*Masters in Practice: The Problem with Men w/ Ron Levant

‼️Continuing Education Series‼️
In this episode of the Psyched to Practice Podcast, Dr. Ron Levant shares his journey from a troubled childhood to becoming a leading figure in the psychology of men and masculinity. He discusses his personal experiences with trauma, the impact of the pandemic on mental health, and the themes explored in his memoir, 'The Problem with Men.' Dr. Levant also delves into the concept of normative male alexithymia, the challenges men face in expressing emotions, and the importance of emotional awareness in parenting. In this conversation, the speaker discusses the concept of normative male alexithymia, exploring how societal norms shape men's emotional expression and the challenges they face in therapy. The discussion covers therapeutic approaches to help men articulate their emotions, the importance of developing emotional vocabulary, and the impact of emotional policing on men's internal experiences. The conversation also touches on how these dynamics affect parenting and the common mistakes clinicians make when working with men. The speaker emphasizes the need for clinicians to recognize the difficulties men face in seeking therapy and offers key takeaways for effective practice.

Earn CEUs for this episode at: https://www.psychedtopractice.com/course/the-problem-with-men

The Problem with Men: https://a.co/d/7u4wA4D 

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Transcript

Welcome to the Psyched to Practice Podcast, your one stop for practical and useful clinical information, masterful insights from experts in the field, and a guide to daily living. Thank you for taking time to listen to our episode and with me is Paul Wagner. And you know, we had a just a really cool opportunity today, Ray, to talk with someone who's fairly prolific in the field and

You know, even if you're not familiar with the name, have to assume you're familiar with some of the work that's been done. Dr. Ron Levant, someone who really pioneered a lot of the psychology of men and really kind of what we know today about terms like toxic masculinity come from a lot of his work. Yeah, I mean, you know, I share in the episode, I became familiar with Ron's work, actually a long time ago, over 20 years ago, when I was just coming out of grad school and

He was APA president and is a wealth of knowledge, which I think, you know, people can hear in this episode. I mean, he really just kind of gave us some great information about his story, which I thought that narrative was really great, but then really the details as well. So for those of you just to give you a little information, know, Ron Levant, he is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Akron.

past president of APA as well as APA Division 51, the Society for Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity, and a two-term editor for APA Division 51 quarterly journal, Psychology of Men and Masculinities. He is one of the key experts in this field and responsible for creating a new field of psychology of men and masculinities.

We were talking today about his most recent book, The Problem with Men, but he also has a number of other books out there, including The Tough Standard, which is published through Oxford University Press. I want to just take a moment and really, like, it was such an interesting read. And I know we've entered into some new territory when we were talking about some self-help books, but this is an even newer territory for us. The Problem with Men is a bit of a memoir of Dr. LeVance's life and

his experiences and how it really guided him in the field of psychology, but also really how it helped to inform, you know, so many of these key topics that we were talking about. And really, you know, we got kind of hooked on this topic of normative male alexithymia and how he was really a pivotal role in bringing about this awareness of how challenging it tends to be for men to really recognize and have words for their emotions. Yeah, it's and I think that

When you hear his story of how he got into psychology, it all kind of makes sense and it kind of gives you this kind of path of of why he studies this. And then really, I mean, I just the the practical tips throughout this episode that he throws out as far as just ways to maybe teach skills to men, including things like emotional vocabulary. I found incredibly beneficial. And with that, we hope you enjoy this Masters in Practice episode.

problem with men.

Ron, thanks so much for joining us on the Psyched to Practice podcast today. We're really excited to have you come on and talk a little bit about your experience and really highlighting one of your books today.


Thank you for having me.


Yeah, absolutely. So before we kind of get into a little bit about you, you know, I, although you don't know this, I we've actually met about 20 years ago and you were the APA president. That's right. About 20 years because I was just coming out of my doctoral program. I was only about a year in. And I tell everybody your keynote that you gave was.


Exactly.


life changing for me career wise, because you use the term making psychology a household word. And from that point, it made me change my view that we need to start telling people about what we do. And we need to have this as part of our everyday conversation. And it's part of that what inspired us to do things like a podcast where we're trying to spread the word. So I just want to do a little throwback and thank you for that before we start.


Well, thank you so much for that. That's really a remarkable recollection is going back 20 years to know that I actually something I said actually influenced another person. It's wonderful.


Yeah, yeah, well, it is and I, you know, now in social media, we really do have an opportunity to make things a household word. So that phrase always stays with me. So, you know, again, appreciate that early contribution to my career.


