"Each ill-conceived relationship is a little tear in the social fabric”. An interview with psychologist and relationships expert, Shawn T. Smith

Mar 13

Imagine for a moment that you are a man in a relationship that is breaking down badly. You are desperate to do whatever you can to save it, and your wife suggests relationship counselling. Which therapist would you rather go to: Therapist A, someone who has been trained to presume that men are privileged through patriarchy and that masculinity is about the domination of women. Or would you choose Therapist B, someone who has been around the block and knows that although some men are privileged and some men strive to dominate women, most men are constantly struggling to get by in life and value immensely a woman in a mutually loving and supportive relationship. If you opted for Therapist B, then you are going to feel at home with Shawn T Smith, a man from Colorado who was inspired to become a clinical psychologist from his experiences working is his father's bar, and who you can find through a website called Ironshrink.

John Barry (JB): Clinical psychology is one of the most popular and competitive areas within the field of psychology. What made you want to go in this direction?

Shawn T Smith (STS): I’m drawn to clinical work rather than research, though I admire researchers and I wish our profession was not so bifurcated.

Those two ends of the profession are quite distant from each other. Many researchers have never spent a day in the clinic, yet their findings shape treatment and policy. At the other end of the field, many clinicians have never done research, nor are they very skilled at consuming articles.

I’m guilty of that. I read a lot, but I’m steeped in day-to-day clinical work. I was trained to view research with a critical eye toward statistics and methodology, though sometimes that requires more effort than I’m willing to muster.

As to the original question, I was propelled toward clinical work having spent my formative years working nights and weekends at my father’s bar. That sparked my interest in human behavior. I was fascinated by that adult environment. I wanted to understand the conflicts, kindness, romances, theft, generosity, substance abuse… all of it.

I guess I’m still trying to make sense of people. Human beings are the most interesting thing in the world, and they are conveniently located just about everywhere.

JB: More recently in your career, your clinical focus has shifted toward helping men improve their relationships with women, and you’ve written several books in this area. What prompted this shift of focus?

STS: People started referring men to my practice early in my career, and relationships with women were often at the heart of my male clients’ difficulties.

I met plenty of men who were mistreated by women, or were taught counterproductive means of relating to them. For example, what Robert Glover calls “nice-guy syndrome” is common, and it’s bound to make a guy anxious or depressed.

For those unfamiliar with this niche term, nice-guy syndrome is a pattern by which a man assumes others will anticipate his needs if he anticipates theirs. It’s a quid pro quo that exists only in his mind. Others are unaware of the covert contract, as Dr. Glover calls it. These men can become resentful when others, especially women, don’t play along.

Conflict with women is another source of anxiety for many men, as are rejection and disapproval. For example, the conscientious man who can’t cure his wife’s dissatisfaction, no matter how hard he tries, is a tormented soul.

Here’s another anxiety and depression jackpot for men: bringing the wrong women into our lives. Men frequently choose women who have poor character, or who struggle with mental health or personality problems. Men also choose women who are otherwise wonderful but whose values are simply incompatible.

Whatever the nature of the mismatch, committing to the wrong relationship affects every aspect of a man’s existence. That one decision can literally lengthen or shorten his life.

Early in my career, I started asking men who, if anyone, had taught them how to choose women and relationships. Almost invariably, the answer was “no one.” Most of us are left to solve that equation on our own. Hence, we usually rely on sloppy heuristics, and we make some pretty bad choices.

That’s why I have shifted my focus in this direction. Choosing healthy relationships doesn’t need to be a mystery. We men should share our collective knowledge on mate choice. Yet, as I type this, there are men all over the world making the same costly decisions as others who have already learned the hard way.

They’re choosing relationships based on superficial factors and insufficient consideration for character, shared values, and personality. Each ill-conceived relationship is a little tear in the social fabric.

Relationship misery radiates through family systems and generations. Children suffer when adults choose poorly, and those kids are primed to repeat the mistakes of their elders. There’s also evidence that relationship attitudes are contagious. People with divorced friends are likelier to divorce, for example.

It is entirely within the power of men to correct these problems by choosing their relationships with deliberation and intentionality. I’m trying to help by passing on information I wish I had received.

JB: How important do you think it is for psychologists and therapists working with clients to have a good understanding of sex differences?

