A CIRCLE OF MEN
The Value of Men's Therapeutic Support Groups

By Stephen Johnson, Ph.D.

Who are Men in Today's Society?

It is helpful to understand who men are and what they are looking for in terms of their age range. Generally speaking, existential questions typically begin to surface in men after the age of 35. Men who begin to question their lives prior to their mid 30's are the exception rather than the rule. Most younger men are interested in their careers and external relationships more than they are in exploring the hidden realms of their psyches or souls. As men move closer to mid-life, they sense an inner churning and longing for something more than the material trappings of the world. There is a spiritual questing, often arising from a Katabasis or personal crisis, that prompts men to inspect their lives, ask penetrating questions and seek meaningful answers.

Many men today are just as cut off and stuck as their predecessors. Our culture is faster and hotter than ever before. Men find themselves in the rat race struggling to keep up and challenged to balance their lives against the demands of roles that call for their being providers, husbands, fathers therefore wondering whether they can even be there for their families to the degree that their own fathers were. They carry a perception that their fathers weren't present enough for them. This creates internal concerns about their won capacity to measure up to the standards that they have set for themselves.

It is my experience that many more men today are walking around with greater degrees of anxiety and depression manifesting in a variety of acting out behaviors often showing up as addictions. Though many of these men will choose to suffer in silence, we are finding that it is this group of men who are seeking solace through entering therapy today. They are stressed out, tired, disenchanted, longing and despairing. They can't keep up, feel that they are falling behind and in grave concern for the quality of their lifestyles and overall capacity to find meaning and enjoyment in their lives.

When Men Gather, Why Men's Groups?

Those of us interested in men's issues observed that there is no meaningful shared passage into manhood for men today, nor has there been one for several generations. Historically, men as hunter-gatherers and farmers knew who they were as men. Their sons spent many hours every day with their fathers, learning through the process of being together what manhood was about. The elders would formally induct the young men into the community of men. But as technology evolved, our great-grandfathers went from the rural farming culture to the urban industrial culture. Men moved from the farms to the cities and into meaningless and/or unfulfilling work. This was a profoundly significant shift, because our work is such an important part of our identity.

The involuntary abandonment by fathers means that for several generations boys in our culture have been raised almost entirely by women. Women, simply because they are women, cannot teach boys about manhood. Without men, there is no possibility of any rite of passage into manhood. Therefore, for several generations, men have been losing the sense of what Michael Meade calls "gender ground".

In May of 1982, Robert Bly's groundbreaking interview in New Age Magazine was a lightening bolt of insight into men's souls. He said, "Our dads weren't there for us, so we were all raised by women, and we can't learn about manhood from women, so we have to learn about manhood from each other."

For centuries, men in indigenous cultures had gathered to seek counsel and perform ceremonies and rituals to initiate boys into manhood and to receive guidance from elders and mutually support the community of men. Secret societal groups like the Masons, the Elks, Moose, Knights of Columbus and others served as opportunities for men to come together.

During the 60's, with the Vietnam War, older men and younger men became suspicious of each other, causing distrust, polarization and estrangement, eventuating in a rift in the community of men that would last for more than twenty years.

The women's movement only served to further confuse men, causing them to question and doubt themselves. Men tended to perceive themselves through eyes that often held them with contempt. Men distrusted each other and many avoided identifying with traditional masculine values. The divorce rate began to rise, families split apart and entered the age of narcissism commonly referred to as the advent of the "me generation".

It was in the mid-80's that, through the help of men such as Robert Bly, men began to seek the mentoring guidance of older males who understood what was going on with men. The identification of "father hunger" swept through the community of men like wildfire. Unfortunately, the media did not approach what was happening in men with respect or reverence. Men reacted to the parodies of their inner longing with shame and dropped their pursuit and retreated to their customary practices. Men cautiously reached out to other men who were exploring what had come to be called men's soul work. Leader led and leaderless men's groups were created and have continued to act as sacred containers for men to explore their wounds, to bond and to support the evolution of men's mental, emotional and spiritual development.

The Purpose of Men's Groups

The purpose is to support and help one another in learning new ways to be Ð socially, professionally, and in relation to each other. Groups need to be a safe place to try out new behaviors such as being more assertive, relaxed, or confident. Groups should allow members the freedom to talk about unusually sensitive topics related to issues of relationship, sexuality, career and other intimate concerns.

The mission is to develop a process by which a group of men who are reasonably compatible and who come together with a mutuality of intention will learn rapidly to trust, love, resolve conflict, and care for each other.

Support groups sprang out of the energy of the women's movement and its "consciousness-raising" groups for women who were liberating themselves from what they experienced as a male-dominated culture. From these sprang some remarkable men's groups. Men, in the early days of the men's movement, were avowed feminists.

Self-help groups began as experimental offshoots of therapy groups and quasi-religious movements. Recovery and AA meetings are examples of some of the oldest self-help group organizations.

Of these two types of groups, support groups gather with more of a consciousness-raising personal growth, feel good focus, while self-help groups gather to deal with a specific problem and have a coping-better-with-the-problem focus.

Therapeutic support groups are led by a trained therapist who brings his clinical expertise to the exploration of the underlying psychodynamic during the process of men supporting each other to be their personal best. In a way it might be said that the men sit on each other's board of directors.

The Goal of Therapeutic Support Groups

Traditional forms of talk therapy are probably not the best ways to reach men. David Jolliff (1994) suggests that a better way to deliver counseling services to men is through therapy groups that allow men to tap their masculine power and energy, utilizing it in their own healing process. Hetzel, Barton, and Davenport (1994) conclude that if counselors adopt a gender-sensitive approach, it is possible to reframe behaviors traditionally perceived as problematic in male clients: resistance to expressing feelings, being overly task-oriented, and withdrawing from intimacy. A gender-sensitive leadership style can provide male clients with a fuller understanding of how gender role expectations and their socialization have influenced their lives. Even more important, the group can help them discover a greater sense of freedom and expression.

The essential ingredient in men's groups is a willingness to stay with your group and learn through being together. This is commitment. Without commitment the group doesn't work. Commitment ensures the longevity necessary to build the trust and safety essential to open up, risk, and share more of who we are.

What is generally missing for us in our society is the safe space Ð the community Ð that supports our telling the truth at deeper levels. The group provides that opportunity. It is imperative that the group welcomes conflict and supports the sacred trust that the members will learn from it. It is important that there is a commitment to deal with and resolve conflict.

One definition of conflict is simply: "You want one thing and I want another." So defined, conflict is a natural and important part of any relationship. The successful resolution of conflict will involve you and me in telling the often hidden truth about why we want whatever it is we happen to want. In this open sharing we come to know new aspects of each other.

As M. Scott Peck states in his book, The Different Drum: "The essential dynamic of pseudo-community is conflict-avoidance. True community is conflict-resolving." The group must support a commitment to intimacy. Intimacy is sharing those most private thoughts, feelings, and secret parts of ourselves over a long period of time. It is something we all need and crave Ð few men have known the comfort or experienced the joy of true intimacy, especially with other men.

Meeting the challenge of opening ourselves to others and finding acceptance is a vital step toward becoming able to know our own power. This is not the old dominating "power over", but the personal "power to" Ð to create our own lives as we want them to be. Inherent in the ability to be intimate is the power to trust and love who you are at this moment. Ê Ê Ê