Yeah. Well, I think, you know, one of the reasons for that was because back in 2005, there was still a lot of stigma, mental illness and, you know, and therapy and all of that. And I think the pandemic wiped out about 90 percent of that. And because people, you know, in the pandemic found themselves suffering and needing help and over overcoming their own, you know,

trepidation about going into psychotherapy. And I was on a conference with the guy who developed Obama's who developed Obamacare. Can't remember his name off the top of my head. But he was saying, you know, the need this was in the middle of pandemic, we do not have enough mental health providers to meet the need, you know, you're

probably short by a factor of 10 to one. know, it's just the shortage was enormous. The way it still is, I think people, even though the pandemic is quote unquote officially over, there are other systemic stresses coming our way.


Right. To say the least, right. So, Rod, with kind of maybe coming off of that, so what, how did you get into becoming a psychologist and a clinical psychologist? What kind of led you in that career?


Well, let me start even earlier than that because it's unlikely, given my early life, it's unlikely that I would even be alive today, much less talking to you. But my background is that I'm a trauma survivor. I make that clear in the book. I was abused physically and emotionally by my father from the age of two.

bullied by anti-Semitic bullies from the age of five. And like most abused children, I became a juvenile delinquent. And at the age of 13, I ran away from home from Los Angeles to Texas, which is kind of an interesting story because I was 13. I had a girlfriend who was 13. She had an older sister who had a boyfriend who had a friend. I persuaded

the sister's boyfriend and his friend to drive me in Los Angeles to East Texas. I should have been a salesman.


You

Ow.


Anyway, so and then I was arrested. That was 13. I was arrested at 15 for drunkenness and vandalism. And I was expelled from high school at the age of 17. Took the test, got into LA City College and discovered I was good at something besides getting into trouble. Turned out I was really good in math. And I had no idea before that. And so


You


after a year and a half to get into the flagship school at the University of California, UC Berkeley. So that's kind of, you know, sort of how I changed the trajectory from abused child to juvenile delinquent, which is leading to either death or jail. About the two outcomes you can expect. Once there. So, you know, I had, I mean,


You know that.


to be in college, to be at Berkeley, to be around people who grew up in homes where both parents had at least college educations and most had law and graduate degrees. It was a totally reorienting experience. I graduated and I went to medical school after graduating because that's what my mother wanted me to do. As a Jewish family, you'd a doctor.


Yeah

You


So I was at medical school at a time where Vietnam War was starting. I went from 65 to 67. I got very caught up in radical politics, dropped out of medical school. I was in San Francisco during the summer of love. That's just when I dropped out. I became a full-fledged hippie living alternatively in a closet in an apartment that I rented.

The back of my VW micro bus, which is set up as a camper or whatever chick I was shacking up with at that particular time. That was my life. And of course there was weed involved with that at pretty much every step of the way. But, you know, during that period, my life kind of went off the rails and I wound up suffering a major depressive disorder. You know,

And for about 18 months, including one suicide attempt that was not very well thought out and fortunately didn't work. And then I tried all kinds of mental health treatment, know, literally all kinds, including day treatment. I checked myself into Mendocino State Hospital. That didn't work. Tried all kinds of things. None of it worked.

What worked was LSD. know, I, um, I, you know, after trying all these things and I was living in San Francisco, my brother was still in Berkeley. So I said, I got to get away from the city. I come stay with you? So I wanted to stay with him. says, okay, what we're going to do is we're going to have a friend of mine has a cabin in the woods or his family does. We're going to create an Indian feast and you're going to take LSD.


haha


So he got, at the time, the best LSD was by this chemist named Osley. And so he got some Osley double domed pills. And long story short, first time I took LSD, was an amazing trip. And I woke up in the morning and I suddenly realized I was no longer depressed. Just one dose, one night after having been...

gone through a period where I went through the day depressed, I went to bed depressed, I was depressed in my dreams, I would wake up depressed, I would drag myself through the day to suddenly no depression. And I decided medical school was not the way, but graduate school and clinical psych was the way. And at the time, this was 1968, it was harder to get into a doc.

program in clinical psych than it was to get into medical school. So I had to go back to Berkeley and take the major, the psych major, which took a year. So I did that. I got a 4.0, got into Harvard, Columbia. I chose Harvard because they had the best financial deal. You wouldn't believe it. Harvard has it, right? Tuition, books, room and board.

Part of the story I left off, I had been married and I wound up being divorced and I had a child. So they paid my child support payments too. For four years. Yeah, you can't get a deal like that anymore.


Wow.

Yeah. Wow.

You can't.


So,

you know, I mean, I got into clinical psych that way. It was because I just felt there had to be a better way to treat patients like, you know, and that was it. So does that...


Yeah. Yeah.

Well, I mean, that's what a path and, know, I mean, to hear about the, you know, experience with psychedelics at a time where that wasn't even being thought of from a treatment standpoint, you know, fast forward to today. And, you know, we're seeing all these clinical trials that are happening and, you know, all the movement in that way. You were an early case study.


