Which of the following words are accept... - Men's Health Forum
Which of the following words are acceptable for men to talk about mental health problems?
I am interested to hear people's thoughts on men's language and mental health. If you feel there are other, more suitable words or phrases, please don't hesitate to post them.
Male genital issues - living with a circumcised penis and a normal scrotum. The penis shrinks; the testicles remain the same.
This is an interesting article in which words such as "pointless", "hopeless", "useless", "tired", "down in the dumps" and "not going too well" are all cited as words and phrases men report as being acceptable for expressing mental health issues.
These findings come from Australia and may not map well to other Anglophone countries.
To be honest, we say it like it is - whatever the phraseology!
If we are being honest, all of the answers are acceptable!
That's interesting and to counter your argument I would suggest that not all terminology is received in the same way.
My reason for saying that is that in a UK context, there is a big disconnection between the number of men who take their own lives and the number of men who present to mental health support.
When looking at the government sponsored mental health programme - Improving Access to Psychological Therapies - 36% of all referrals are men whereas 78% of those who took their own lives in 2013 were men, suggesting that services are not meeting the needs of an at-risk group at the level of attracting them.
My sense is that in a UK context, "stress" and "anger" might be more acceptable than "mental health problem". I previously worked with young offenders where there was rarely an admission of a mental or emotional challenge but they would frequently say "I'm angry".
It is very true that the societal context makes a difference in what words actually express what the speaker wants to convey. For instance, here in Canada the words "stress" and "anger" are almost meaningless in a mental health context because the are so overused in general conversation. Interesting that only 36% of all referrals are men to the UK government sponsored health programme. There are segments of the Canadian population where it is still seen as weakness to admit mental struggle (e.g. the armed forces and the RCMP) and many employers take a dim view of anyone seeking help with mental health issues (like passing over for promotion, withholding assignments, etc.). Change comes very slowly in attitudes to mental health so don't despair that only 36% seek help from the gov't program. Sounds like they have a bit of work to do about assuring confidentiality and privacy, plus ease of access!
I recently ran a focus group among boys under 16 in London in a youth club setting and an interesting word came up that I would certainly not have intuitively attached to this group: emotional!
I asked, "would you say 'I'm feeling emotional!' to signal to a friend that you were not as well as you could be?" to which the response from the group was conclusively yes. I felt certain that this group, which was multi-ethnic in make up but skewed to lower socio-economic backgrounds, would not have used a word like "emotional".
Any thoughts?
