With thanks to our member, Martin Bartlett, for this blog. Martin Bartlett - Integrative Therapist (MNCPS Acc.)
He said something like, everyone assumes I’m fine - and that’s part of the problem. The sentence has echoed through many sessions since.
Men often arrive carrying the quiet weight of holding everything together. They don’t come because they’ve failed, but because they’ve run out of room to keep succeeding. What brings them isn’t collapse but depletion - the strain of staying composed, competent, in control. The harder they work to be strong, the more alone they feel.
Over the years I’ve come to see that much of men’s suffering isn’t weakness at all - it’s separation: from feeling, from support, from the parts of themselves that still want warmth. Therapy becomes a rehearsal of another kind of strength, one rooted in relationship, not performance.
Responsibility as Control
Many of the men I meet have learned to measure their worth through usefulness. One said something like, he doesn’t feel lonely when he’s busy. Another noticed how his internal drive looked down on the idea of needing help. Responsibility has become identity; doing is the only acceptable way of being.
In the room, it shows up as neat stories, quick analysis, problem-solving before contact. My task is to stay with the pace of their breath, not their sentences, to let responsibility soften into responsiveness. Slowly, they start to discover that being met is not the same as being managed.
Vulnerability Behind the Armour
Anger and control often walk in first. For some, irritation is safer than hurt; sarcasm is easier than honesty. One man once compared himself to a wolf - wary, protective, easily provoked, yet secretly lonely. Another began to sense that behind every argument was a question about staying.
When I meet the edge with curiosity instead of caution, anger begins to show its function. Beneath it is grief, for safety never learned, for tenderness long postponed. It’s not resistance I’m meeting, it’s a nervous system trying to protect itself.
The Difficulty of Receiving Care
A quiet turning point in much of this work is the moment a man starts to tolerate being cared for. One reflected that having needs felt like weakness. Another, who could offer endless encouragement to friends, admitted he found it almost impossible to accept it for himself.
We practise in small ways: a pause that’s allowed to last; a compliment that isn’t deflected; a silence that isn’t filled. At first it feels exposing, then strangely relieving. When care is no longer something to fend off, the body begins to loosen. Therapy becomes not an achievement but a resting place.
The Absence - and Return - of Softness
For some, warmth has been a threat for most of their lives. One man described choosing to go “cold” at eleven, after years of ridicule and rejection. Another noticed that power always felt safer than care; he loved “power over fear.”
Softness, for them, wasn’t weakness, it was unpractised. Our work was to help it return.
Softness here doesn’t mean losing boundaries; it’s structure made gentle. It’s the breath that steadies rather than braces. As one man put it, he realised kindness wasn’t an excuse, it was the ground he needed to stand on.
Roles, Meaning, and “Menness”
When the armour eases, the deeper questions appear. Who am I if I’m not the one who keeps everything upright? What kind of man do I want to be?
One began to wonder if life could be more balanced - not all work, not all relationships, but a rhythm that allowed him to belong in more than one place. Another found a quiet freedom in changing four words: from I am depressed to I have depression. It gave him a little air, a sense that feeling low didn’t erase the rest of him. And another, carrying a father’s violence and a religion that prized purity over presence, began to ask if he could live differently, strong without hardening, faithful without fear.
These moments reveal menness not as a fixed identity but as an unfolding process: learning to inhabit strength without suppression, sensitivity without shame.
When Relief Appears
Progress rarely arrives as insight; it arrives as physiology. Sleep improves. Breathing deepens. Shoulders drop.
One man noticed that his “withdrawn” days were no longer failures, just signals of what needed care. Another managed to cry privately for the first time, not from despair, but from permission. These small signs are how belonging re-enters the body.
What They Teach Me
Working with men has changed how I understand steadiness. It isn’t control; it’s connection. Strength isn’t what holds us apart, but what lets us stay in contact long enough for change to happen.
In the end, what every man teaches me, in his own language, is the same quiet truth: we all need to know it’s safe enough to be seen.
With thanks to our student member, Dr. Sharin Baldwin, for this blog. IntroductionAs a trainee counsellor, my understanding of masculinity and men’s mental health has been shaped by a long profess...
With thanks to our member, Carl Argent, for this blog. We tell boys to ‘man up’, to be strong and not to cry. It’s a hard world out there and you have to be hard to survive. Isn’t that the message mos...
With thanks to our member, Ilkay Alici, for this article. There are days when life feels heavier than usual. You wake up with the weight of the world pressing on your shoulders and before the day has ...
If you're looking for a counsellor, you can search our register by location or name, and you can also check whether someone is on the NCPS accredited register.
Search the Register
Use our Find a Course tool to find the nearest training providers who offer NCPS Accredited, Advanced Specialist, Quality Checked or CPD courses. These courses are currently run across the UK.
Find Out More