I was an early case study. That's right.


Yeah, that's that's that's amazing. What a story I am. So I have with that, you know, we're going to talk about, you know, your book, The Problem with Men, and which is just such a personal story. And I guess what led you at this point in time or inspired you to write that book?


Two things, One was, I consider myself extremely fortunate to have come through sort of my childhood and teenagehood intact, much less having the life that I've had. Your viewers may not know me, but I'm considered the

kind of the main founder of the new psychology of men. And I'm listed in the Stanford University Elsevier database of the top 2 % of scientists in the world, including all science, not just psychological science. So coming from, you know, a kid who had run away to Texas to try at this quite a jump. And so I wanted to write the book to inspire other

people because I've been a clinician, I've worked with trauma victims, trauma survivors I should say, and I thought somebody might pick this book up and be encouraged. As one of my graduate students wrote, she wrote an endorsement, she said, if you think you've made too many mistakes to have an amazing life, read this book.

That was number one, but number two was...

Like a lot of trauma survivors, and even though I've had a fair amount of therapy, including four years of three times a week psychoanalysis when I could finally afford it, I had a lot of shame. I carried with me this underlying sense of shame. And I thought, what a better way to expunge that shame than

give it the light of day, show it to the world. And so that was the other motivation was kind of personal. And that actually did happen. I mean, it was therapeutic and a very unique way to actually write the book. But I will tell you this, it was very hard, hard for two reasons. One is memory. You know, I fantasized before writing the book that my memory would be like a hard drive on a computer.

just all up the file from 14 years. Now, that didn't work that way. My memory was more like the attic in my garage where you throw a bunch of junk and...


And then have to try to dig through it to find it, right?


And the second challenge was being honest, you know, because I found myself wanting to, you know, portray myself in a good light and I had to fight that and said, no, it's got that that really isn't true. And that's not the right spin. And that's so it was a constant struggle. And people tell me I've succeeded. I was people have described my book as brutally honest. So those are the two things that I found difficult. But I'm really glad I did it.

for both of the reasons, both of the goals that I've talked about.


As you were sharing and even talking about your process getting into the field, I found myself kind of visualizing as I was reading the book, like those moments when you were talking about your girlfriend's sister's boyfriend's friend that you had gotten there. And I believe it was giving him $5 to end, know, saying sorry when you're in Texas and like just those moments. And as I was reading, I found myself really enjoying the narrative aspect of it. And it's a narrative that

I think it also carries with those themes and that area at the very end of most chapters, kind of the takeaways. And I loved kind of comparing my notes to the takeaways and thinking about, you know, earlier on, it's more of these reflections later in the book. It's the, you know, actually this asking the reader to kind of go and consider some of these things themselves or, you know, consider like


Take away, look. Take


being able to apply some of those pieces when you talked about grief after losing your father and the unresolved elements that are there. it is such a great, I think, discussion with that. also kind of noting your success and really your role in the field of mental health, really working with. Norbit of male alexithymia.


Yeah, normative, yes, let's talk about normative male alexithymia. A more friendlier term that I use with the general public is emotionally inexpressive men. Because alexithymia literally means no words for emotions. And you may know this term originated in the 1960s and 70s with a group of psychologists and psychiatrists who were studying psychosomatic disorders.

you know, discovered that many of the patients that they had were unable to verbalize what they were experiencing. Since then, it's spread to way beyond psychosomatic disorders to trauma, eating disorders, alcohol, you know, it's used in a variety of places. And it occurred to me,

When I was running a project at my first faculty job at Boston University, I was given an opportunity to run something called the Fatherhood Project. This was based on a dissertation, one of my students, Greg Doyle. He and I were running buddies when we were training for the Boston Marathon. we, you know,

on 10 or 15 mile runs, we had a lot of time to chat. So we cooked up this idea, as we're both aware that when it came to parenting, there's a lot out there for mothers, but nothing for dads. In fact, it wasn't Greg, but another one of my students did a lit review of parent education programs, and not one of the reviews even indicated whether the groups contained men. It was just...

Men were just not considered parents in the 1970s and 1980s. And so we felt, and I personally was struggling. I mentioned I was married with a child. What I didn't mention was during those difficult years that led to the marital breakup, my ex-wife decided to move to New York from San Francisco, taking

our daughter with her. So I was separated from her for quite a while because I had no means to fly from San Francisco to New York. And it's one of the reasons I chose East Coast schools so that I could resume my relationship with my daughter. And as I did, you know, she would live with me for the summers because I'm being a faculty member. had the summer off and my ex-wife liked to travel. And so I and I was

didn't have a woman in my life at the time. So was all on me to do all the parenting. And I sucked as a parent. I was really...

