Three myths about men’s mental health

Nov 19

It’s International Men’s Day, and what better day to debunk three of the most prevalent myths which are holding back progress in understanding how to improve men’s mental health. This is just a brief article - an introduction for newcomers to the topic - but for those who need more detail, please see the ‘further reading’ section below.

1/ Masculinity is a major cause of men’s mental health problems

When I began researching men’s mental health in 2011, I started with the assumption that masculinity is a major cause of men’s mental health problems, because that was (and is) the received wisdom. One highly influential study found that the main causes of suicidal thinking in men were, in order of magnitude, depression, life stress, being single, alcohol abuse, and refusing to seek help. This final factor was barely significant and is much too narrowly defined to representative masculinity, yet it was made the headline finding and has been widely influential. So that’s the received wisdom, apparently supported by a mountain of research, but nonetheless after my very first study on this topic I could see there was a problem with the prevailing view. Fast forward a decade, and several studies later I found that masculinity can in fact benefit men’s mental health. Worryingly, in regards the received wisdom, men thinking masculinity is bad is linked to worse mental wellbeing for them.

2/ Lots of good research proves masculinity causes men’s mental health problems

Although the replication crisis for psychology studies is widely accepted as a fact, in the field of masculinity research there is a much bigger crisis and it remains unacknowledged – the validity crisis. That’s because although there is a huge amount of research apparently showing masculinity is bad for you in various ways, these studies tend to suffer from one or more of these three flaws:

(a) defining masculinity in unrealistically negative ways;

(b) Basing findings on male undergrad students;

(c) Widespread interpretation (in the media and elsewhere) of the results of correlational findings as if they prove causation.

Despite these persistent problems, the production line of flawed research continues unabated, so much so that you could say there is a pandemic of toxic data about masculinity. Usually a meta-analysis of studies is considered good evidence, but a meta-analysis of junk science just produces fancier junk. One of my main concerns about the future of psychology, especially in relation to men’s mental health, is that AI (Grok, ChatGPT etc) regurgitates junk science about masculinity, and when all you can find on a topic is nonsense, then you can’t blame people for having a poor understanding of men’s mental health.

3/ Therapy can fix mental health problems by fixing masculinity

“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. The problem isn’t masculinity. Even rigid ideas about masculinity aren’t the problem, the problem is rigidity, because any idea can be a problem if it is held too rigidly. You can’t fix a problem if you don’t understand the cause. For example, if a recently divorced man is depressed and drinking too much it's more likely to be because (a) he loves his children but he is lonely and frustrated because he is being denied a reasonable amount of time with them, rather than (b) because The Patriarchy tells him he is the sole owner of his children and it’s his right to get 100% drunk whenever he likes. Not feeling understood or listened to by his therapist is likely to make him feel more depressed, more angry, and more likely to drink to excess. A good starting point for therapy is seeing the world from the client’s point of view, not seeing every man as a cartoonish villain, and ignoring his actual problems. Many people complain that men are turning their back on therapy, but maybe men aren’t motivated to open up to someone who can’t hear what they are saying and seems to blame them for their problems. It should be no surprise that therapy based on myths about men’s mental health is not the best way to help men with their mental health.

Further reading

Online course: New Insights into masculinity; theory and practice (Centre for Male Psychology, 2025)

Barry J. (2023). The belief that masculinity has a negative influence on one's behavior is related to reduced mental well-being. Int J Health Sci (Qassim). PMID: 37416841

Barry, John; Walker, Rob; Liddon, Louise; & Seager, Martin. (2020). Reactions to contemporary narratives about masculinity: A pilot study. Psychreg Journal of Psychology, 4(2), 8–21. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3871217

Seager, M., Barry, J.A. (2019). Positive Masculinity: Including Masculinity as a Valued Aspect of Humanity. In: Barry, J.A., Kingerlee, R., Seager, M., Sullivan, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_6

Barry, J. (2025). Building a healthier future for men’s mental health: The case for male-centred therapy. Male Psychology, https://www.centreformalepsychology.com/male-psychology-magazinelistings/building-a-healthier-future-for-mens-mental-health-the-case-formale-centred-therapy

Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.