STS: In this profession, we put a tremendous amount of emphasis on understanding racial and cultural dividing lines. The emphasis is so profound that I worry younger psychologists lose sight of the individual entirely, instead viewing each person they encounter as a representative of some demographic group.

Yet since graduate school, I have puzzled over why we place so little emphasis on understanding differences between the sexes—from biology, to socialization, to evolved psychological adaptations. Sex is our most basic demographic dividing line.

***Image: Shawn’s new book,*** ***Gatekeeper: The Tactical Guide to Commitment***.

Outside the sub-discipline of evolutionary psychology, there’s an odd uneasiness with sex-bound differences. I’m reminded of the Google engineer who was fired for discussing the possibility that sex differences might influence career choice. That seems like something that could easily happen within psychology’s institutional settings.

Perhaps that’s because we psychologists are an overly-agreeable bunch. We’re nice, accommodating people who don’t want to cause anyone to feel excluded by discussing obvious sex-based differences that don’t apply to every individual.

The funny thing is that psychologists understand sex-based characteristics. We even joke about them when HR and uptight colleagues aren’t listening. And why not? Our differences should be a source of joy. Psychologists shouldn’t bow to the fun police, and we certainly shouldn’t be the fun police.

JB: Your training and work have involved learning about trauma. Do you think we, as a society have a good understanding of trauma today? How important is understanding trauma for healthy relationships?

STS: “Trauma” was never a well-defined term in psychology. I’ve watched the meaning become increasingly hazy over the years. Without trying to restate what others have said, we have reached a point where a small but vocal segment of Western society have expanded the term to the point of meaninglessness.

For instance, some people consider injured feelings to be on par with physical violence. That’s particularly evident on American college campuses, as discussed by writers like Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff.

However, I’d say most of us, through observation or experience, understand what it means to have one’s life torn apart through ordeals we might reasonably call traumatic.

When people do the difficult work of putting themselves back together, then relationships can be even more meaningful than they were before. Getting to know oneself always enriches relationships. Arguably, that’s especially true when self-knowledge is expedited by undesirable events.

“The guidelines [APA guidelines for therapy with boys and men] are a mixed bag. On balance, I believe they did more harm than good. They damaged what little trust men had in psychologists.”

JB: As a psychologist what are your thoughts on the APA guidelines for working with men and boys, and the impact on how psychologists support clients with their relationships?

STS: The guidelines are a mixed bag. On balance, I believe they did more harm than good. They damaged what little trust men had in psychologists.

A while back, I created a couple videos detailing what I think the APA got right about men, and what they got wrong. I even invited the authors of the guidelines (APA Division 51) to discuss the guidelines with me in public.

I thought my invitation was affable. Polite. One might even say boyishly charming. Sadly, APA completely ignored me (in a most masculine fashion, of course).

The guidelines did men a small service by shining a light on some of our particular challenges, and they were reasonably sympathetic to boys. The APA even gave men occasional credit for masculine tendencies. For example, they acknowledged that horseplay with fathers is good for children’s development.

Those few concessions aside, the guidelines are polluted from top to bottom by ideologically driven contempt for masculinity. Throughout the document, men are spoken about as if we are half-witted oppressors who must be managed like unneutered livestock.

Consider this passage from Guideline 3, titled “Psychologists understand the impact of power, privilege, and sexism on the development of boys and men and on their relationships with others.” It reads:

”Feminist scholars have argued that some men use violence and control in relationships as a way of maintaining sexist beliefs and dominance over women.”

The authors reveal their political ideology throughout the document by using vague, emotionally laden terms like “some men,” “sexist beliefs,” and “dominance over women.” What do these phrases mean? Your guess is as good as mine.

Similar phrasing throughout the document casts an aggrieved emotional pall without conveying specific meaning. “Patriarchy,” in particular, is foundational to the ideological tenor of the guidelines, Yet, nowhere is it defined. The reader is simply to accept patriarchy as a pervasive social pathogen that somehow causes men to mistreat and oppress women.

The 2023 Barbie movie used “patriarchy” in a similarly evasive manner. Like the APA guidelines, Barbie taught us that patriarchy—whatever it is—is very, very bad. But at least the movie was entertaining, and we learned that patriarchy has nothing to do with horses.