And, you know, I basically thought it was my problem until I saw this movie in 1979, Kramer versus Kramer. Yeah. So for your audience, this was a movie of a divorcing couple played by Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman. And Meryl Streep, you know, left with a


You


I'm going to California to find myself. That was actually a thing in the seventies. All of the selves migrated to California and people would have to go there to find themselves.


I'm sorry.


But it was part of the ethos. well, Dustin Hoffman does a very poor job, you know, of handling his eight-year-old son. And so after watching that movie, I had what I call a slow moving epiphany. know, epiphanies are usually like that. You know, this one took me weeks. And I figured out at the end that it wasn't that Ron Levant was such a terrible father, but that men of my generation

really hadn't been prepared for a hands-on role as a father. We hadn't. So that's what led to the creation of this. I persuaded Greg, look, this would be a great thing to do. Students are always looking at the faculty to give them a DISS idea. So I said, this would be a great thing. We could do that. could develop this together. You could run it, administer measures, pre-post and follow up.

And he did, and he got great results. He showed that we developed an eight-week course, and he showed that it increased the father's sensitivity to children. We use videotape measures of the fathers with their children and rated the videotapes. know, back then, everything was much more rigorous than it is today. And he found that the fathers felt closer to their family and the wives perceived changes.

in the experimental group as opposed to the control group. was a quasi-experimental design in the sense we had a control group that took all the tests and then went through the program after it was done. So was a quasi-experimental design. But he got great results. We published them. I forget, family relations, I think. Anyway, the dean was impressed by the results. And they were looking for

a way to have a community facing program because Boston University was disliked by its neighbors because it encroaching on neighborhoods and buying properties and such. So I was given this opportunity, release time, money. They gave me thirty five thousand dollars, which I used to buy video equipment. His video equipment was really cool at the time.

And I set up this thing called the Fatherhood Project.

And basically, you know, we would advertise and we'd get a group of men, you know, eight to 10 men. Anyway, we get eight to 10 guys. They come in, they see the equipment, they'd be very impressed. We're going to teach you how to be a better dad the same way you might have learned to sport like golf or tennis.


Yeah


You know what, you're going to do it and then we're going to tape it and then we're going to watch the video tape, break it down, figure out how to do it better. A lot of role plays. So one evening I noticed that one of the dads seemed to be out of sorts. So I asked him, is something wrong? He said, yeah, my son stood me up for a father son hockey game. Now, if any of you have been to Boston, you know that hockey, very big.


It's

big, right?


It's

bigger than most. And he was a divorced dad, so this is an important date. So not knowing anything about men and their emotions, I said, so how did you feel about that? And he said, he shouldn't have done it, pointing his finger in an angry tone of voice. I said, well, I agree he shouldn't have done it, but how did you feel? And he looked at me blankly. So I said, OK, let's role play this. You be you.

Another dad play his ex-wife as she delivers the news that his son had forgotten about the date and had gone off with friends. And then we roll, we play the video back. I'm sitting right next to the guy at the monitor coaching him. Look at yourself in the monitor as his shoulders fall into a slump and his face frowns. Look at your face. How did you feel? He's going like this.

I guess I must have felt disappointed.

I thought to myself, I guess I must have felt disappointed with this much coaching. I imagined how a mother might react to an analogous situation of her daughter standing her up for a shopping date. Well, at first I was hurt that she acted with so little regard for my feelings. Then I was surprised because it's not like her to act that way. And then I was worried that maybe she was upset with me and this is her way of showing it.

Then I was disappointed and annoyed because I built my whole day around it and now it was ruined. I guess I must have felt disappointed versus hurt, surprised, worried, disappointed, annoyed. out I had a faculty meeting later that week. So I asked for a little time on the agenda. I said, colleagues, I've had this experience. Can you help me understand it? And I related what happened.


Yeah.

What's going on?


And they were no help at all. Ron, women are just more emotional by nature.

And well, I didn't buy that. And so in my doc program, I had the opportunity to concentrate in child clinical, which meant I had to take more developmental psych than my classmates. So I knew there was an area of literature called emotion socialization. I went that literature wasn't that old from the it was this was like 83. The studies were published like in the 70s. So I went back to that literature, I found some amazing things.

Boys start out more emotionally expressive than girls as neonates. But neonates don't do very much. They cry and they sleep, right? But I found the same finding at six months of age and one year of age. And again, these were studies based on back then, they put video cameras throughout people's homes, videotaped hours and hours of footage, and then coded it. If you can imagine the expense of doing something like that today.


Right.


