Masculinity meets humanity: An adapted model of masculinised Psychotherapy

The central concern of this book is masculinised mental health care for boys and men who voluntarily swop male victory narratives with stories of personal pain and vulnerability, as the pathway to personal transformation and freedom from psycho-social distress. Masculinised psychotherapy enables gender-consistent and gender sensitive intimacy exchanges of closeness and distance between men, within an explicitly masculine therapeutic frame, for enhanced personal growth and transformation.

A female psychotherapist’s accidental encounter with male university students who showed up for their first psychotherapy group session, ignited intentional fluency in psychotherapeutic process more relatable to boys and men who seek psychotherapeutic engagement.

Through persistent cultural and gender modifications to render therapeutic discourses more appealing to a masculine audience, she inadvertently cultivated a therapeutic strategy consistent with her socio-spiritual understanding of herself in the world. In other words, she began to see herself mirrored in the therapeutic adaptations meant for her male clients.

Harmonising the process of psychotherapy with meanings of manhood, had the effect of resolving her elusive sense of professional fit and belonging. Reconciling mental health care with masculinity placated concerns of conflicted personal identity and ambivalent professional belonging of a Global South psychotherapist within a modern Western-centred psychological establishment.