Shortly after publication of the guidelines, social media erupted with men who wrote off our profession in disgust, never to return. They felt insulted by the tone and the political slant of the guidelines, and rightfully so. Imagine being a hard-working, honorable man—the kind of guy who keeps the lights on for people in ivory towers—only to be told that malevolence is in your DNA.

I can’t help noticing a certain irony in APA’s assertion that the average guy’s thoughts and behaviors are driven by a latent need to oppress women. That’s not what I see in the world. Most men are busy caring for those around them. They don’t have the time or desire to be consumed with hostility toward the opposite sex. Most men, in my experience, are upbeat and kind, and they genuinely like women.

From my vantage point, it’s the APA whose worldview is polluted by animosity. If only there were a term to describe the act of projecting one’s motives onto others.

“Psychologist are entitled to political opinions, but not while they’re on the clock. […] men need to guard against the influence of ideology when hiring psychologists.”

JB: What are your thoughts on the idea of male-friendly therapy? How would you advise someone to find a therapist?

STS: I would describe "male friendly" as little more than an absence of antipathy toward masculine traits. It’s not as if men need special accommodation. We just need to be treated and understood as individuals rather than members of an oppressor class who need to be refined and reeducated.

For example, returning to the guidelines for a moment, the APA advises therapists to view masculinity as a problem to be fixed in romantic relationships. From guideline 9:

“Couple and family therapy can facilitate discussions of how multiple identities work together, why some identities are more salient than others, and how various identities are enacted in different spaces.”

The authors veiled their recommendation in weasel-words, but I’ve read the guidelines carefully and I believe I can translate this phrase into English.

First, the therapist is to assume the man acts as an oppressor within his relationship. That interpretation may seem a stretch when reading this phrase in isolation, but that is the view of men clearly conveyed throughout the guidelines, where “identities” is code for personality structure. The APA appears to believe that a masculine personality is inherently dangerous.

Next, having educated the man about his masculine pathology, the therapist is to train the man (“facilitate discussions”) to adopt a more enlightened, less masculine “identity” in his relationship.

To be sure, some men mistreat their women, just as some women mistreat their men. But skilled clinicians begin every therapeutic relationship with openness and curiosity. We learn to keep our preconceived notions at bay. Here, the APA openly advocates for a set of preconceived notions, and those notions are decidedly male-unfriendly.

Psychologist are entitled to political opinions, but not while they’re on the clock. In my estimation, any psychologist whose practice is guided by political ideology doesn’t deserve a single client.

Unfortunately, men need to guard against the influence of ideology when hiring psychologists. Good therapy requires calm professionalism, inquisitiveness, empathy, even a bit of levity. Political ideology destroys those assets, and men should seek services elsewhere at the first sign of it.

I don’t mean to sound bleak about my profession. The most rabid ideologues and misandrists seem to find their way into academic and administrative positions where they can impose their views on the largest number of people. But out here on the front lines, there are countless skilled psychologists who have no interest in evangelism.

As for initiating a search for the right psychologist, men shouldn’t hesitate to ask for a brief phone consultation (at no charge) to size up a potential clinician and get their thoughts on approaching whatever problem they’re facing.

That initial conversation should help determine whether their personality might be a good fit. Beyond that, it usually takes a few meetings to determine whether treatment is on the right track.

If that psychologist turns out to be the wrong person for the job, they should have enough information at that point to offer referrals that will help continue forward movement without too much wasted time or effort.

JB: Your new book is called “Gatekeeper: The Tactical Guide to Commitment.” Can you tell us a little bit about the book and what motivated you to write it? Who is this book written for?

STS: I wrote Gatekeeper for men, but I’m never offended when women read it. There’s plenty to go around. In fact, the book has received very nice feedback from women.

Still, it’s for men. I wrote the book with two specific, hypothetical readers in mind. The first is a young man who is thinking seriously about romantic commitment with women. He knows there are potential pitfalls, and he wants to choose wisely.

The second hypothetical man is older and starting over. He’s in his 30s, 40s, or beyond. He’s considering a new romantic commitment after a breakup or divorce. He wants to scrutinize his relationship patterns and make wise choices going forward.

I chose those two hypothetical men because they represent the men who most frequently approach me about their relationships. Writing with them in mind helped me keep the book tightly focused on the problems and questions men face when committing to women.