And so the boys were more emotional until one year of age. Girls are more emotional by nature. I don't think so. And but then the girls started to overtake boys at two with regard to verbal expressivity, which simply meant the way they measured it, they knew more words for emotions. But then a really powerful change happens between four and six.


page.


boys lose their facial expressivity. So this was a really interesting study where the experimenter brought a mother and one of her children between the ages of four and six, either a boy or a girl, and the child was in one room and the mother in another room, and the child was shown emotionally stimulating slides, and the mother had to determine the nature of the slide shown to her.

child by watching the child's face in a video monitor. Is that cool or what?

Yeah. Wow. That is.


So what they found was that mothers of sons and mothers of daughters were equally accurate at the earlier age, at four. But as the children age, the mothers of sons got increasingly less accurate.

so that by the age of six, there were significant differences. So what's happening to boys between four and six is causing this. Well, they're in preschool and school and other boys are policing their conformity to the masculine norm of restricting the expression of emotions. Boys are supposed to be stoic, right? So this was phenomenal. I thought this really made a lot of sense.

Also at the time, this is one of the books I'm gonna recommend, I was working with Joseph Pleck, who at that time was reviewing galleys for what became his landmark book, The Myth of Masculinity. And he asked me to, you know, to proof a chapter or two. So I did that. And so I knew a little bit about the theory and I knew enough to know that what he was really talking about was

social learning of children, you know, the social learning theory that children learn gender roles, you know, through modeling, through reinforcement, through punishment. And in this case of the boys, it was punishment. They were punished, you know, for expressing emotions or showing facial impulsivity. So given all this, I theorize that boys who are reared

to conform to the masculine norm of restrictive emotionality had an elevated risk to grow up to be adult men who were alexithymic. That is, who could not put their emotions into words. And that was my, I called it the normative male alexithymia hypothesis, and then set about to investigate it. And I did a narrative literature review and then a meta-analysis, which is a statistical way of aggregating findings.

and found that there is one scale, by the way, that's been validated with the clinical population with cutoffs. It's the Toronto Alexothymia Scale 20. And it has, if you score at or above a certain number, you're considered Alexothymic, and below, you're not, and so on. using studies, looking at studies that use that scale that compared men and women.

I found that men had higher scores than women. Look, anytime I give an in-person workshop where I can see people raise their hands, I say, how many of you know a man who cannot put his emotions into words? Everybody raises their hand. So I think it's widespread enough. So that's kind of how I got to this. And then a little later on, I turned to how can we treat this?

In the 90s, I had left a bad position and essentially expanded my practice from a day a week to full time and had a part-time appointment at Harvard Medical School. So I asked my colleagues at Harvard Medical School, send me the men that your female clients complain about.


So you were completely booked. that what you're saying?


Exactly.

And I started experimenting with what, you know, because, know, psychotherapy, even the most behavioral form requires that the patient be able to identify their emotions and verbalize them, right? And I mean, even exposure therapy, which is the most behavioral, they have to differentiate between higher degrees of anxiety and response to threatening stimuli.

If they're alexithymic, they can't do that. So it's important to all forms of psychotherapy. So I started experimenting. I also did like growth groups as kind of a feed for my practice. You know, there were not therapy groups, but just, you know, in the 90s, there was a lot of interest in men. It was like the decade of men and all these kind of things. So men were kind of interested in exploring what it meant to be a man. So I would periodically

advertise and get a growth group. And I found that the men had very poor vocabularies for emotions. I would get in one of these groups, maybe eight or 10 guys, and I'd ask them, I have a flip chart and a sharpie, and I'd ask them, tell me words for emotions. And I'd write them on the chart and I make it 30 words. 20 would be expressions of anger.

Furious pissed off annoyed irritated, know, it just goes on and on eight would not be emotions at all, but they'd be signs of stress like burdened or burnt out or depleted or zapped or you know under pressure things like that and then one or two might be actual words for emotions like joy and fear Wow, so from then I figured okay the place to start is helping guys develop


Bye.


vocabulary. So in my practice, you know, after I, you know, kind of sold the guy on doing this, because not all guys want to go through this kind of psycho educational program. I said, Okay, I'd like you to develop your vocabulary for emotional words. So during the course of the week, whenever you think of an emotional word, write it down, and then bring the list into our next session. And then I would rely on men's

competitive nature and I say a guy I saw earlier today came in with 30 words.

I my clients are gonna come in with 31.


You


And so, and that was a pretty easy part, getting the vocabulary. The second part was, I, this was kind of an intuitive hunch. I thought it'd be easier to learn to read emotions in other people than it would be to read them in oneself. So I would teach them a little bit about body language, facial expression, tone of voice.

Paralinguistic things like sighs, cries, and gas, and what they meant. And then I would say, okay, during the course of the week, while you're interacting with somebody or people watching or even watching TV, focus in on the person and focus in on their expressions and try to ask yourself the question, what are they feeling? saying this and use your vocabulary list to give you some words.

