‘Manning up’ and getting on with it may often appear to be the only option for young men who are dealing with life issues.
Do men between the ages of 18-35 effectively cope with emotional and mental difficulties, and are they aware of the sympathetic resources available to them?
Social worker Stephen Dougherty thinks that the belief that men are less likely to seek help and open up about their mental and emotional issues is an ‘old clichéd statistic.’
Dougherty, who mostly works with male clients, has practiced social work for 25 years and has worked in mental health, as a school liaison, as a youth worker, and as a group co-therapist.
“Men need to have a relationship [with a skilled health professional] where they feel safe, and they will open up. Men will open up given the right conditions,” he said.
Dougherty said that ‘opening up’ is not even an issue for most of the men he has worked with.
“I think men have changed, especially younger men,” he said.
Dougherty is not aware of any support groups that are male-specific, but he said that if a man is experiencing mental and emotional strife, there are various resources available, including seeking help from a family doctor, psychologist, clinical social worker, Alberta Health Services clinic, 211 (social services hotline), and the online directory informalberta.ca.
When he was a university student, Dougherty said that he had difficulties with anxiety and depression, and seeking help from a psychotherapist was helpful to him.
He stressed the importance of seeking immediate help for mental and emotional issues before they get worse.
“If you are not getting treatment, and you have a legitimate mental illness you will deteriorate over time,” he said.
SAIT student Ryan Harnett, 20, thinks that there is enough emotional support for men but that it is hard to find.
“There’s a lot less advertising [regarding support for men],” he said.
The first-year information technology student said that he has never seen or heard any ads promoting services that offer emotional or mental support for men.
Harnett said increased awareness would be great, and that it would be beneficial for men to know that support indeed does exist if they need it.
He said that his preferred method of dealing with mental and emotional concerns is to keep them to himself and ruminate over them.
“It’s probably not healthy, but it works [for me],” he said.
Harnett feels that the mental and emotional support available on campus is sufficient, even though it is not geared towards any particular gender.
One of these on-campus mental health resources is SAIT’s Student Support Centre (SSC), located in the Senator Burns building.
The SSC is a non-academic student-only space where students can go, be it male or female, to relax and socialize.
The more formal type of socializing present in a mentor/mentee relationship can also be a helpful resource for those looking for support from somebody who can relate to them.
Shortlist, a British men’s lifestyle magazine has implemented a mentoring initiative called the Shortlist Mentor Project, whereby their reader’s, who are mostly professional men, can sign up online to mentor young men on subjects varying from career advice to depression.
The magazine cited official figures from 2012, which said that 77 per cent of suicides in the United Kingdom were male.
“It’s time us older fellas stepped up to support them [young men]’, the magazine said.
Balkaran Hiro who is a first-year office professional student at SAIT, agrees that there is a lack of emotional and mental support for young men, and he said that if there was a men’s support group on campus he would join it so he could help others.
The 21-year-old said that the support of his friends helps him to deal with his emotional difficulties.