The book begins with the premise that romantic commitment is the most far-reaching decision most men will ever make. It affects every aspect of a man’s life, from career to physical and mental health. Yet, too few men look beyond a potential partner’s surface characteristics. If they’re lucky, they were taught to look for obvious red flags like abusiveness, a string of broken relationships, or treating service workers poorly.

***Image:*** ***The Tactical Guide to Women*** ***and*** ***Gatekeeper: The Tactical Guide to Commitment***.

Surface traits and red-flag lists are insufficient for such a momentous decision. I encourage men to scrutinize not only a woman’s character, but their own relationship patterns and principles. So many of our biggest decisions are driven by habits, family lessons, experiences, and motivations that operate beneath our awareness. We men don’t discuss those factors very much. We should. They have profound effects on our decision making.

Between Gatekeeper and it’s predecessor, The Tactical Guide to Women, I hope to give men a bare-bones framework for bringing the right women into their lives. A man’s romantic commitment is a priceless asset. It is not to be donated to the first pretty face who lays claim to it.

JB: What are your thoughts on sayings like “happy wife happy life”? Are they just harmless fun?

STS: Any decent man wants the woman in his life to be happy. However, there’s something dark lurking behind this phrase, “happy wife, happy life.” Men say it jokingly, as if it’s harmless fun, but it’s typically spoken with the same defeated smile we display while making light of confiscatory taxes or a prostate exam. We may smile on the outside, but never in my clinical practice has that phrase been unaccompanied by anything less than quiet resentment.

That’s because there’s a pathological insinuation behind “happy wife, happy life.” It assumes the wife (and only the wife) should never be unhappy or uncomfortable. Men who utter this phrase usually do so from a stance of resignation. They’re not trying to bring joy to their women; they’re trying to stay out of trouble.

The man who utters this phrase is usually trying to prevent what amounts to a tantrum if she doesn’t get her way. He’s avoiding punitive behaviors like the silent treatment, sexual withholding, nagging, or even abuse.

“Happy wife, happy life” also conveys a condescending attitude toward women. Grown women are not infants, and men shouldn’t treat them as such. Any woman who’s worthy of a man’s commitment must be capable of surviving discomfort, managing her emotions, and communicating with clarity and maturity. We rightfully expect men to comport themselves well, and we should expect the same of women.

This is the sort of basic consideration men don’t learn to expect in exchange for their devotion. We men encourage each other to tolerate misery and mistreatment by chanting “happy wife, happy life” when what we really mean is, “Maybe she will climb down off my back if I make one more soul-crushing concession.”

JB: In your book you say that “the gatekeeper isn’t merely selective about women. He is also selective about the men in his life, and he surrounds himself with examples of health, maturity, and success.” How much of an issue is this for men today, especially with the growth of online cliques and subcultures? What advice would you give to men seeking out friendships?

STS: “Happy wife, happy life,” is just one way in which we men encourage each other to tolerate misery. In Gatekeeper, I half-jokingly introduced two varieties of “Misery Normalizers” who encourage other men to tolerate unhealthy relationships.

The first is the Covert Normalizer. He whispers in the ears of other men about his own miserable state of affairs, and he mocks any man who claims to enjoy a good relationship with a woman. “She treats you well? Ha! Right! Just give it time, buddy!”

The second is the Overt Normalizer. This man believes women are duplicitous and menacing, and he shouts it from the rooftops. He is easily found on social media spreading his tale of woe to anyone who will listen. He was harmed by women, he is fixated on his injuries, and he’s on a mission to spare other men the same fate.

Again, I was half-joking. I don’t much go in for categorizing people. Nevertheless, these characters are easy to spot in the wild.

A man can protect himself from those influences by going beyond ostensibly like-minded men online. He can seek connection with other men in the real world. Men typically connect with each other by working or playing together.

That recipe is as old as time, and I’m convinced it partly drives the recent popularity of Brazilian Jui Jitsu. That sport offers face-to-face competition and cooperation with other men. Real-life interaction is how you learn the measure of another man’s impact on your life. It’s an effective way to surround yourself with examples of success and distance yourself from Misery Normalizers.

“…masculinity is a hammer looking for a nail in a house that has already been built. […] But as Jocko Willink might say to any young man reading this: *good. Now you have a challenge to overcome. Your job is to find a way to make yourself useful. Get to work.”***

JB: What are the biggest concerns you have about young men today, such as the effects of porn, or the attacks on masculinity? How are these issues impacting relationships and what can be done about this?

