and case conceptualization and so on. My concern is that we are losing the focus on the really, really important core skills that therapists need to be able to effectively help individuals. To the point where I, as I've mentioned many times on this podcast, I work with a high volume of first responders. And, it's happened more than once before. A client knows me and has worked with me, is afraid to tell me the horrific stuff that they've seen in their work because they don't want to harm me. And my response is always, please do not worry about me. My job is to support you. I have the tools that I need to be able to take this in and to process it. I don't know if that's the case. Increasingly, as as people are entering the entering the profession. Yeah. I, you know, again, I can only speak anecdotally from what I have seen. I really am concerned that that's not the case. We're not training to be that Brazilian and to be able to be, you know, to it's not about you. It's about the person in front of you that's, you know, and and also, you know, we've talked those before. The most important element of therapy is, you know, the therapist, client relationship. Right. And you know, to, to, to make a strong relationship, it's not just being supportive. It's being able to show them that, you know, no matter what you say, I'm trying to understand your perspective. I'm not judging you, okay? I am I am a safe person for you to speak with because I'm being transparent. I'm being genuine. And to be able to show them or to be able to convey that, you know, the empathy which is not feeling sorry for them, but rather trying to really understand their perspective. Okay. And again, I'm not seeing enough emphasis on that. And by the way, just one thing. Just, you know, one of the people who commented in. That's right. Going back to it, they said that, look, if we use all these cases of these, you know, marginalized groups, you know, as the, you know, as the people that are having these problems, then you know, you can the underlying principles should be the same. Like, you know, certain things about, you know, whatever the whatever the whatever they're trying to teach, it can be, you know, applied to any kind of, patient or client. So I understand that. That's fine. Okay. But again, what what so many of these people were missing is that almost gets clouded over or almost gets obscured when when there's a narrative that's being presented that, you know, that their problem is because they were marginalized necessarily so and it's because of these, you know, white, straight, non trans men that's causing it. So then so people are getting locked into that narrative rather than what are the underlying principles here? Okay. It's not all, you know, let's say black people are going to feel that they are, you know, oppressed by the white man. You know, many will we have to understand the systemic issues and so on. But again, if it was if it's taught with nuance, then it's not a problem. But so many of the people that we're seeing in the field today, I don't think they have the capacity. Again, this is my personal opinion. I'm not saying it's fact. But I've heard it from enough people. That makes me think that I'm right to some degree. With the number of people, they don't have that nuance, they're just battering people over the head. And the most important points are being missed. And that's just fueling. To get back to the original topic, it's just fueling, you know, a greater, A) divide between the sexes and B) making men less inclined to either, go to therapy or stay in therapy. And there are many men who are suffering, as we've talked about in so many podcasts. So we need them to be able to find healthy places to, safe places to develop healthy coping skills, more adaptive coping skills, then, you know, then the toxic, coping mechanisms. We are trying to promote healthy coping, you know, coping strategies. Exactly. And yes, you precisely say what I was going to in terms of tying it back to the original topic, which is, the lack of healthy examples for men. So I think you do. You summed it up great there. But what do our listeners think? Have you come across videos like this? Have you come across things on the internet? What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments. Until next time, keep your eyes on the road and your hands upon the wheel.