So getting used to the idea of applying words to emotions in other people.

That might take two weeks. And by the way, these parts, you know, would occupy, you know, maybe 15 minutes of the session. You have the rest of the time to do whatever their agenda was. You know, the crisis du jour, which is most of my clients.


You


and then finally, when they got that, I taught them to identify their own emotions. Now I have to say some of my clients experienced emotions as emotions, but some small minority, you know, 15 to 20 % maybe only experienced a bodily sensation. You know, they did not experience I'm sad, I'm angry, I'm afraid or whatever.

They would talk about butterflies in their stomach or a tight band across their forehead or like one guy felt like his neck tightened up or another guy, you know, his legs would start moving. So they describe a bodily sensation, which I theorize was, you know, the physiological component of the emotion, you know, making itself felt in their body because an emotion starts with a physiological reaction in the limbic system.

So I said, keep track of what you're feeling. Keep an emotional response log. Maybe keep a three by five card in your shirt pocket. And when you either feel an emotion or a sensation in your body, write it down. What are you feeling? Then ask yourself the question, who is doing what to whom and how does that affect me? Talking about the social context. And then go through your vocabulary list and pick out the word of words.

that kind of match what you might be feeling. It's like emotional kindergarten. So here's an example. Butterflies in my stomach. I was expecting feedback on a progress report that I gave my supervisor this morning, and it's already one o'clock, and I haven't heard from it.

were words, apprehensive, maybe fearful. So you see, this is like emotional kindergarten. But given the fact for a lot of these men, their ability to interpret their emotions was interrupted when they were small boys. You know, it makes sense to go back to the basics like this. And I do


Yeah.

I mean, I'm sorry, it kind of fits that age range that you talked about, you know, that four to six range. So you're kind of taking them back and kind of redoing those experiences that they may have had.


Exactly. giving them tool. I'm trying to give them tools to be able to know, you know, and I have to do a lot of selling with this, you know, I mean, this is not natural. I would, you know, would empathize. I know that this goes against your grain. You're not supposed to. are not supposed to be emotional. I understand that. But, you know, your wife is complaining. She sent you to me.


Right.


Most of my clients were sent. They didn't wake up one morning and say, my God, I've got an arm and a male lexothymia. I better call Dr. McMahon.


No, they were.


Most sent by their wives, some sent by other family members, and some sent by employers. I had lot of angry guys, you know, who... So anyway, I did a clinical trial, not a randomized clinical trial. I tried for years to get one going at the VA, couldn't do it. But I did a clinical trial comparing two groups at different... They weren't randomized at one...

facility and a group at another facility. One group at one facility administered this treatment, which I call Lexisthymia Reduction Treatment, or ART for short. I always like to embed a joke in my work.

Psychotherapy is more art than science.


There we go.


So, we did that, you know, the full program and the experimental group reduced their scores on normative melalexithymia scale. I did develop scales, by the way, and restrictive emotionality as a norm and total traditional masculinity ideology and the control group had no changes at all in any of the scales.

At least there's, and I also saw it clinically, you know, the guy's lives changed, you know, after they were able to do this. So that's kind of the whole thing about normative male lexothymia.

When you were describing that early childhood, like that four to six range, I'm curious, I hear that there's this broader exposure and awareness of the policing of emotions and kind of coming from that external, from their peers, from even parents in that way. Was there, and this would be hard, I think, to really recognize, but when that policing stops happening externally and starts happening internally?

And even because I'm hearing in these relationships, there's a request, like an active request from their partners, you know, from the, you know, maybe supervisors, stop policing your emotions in so many ways. And yet there was that maintained, you know, presentation until some of these interventions. At what point, I wonder, does that stop happening externally and more internally for men? In your research, was there ever any any kind of increase towards that?


I didn't really specifically focus on that dimension, but I can tell you just my senses is that that they would, you know, over time internalize it. I mean, just because I mean, just looking at it as a behaviorist, it avoided punishment. So it was essentially negative reinforcement. You know, they would be motivated to continue to do it, you know, because they would express it. They would get

they would not get the reaction they feared when they were boys. In fact, they would be greeted warmly by their wives or their children. it became self-reinforcing, that makes any sense. Answer to your question.


It does. And

my thought to that, I guess, to that question goes, like when clinicians are working with, you know, young, maybe adolescents, like the significance and the importance of recognizing, you know, it is in this maybe four to six year old age range, where we start to see some of those trends occurring. And, you know, what does early intervention look like at that point? I don't know if you know of any current research that's going on in that.

I don't know of any research on that. do think clinically I've got indirect reports from the men that I work with that they were getting much better responses from their wives. I mean, they said, this shit works, doc.