STS: Being a young man in the 2020s certainly comes with unique challenges, but I’m not convinced being a young man right now is uniquely difficult. It has never been easy.

I recently read Hamlet alongside my daughter’s high school class. (I had never read Shakespeare before. I went to a sub-par high school and I had a bad attitude, so my education was lacking.)

Hamlet is angry at life, and at women in particular. He is gratuitously unkind to his romantic prospect, expressing some of the same misgivings about women that are apparent today on social media. He believes women are morally corrupt and dangerous. Hamlet was the Misery Normalizer of his age.

The character is pouty, bitter, and self-destructive. He doesn’t control his masculine qualities. He’s pensive and ineffectual one moment, then explosive and murderous the next. By my reading, he is poorly regarded by most who know him well.

Interestingly, however, he is popular among the masses who are familiar only with his public persona. That bears an odd similarity to today’s environment in which a social media personality who suffers privately can amass a large following by projecting a carefully curated public image.

Hamlet had his reasons for being angry, but who doesn’t? Every young man must choose how he will face a world that is bound to treat him unfairly.

If there’s a unique challenge for men of our time, it’s that masculinity isn’t much needed or appreciated in the Western world. Life is comfortable, the infrastructure is mostly intact, and unlike Hamlet’s Fortinbras, the enemy is seemingly very far away.

Men are most appreciated when there are large, tangible problems to solve, and most of us in the West face few real hardships. To paraphrase my friend Jack Donovan, masculinity is a hammer looking for a nail in a house that has already been built.

That’s a real problem for young men. Men thrive when we pursue purpose, and purpose may be more elusive than at other times in history. But as Jocko Willink might say to any young man reading this: good. Now you have a challenge to overcome. Your job is to find a way to make yourself useful. Get to work.

JB: You make a point about learning to focus on relationship patterns more than relationship incidents. What does this mean, and how would someone go about incorporating this into their awareness?

STS: Over the years, I’ve noticed that low-conflict couples work hard to understand their communication patterns. They are curious about each other’s motives and desires. They learn how to read each other, and they can identify underlying themes in various disagreements that may appear unrelated on the surface.

High-conflict couples, on the other hand, focus on events rather than patterns. They often dwell and bicker about incidents for weeks or years. They’ll argue about the dishes, the dog, or the time one of them missed a credit card payment.

The high-conflict couple doesn’t realize they’re having the same argument repeatedly. They can’t see the pattern or the theme behind their disagreements. When one of them feels disregarded or mistreated, for example, they’re not quite able to articulate it. They just go on arguing about the dog.

Often, that lack of insight follows from a lack of successful role models. Many high-conflict couples simply never saw their elders handle disagreements constructively.

The good news is that spotting patterns and tending to the health of a relationship are skills like any other. They can be learned.

A simple place to start is in learning how to put words to motives, thoughts, and feelings. I had to learn how to do it, which I briefly described in the book. Understanding and articulating relationship dynamics simply wasn’t part of my upbringing. That deficit primed me to choose miserable relationships.

I’m certainly not the first to notice that successful couples focus on patterns rather than events, but I may be among the few to say men should take the lead in learning and implementing these skills.

“There was a time when our profession revered masculine traits. For example, I have an introductory psychology textbook from 1943. […] the book endorses stoicism and competitiveness—two traits the APA has specifically described as unhealthy. […] Our profession’s collective antipathy toward masculinity […] has been instrumental in the rise of the red-pill corner of the manosphere”

JB: What advice would you give to practitioners today regarding sex differences? Are you happy that therapy is going in the right direction, or are there any trends that concern you?

STS: There was a time when our profession revered masculine traits. For example, I have an introductory psychology textbook from 1943. It appears to be written at a freshman high-school level. In a chapter titled “Character,” there’s a section on self-control and sportsmanship. It advises the young reader on:

“…keeping serene and good humor when everything goes wrong; continuing to try when failure looms across our pathway, being a modest winner and a sportsmanlike loser…”

In that passage, the book endorses stoicism and competitiveness—two traits the APA has specifically described as unhealthy. Over the course of a few decades, psychologists shifted from celebrating masculine traits to denouncing them. (I don’t know if those two traits are specifically masculine, but the APA has attributed them to masculinity).

