Therapy with Men and Boys: A Guide for Clinicians
Every mental health provider who works with men and/or boys knows how challenging it can be. Therapy requires our male clients to be vulnerable and admit their need for help. That's pretty terrifying for a lot of men and boys. The good news is that there are clinicians and researchers who have devoted their careers to learning how to overcome these challenges. In this podcast, we will try to fill the gap in your clinical knowledge, with the help of the leading experts in working with boys and men, who will share their wisdom and tools with all of us.
About your co-hosts:
Dr. Erica Liebman is a clinical psychologist based in Philadelphia who splits her time between her private practice working with individuals and couples, performing assessments of military veterans and working on various projects that further the awareness of issues facing men and boys. She is a board member of the Society for the Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association. Her two main foci in this realm is advocating for increased education about boys and men in APA psychology programs as well as helping to bridge the divide between men and women through compassion and understanding. Dr. Liebman can be reached via her website www.ericaliebmanpsyd.com
Dr. David Shepard is a practicing Los Angeles-based psychologist with over 30 years of experience specializing in working with men, both individually and as the male parter in couple therapy. Dr. Shepard is a member of the Society for Psychology of Men & Masculinities, a division of the American Psychological Association, and a past-president of the division. He is Professor Emeritus in Counseling at California State University, Fullerton, and the author of numerous publications about working with men and making couple therapy work for male partners. He can be reached at drdavidshepard@gmail.com. His website is drdavidshepard.com
Therapy with Men and Boys: A Guide for Clinicians
Episode 04: Lessons from Couple Therapy: How to Engage the Male Partner on the Road to Connection
Why are so many men ambivalent about coming to couple therapy? And so many therapists struggle with engaging men in the therapy process? In this special episode, Dr. Erica Liebman looks for answers by interviewing her co-host, Dr. David Shepard, who is a leading expert on making couple therapy effective for male partners. Together, David and Erica will explain why men in heterosexual relationships are ambivalent about couples work. David will then discuss what clinicians can do to help them overcome their ambivalence, and instead, make them feel couple therapy is a safe place for the vulnerable work of expressing tender, often attachment-related emotions. The episode will reveal how to build a therapeutic relationship with male partners, how to know when a man is ready to explore painful emotions, how to make sure a man doesn't worry about a female therapist taking his partner's side, and other solutions to making sure therapy is a place where men and women can feel more deeply connected.