Yeah.

I mean, it's great. It's great to hear like their wives noticed it. I wonder in you know, when you said earlier, everybody's always looking for a dissertation. I'd be curious, these these men that go through this kind of intervention, does that impact how they parent their own son?

Yeah


Like, we see, you know, cause I like hearing your story and just kind of how this all develops, you know, at what point does, as we as men are better with our emotions and maybe not even sons, I think just children in general, that we're better with our emotions and express things better. Does that impact our own parenting and break the cycle with our kids?


You know, I don't know that that has been studied in a systematic way. So some of the men I work with were fathers. And I think anecdotally, they...

looked at their children differently, you reflected on their own experiences and, and probably, tried to.

behave a little differently than their parents did. And there's another thing that occurred to me. I did a fair amount of couples work, and I've had a number of couples come to me. I mean, they're in therapy, they had raised the question with me about they might have a son, I don't know, any way between four and 10.

They raised the question of crying and, and, know, we don't prohibit little Johnny from crying in the house, but we're worried about how, you know, other people might react to him if he cries. Yeah. And I said, well, that's a really valid concern. I mean, you should be concerned about that. And there are things you can do about it. You can, you know, inoculate your son against that.

by having a conversation with him, something like this. know, Jimmy, in our house, we think it's okay for boys to cry because, you know, boys have tear ducts just like girls do and it feels better. You know, after you cry, you feel better. You're not as sad. But not everybody agrees. And so you have to be aware of who you're around.

Because if people believe that boys shouldn't cry, they might get mad at you if you cry. so, sort of just kind of prepare your son to be careful about who he cries in front of, I think is the way I handled it.


When you're talking about some of those different treatment interventions there, I'm curious, were there any common mistakes in working with men, maybe different assumptions that they've had and like, what are some of those common mistakes that clinicians can look out for?


Yeah,

sure. Well, think clinicians working with men have to be careful about pushing the men too hard against masculine norms. What I would say is, know, yeah, I know, you know, as a boy, you know, you really had to toughen up. That was the only way to survive. And, you know, if you showed weakness, your friends would appreciate for it. But you're no longer.

a child and you're an adult, you're a husband, you're a father. This is a way of opening up your heart to your family. Something like that.


Yeah, I mean, I think that it's interesting as,

Even this, think, men now entering therapy, in my work, I see more men open about their emotions. I think you're right. You mentioned earlier about just like, COVID made a little shift in acceptance. I think since then, the men that I see are much more open about not just coming in about, want to control my anger.

but really wanting to understand their emotions. And I think the thing that's been surprising for me is how many men, as they open up about it, talk about that they do let their emotions out, but it's just not to other people. I've had men say, gosh, I cry on my way home from work every day. Like I'm sad. Like I feel that way. I feel that emotion. But nobody else knows that.

They come home and they're pissed off and they're irritable. But they do have those emotions. And I think this idea of focusing on the idea that masculinity and emotions go together and they can live in harmony, think is really powerful. I'm glad we're seeing more work in this area. And honestly, I think with your book, what was, I think, the personal narrative?

gives permission to people. I think that's really powerful. So I'm glad to see more of this happen.


Yeah, well, thank you for that comment. You know, crying is kind of interesting to think about. know, people, humans of all sexes have tear ducts. And crying releases oxytocin and endorphins that make you feel better. OK, and there's something else that releases, I forget, but, you know, basically releases hormones that

make you feel better.


Yeah, I think that's great. think that's great. Yeah, it is. mean, it is really, you know, I'm so glad that joined us to talk about this. I think it's something, you know, we've never done a topic like this about specifically about men. So it's good and it's wonderful to see, you know, I know you're doing a lot of this work out there. I've seen you being on other podcasts and things. I think just keeping this message once great. So

Yeah, I love the topic. You know, as we're wrapping up, because we don't want to take your whole day, but I guess, you if you mentioned earlier, you kind of had maybe a resource or something to share with the audience. You know, if there was a book or some type of media that you think those interested in this topic would would benefit from, what would it be?


The problem with men.


Problem with men. Your book.


Yeah, I can't think of a I do want to write kind of a more the problem with men is a memoir. But I do want to write and I'm talking with another guy about collaborating a book for sort of the average guy, not the, you know, graduate school educated guys like us, but sort of the average guy, the high school educated guy.

You know, about sort of just about what it means to be a man in 2025 when so much has changed between the genders. I think there's a big story there, you know. You know, I'm a bit older than either of you, but back in the 50s, women had a lot fewer rights than they did now.

And it couldn't be a credit card, for example. And very few women were in the workforce, particularly mothers of small children. It was in the single digits in 1955. And women, the big change is that women entered the workforce in droves. So by 1985, that's 30 years.

