but when men tell me how they feel in therapy, I’m almost always the first person they’ve said it to. Like my female patients, men struggle with marriage, self-esteem, identity, success, their parents, their childhoods, being loved and understood—and yet these topics can be tricky to bring up in any meaningful way with their male friends. It’s no wonder that the rates of substance abuse and suicide in middle-aged men continue to increase. Many men don’t feel they have any other place to turn.
