How can we save men from depression and halt the suicide epidemic? Here's my six-point plan
Almost three years ago now, I wrote a raw and heartfelt clarion call for Telegraph Men, reflecting on the tragic suicide of my mate Nobby. Entitled ‘Why does no one care when boys fail at school and middle-aged men kill themselves?’ it became the most-shared article I’ve ever written here.
Yesterday, TV personality Zoe Ball opened up in a similar way, reflecting on the suicide of her partner, film maker Billy Yates, who took his own life aged 42.
Miss Ball said, “The number of young men killing themselves is shocking. A lot of men I have spoken to have said it’s very confusing being a modern man. You want to be sensitive but also strong. You can’t win”.
Most damning of all, Ball added: “It was very difficult for him to find support. There is very little on offer other than anti-depressants and a bit of counselling”.
How many times have you heard “if only men talked more, or were more like women, there’d be no problem"?
For those of us who’ve lost close friends to suicide – and the more I talk about this subject, the more I realise just how many people have been touched by its dark shadow – Ball’s words chimed.
Yet despite repeated calls for action, we still find ourselves no nearer to ending the male suicide epidemic. Men remain three times more likely to kill themselves than women.
It’s not through lack of trying. In November 2016, I co-founded the Men & Boys Coalition, with tackling male suicide a key action point.
In November, at the Parliamentary lunch of the Harry’s Masculinity Report I co-wrote, I sat alongside Simon Gunning, CEO of men’s suicide charity CALM and demanded gendered action on male suicide.
To date, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears: the government has been inactive on the biggest killer of men aged under 50.
Today, we must admit male suicide is a public health emergency and take action. We must also end the crippling cycle of inaction when it comes to men’s mental health.
So what might a solution look like?
1. Stop saying ‘men need to talk more’
How many times have you heard “if only men talked more, or were more like women, there’d be no problem?” Or worse, men don’t talk because of “toxic masculinity?” Both these unhelpful approaches blame men, and fundamentally miss the point that we don’t need to change the way men talk, we need to change the way we listen to men – and talk to them on their terms. Worse, if we place the onus on men to self-present to current care provision (which they are half as likely to utilise as women) then there is no incentive to change the care provision itself – which is the real task in hand.
2. Treat mental health provision as a gendered issue
It is abundantly clear that, if men account for three quarters of suicides, we would benefit from a gendered response to tackling it. To do this, we must admit that men have specific mental health needs and that the current system is failing.
3. Provide dedicated, men-only group therapy
In the early 2000s, Martin Seager of the Male Psychology Network, started running men-only psychotherapy groups, with great success.
“Nobody had ever thought that men don’t open up around women, because they feel guilty or weak,” he says. “So we tried single-sex groups and it really worked.
“Men are action-based creatures, and respond to action. If we showed men we were serious about mental health provision, and actually laid on services specifically for them, they’d respond”.
4. Launch a men’s section of the British Psychological Society
Despite there being a women’s section of the BPS since 1988, there is no male counterpart. A men’s section would allow clinicians to explore a gendered route to solutions and research into issues that disproportionately affect men and boys, such as suicide and addiction.
The good news is, over two and a half years after I first wrote on this for the Telegraph, an historic ballot for a male psychology section is currently in progress. If a majority of BPS members return in favour, the motion will be passed. Results are expected in the summer – and cannot come a moment too soon.
5. Take care provision into men’s spaces
If men don’t go to their GP for help, why not take care to where men gather? Look at the huge success of the Men’s Sheds Association, or the Lions Barbers Collective, where barbers are trained to spot early signs of mental health problems.
How about we do the same in gyms, or even pubs? After all, if we can’t lead the horse to water, why not take men’s mental health provision to watering holes?
6. Take personal responsibility
In absence of a broader, policy-based response outlined above, writers such as Jordan Peterson in his 12 Rules For Life are tackling men’s issues with tough love. To huge success, Peterson is telling men to get fit, tidy their rooms, treat themselves as somebody deserving of care, sleep and eat well, quit alcohol, drugs, shun pornography and pointless sex, and stop blaming the world for their personal woes.
Yet it is a national scandal that depressed men are driven to self-help, which once again begs the question: why does society still not care about male suicide?
Today, and every other day of the year, 12 British men will tragically cut their own lives short. We owe it to them to fight for action.