50 % of mothers of children under six were in the workforce. That was obviously aided by childcare, which is a miraculous development that helped mothers go to work. But it also made women financially independent of men, many women. So the next thing that happened starting in 1965 and going for 20 years was the divorce revolution.

And little known fact is that two thirds of those divorces were initiated by the wives.

So you put it all together, what happened in the late part of the 20th century, women dramatically changed their position in society so that now, you have Richard Reeves writing this book of boys and men, which basically I can summarize in a paragraph that boys and men are poorly relative to girls and women on every educational

health and social indicator there is. know? And I mean, know, women outstrip men in college admissions, college completions, and in every type of graduate and professional school. Women are healthier. Men die now, it's gone from six point something to eight years on average, sooner than women. And they have

more diseases in every major category of illness. And that is because of behavior, men's behavior. Men's behavior put their health at risk. They wear seat belts less often than women. They use more alcohol products than women. They use more tobacco products than women. They use more illicit drugs than women. They visit their doctors less often. have

corner diets, don't take their medications as prescribed, they don't exercise, they don't use sunscreen, I mean the list goes on and on. Will Courtney wrote a whole book on it.

You know, when I start talking about this with other people, it says, what do you want men to be more like women? No, actually not. I just want men to be themselves. I don't want men to be this caricature of John Wayne. know, mean, you know, personalities differ enormously. And, you know, we're just in this idea of being yourself is a Western meme. It goes back to Aristotle.

To thine own self be true, to be the self that one truly is, or as Oscar Wilde put it, tongue in cheek, be yourself, everybody else is taken.


You


I want men to just recognize their individual personalities and step out of what people call the man box of all of these restrictions that are placed on us just because we have a Y chromosome. So that's kind of my message. Be yourself.

With that, but I think I mean, that's a great way to kind of come to the end of you know, if you have to give three if you could give three takeaways to people in the profession related to this topic, what would you say the three takeaways they should have?


I think you have to recognize how hard it is for men to go into therapy. You know, we've had a lot of research that show that men have very negative attitudes about psychological services, that they have low intentions of seeking psychological care, even if they have a personal problem that they can identify. So recognize that it's really hard for men to come into therapy. And so if a man comes into therapy,

considered a gift and I would start off by giving the man a lot of plaudits. It must have taken a lot for you to come see me. Most men wouldn't, when they hear psychologists, they run the other way.


You know?


I

would ask him, know, so what what what helped you decide to come see me, you know, and kind of amplify the things in his life that's propelling him, you know, in this direction. And then I would obviously utilize that reminding him at various points. Well, you came into therapy because you wanted your kids to not feel the way about you the way you did. This is a big thing. then a lot of.

Men don't want their kids to feel as bad about them as they do about their own dads. That came up in the fatherhood project that I mentioned earlier. Because at the beginning of the project, we do a get to know you kind of thing. And each person would go around and introduce themselves and say why they're here. And most of the men would make a joke, like my wife bought me this to wish it was $200. This tuition is a present. You think they're there? ha.

And doing this get to know you. One guy is sitting there. His upper lip is quivering and he's obviously tense. I said, Mel, looks like you have something you want to tell us. He says, yeah, you want to know why I'm here? I'm here so that my son will not feel as bad about me as I do my dad with that kind of tone of voice. Wow. And his room, his words hit the room like a hurricane.

you know, every man caught it. just, you know, people were men were crying. It was, you know, because, mean, I can't say every man, but a lot of men had fathers who felt it was their job to toughen their boys up. And sometimes that toughening up hurt. Did my case.


Wow.

Well, Ron, this was wonderful. I really appreciate you taking time to spend on a Friday afternoon with us to talk about your book. And thank you. It really this is a great topic.


Well, thank you.


Truly, thank you so much. if our audience is interested in staying up to date with what's going on for you, is there anywhere that they can follow as well as anything that you have going on that you'd like to kind of make sure our audience is able to check out?


Sure, my website drrondallavant.com and I should say my book, The Problem with Men, the Kendall version is on sale for 99 cents at Amazon.


Wow.


By the way, he was the number one best Amazon bestseller in new releases in gender studies. It's not the New York Times bestseller list.


We'll take it, that's right.


Thank you guys for having me. I really enjoyed talking with you and I hope your audience benefits from this.


thank you. They certainly will. And if you're interested in checking out Ron's book, check the show notes and we'll have a link there to the Kindle version as well as the paperback version. And if you're interested in staying up to date with what's going on for Psyched to Practice, please check out our social media searching for Psyched to Practice or check out our website at www.psych2practice.com. We'll be back in two weeks. But until then, be well, stay psyched.