That means some of the most influential members of our profession are out of phase with most people who actually admire and respect differences between the sexes.

If I might offer a bit of advice to the academic and administrative leaders of our profession, it would be to lighten up. Maybe go to a comedy show and surround yourself with people who can smile about our differences. Rediscover the joy in that little slice of our shared humanity.

But that will not happen anytime soon. I worry about the effect this has on boys who repeatedly hear phrases like “toxic” and “problematic” attached to a fundamental aspect of their personalities. That could be an entire treatise on its own, so I’ll confine myself to the topic of relationships.

Our profession’s collective antipathy toward masculinity means we aren’t very good at helping men understand their experiences with women. I’ve made the case elsewhere that this shortcoming on psychology’s part has been instrumental in the rise of the red-pill corner of the manosphere, which is occupied by men who have a very common complaint.

Those men feel they were sold a bill of goods concerning women and relationships. They did everything they thought was required of them, only to discover relationships don’t work the way they expected. Many were surprised to learn that women, like men, can have a mean streak.

“…there are countless great clinicians who might actually help these guys repair their relationships more effectively than any online community, but those clinicians are quietly working in the trenches. They’re hard to locate. And why should any man search for them when the public face of our profession shames and belittles him in his moment of need?”

It is easy to find men online who are painfully disillusioned about women, marriage, and romance. These men were accommodating and respectful. They worked hard and made money. They said “happy wife, happy life” as they retreated to a man-cave and surrendered the living room to floral prints and throw pillows. They did all that to discover the women in their lives were not the loving princesses they expected, and their relationships cause more pain than pleasure.

Rather than helpful insight and research-based knowledge, those men mostly hear critical and shaming messages from the public-facing side of psychology: You’re toxic. You’re problematic. You’re an oppressor. Be better.

Ironically, there are countless great clinicians who might actually help these guys repair their relationships more effectively than any online community, but those clinicians are quietly working in the trenches. They’re hard to locate. And why should any man search for them when the public face of our profession shames and belittles him in his moment of need?

That’s when self-styled gurus fill the gap with explanations that help men make sense of their pain. Sometimes those explanations are accurate and helpful; often, they lead down a path of increased resentment.

I’ve spoken at length about that elsewhere, so I’ll leave it here: Whenever I hear psychologists complain about the manosphere, I’m reminded of a scene from the 1989 Batman movie in which the Joker says to the Batman, “You idiot! You made me, remember?”

Men with problems search for answers. If psychologists don’t provide answers using the tools of our trade, then others will step in and fill the void using whatever tools are at their disposal.

JB: Many people are concerned about the future of relationships between the men and women. What’s your outlook?

STS: Here’s something that doesn’t get much press: most planes land safely, most asteroids miss the Earth, and most relationships between men and women are happy and healthy. Women and men really seem to dig each other’s company. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. We’ll be fine.

JB: Do you have any new projects that you would like to tell us about?

STS: I always have ideas… nothing worth mentioning at the moment, but I love this question. What are you working on? Men should ask this of each other. It’s a fun query, and it’s an easy way to connect.

Here’s another great conversation starter for men: What were the best and worst jobs you ever worked? Most dudes will light up at the opportunity to talk about their accomplishments and the dues they paid along the way.

The happiest men I know appear to operate under the principle that work is the nucleus of a meaningful existence. That’s not to say work is life. There’s so much more to taste in the world, but a man without work is a man who suffers.

Final thoughts
Given how out of step the APA and other psychology organisations have become in relation to men and masculinity, it is important that people like Shawn T Smith are out there for men, ready and able to help. We need more therapists who dare to speak truth to power, commit to being supportive of men, and are dedicated to repairing relationships – and thus the fabric of society – one man at a time. We know that one of the main drivers of male suicide is relationship breakdown, and that men are less likely than women to seek therapy; how many more men would seek therapy if they knew their therapist was someone like Shawn T Smith?

Biography
Shawn T. Smith is an American psychologist practicing in Denver, Colorado. He’s the author of several books, including The Practical Guide to Men, The Tactical Guide to Women, and Gatekeeper: The Tactical Guide to Commitment. He lives with his wife and their teenage daughter.

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