Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens

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The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner; you're invited to hang with us as we've discussed the ways we live today, the choices we make, the things we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, welcome again to the Behavioral Corner. It's me again, amazing, I hang here on the corner, and wait for interesting people to come by. We're very lucky in that regard. We hope you do as well. The whole idea is to inform and entertain if we can about topics that range everywhere. We'd like to say that this is a podcast about everything because everything ultimately affects our behavioral health. It is brought to you by the financial cooperation of Retrea Behavioral Health, about which you will hear later on. We're going, to begin with, something I know that you have heard something about, even in a cursory fashion, you have probably read or heard or seen something that alludes to a crisis among young men. And they come at it from every conceivable angle, there are sociological explanations, and there are political explanations. Anyway, it's a well-covered topic of the crisis of young men in America. There seems to be less talk about what's being done about it. Well, okay, so what are we doing about it? We thought we would reach out to somebody who is dedicated to doing something about that. And that is our guest Phil Treiber. Phil is a licensed mental health counselor, and the founder of his own counseling service, which is brilliantly called Dude, Breathe, counseling. It's about men's issues and their mental health fill. First of all, congratulations on the name of the bravura company. It's wise, I say, great. And, thanks for joining us on the corner. You know, we've done literally hundreds and hundreds of interviews. And we cover all kinds of issues. And when someone suggested that we reach out to you, I thought, Okay, well, we've talked to therapists before. And they said, He specializes in men's issues, it hit me like a thunderbolt that I really had been not negligent, but sort of disciplined, not paying much attention to that specific area of expertise. I'm anxious to get into this. And I'm really looking forward to it. Give me a little background on you. How you got involved in this if you would?

Phil Treiber 
Absolutely. And yeah, and thank you for inviting me on. And that's one of the biggest things is that a lot of people understand that there are, you know, issues with men in our society. I mean, it's nothing new. I mean, you know, the feminist movement in the 60s and 70s really put a significant spotlight on this issue. And a lot of people don't know that. Our theories in the men's mental health world in the men's issues world are built directly on the feminist movement from back then. But you're right. I mean, we hear about these things, we see all these ads, you know, we hear about the tragic things that are happening, but not much is being done. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this, because of my own story as well. I'm a licensed mental health counselor, and there are a lot of other letters after my name as well, but I'll spare everybody that but, you know, it does come down to my own journey. You know, you hear a lot of people specifically in the helping profession, whether they're social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, at some point, either a lot of their stories, they went through something themselves, or someone close to them went through something. And for my story, it was my own development, my own story, you know, I'm pretty open about the idea and the topic of that I'm a person in long-term recovery myself. And as I went through my history in my recovery, you know, seeing exactly these men around me, you know, getting well doing better, and identifying the things that they were doing and the things that I was not. And as I went through my own therapy, and I'm still in therapy, you know, like any good clinician, I still have, you know, human components of myself that I still need to continue to look at on a monthly basis. And it went back to identifying that as I dug deeper and deeper into the men's mental health field, reading scholarly and empirical data, reading books, these things that I was not introduced to in school. You know, I crack a lot of sociocultural books if I find them around and the chapters on men are skimp at best. And as I dug more and more into that, I identified that everything that these psychologists, these researchers, and these sociologists were talking about, directly relate it back to my personal experience. And if that was my experience. That also meant that a lot of other guys my age or within my generation group most likely went through that as well.

Steve Martorano 
Well, you know, it's a field, certainly worth exploring, because I don't know, we'll find out a little bit later when we talk. I don't know whether the problem is being adequately addressed finally, or not. But I do want to get back to this notion of the crisis of men coming out of as you just said, the feminist movement. How do you mean that? Do you mean it, in the sense that women rose up, basically, in the late 60s 70s, and said, we have these problems, and we're not going to sit silently anymore about them, we're going to talk about them, the men's issues that grow out of that result, because of an adversarial issue, where women said, we've got these problems, and you're the blame?

Phil Treiber 
Kind of. So I mean, to answer your first point, no, we are not addressing this properly at all. When we get a little bit later into our talk, we'll talk about this whole idea of the integrated male, as Dr. Robert Glover calls it, he's got a great book, no more Mr. Nice Guy, which I use with a lot of my men, but we don't really have a really good cohesive model of how men are how we can be or should be lack of a better word in today's society. Because it's all very confusing, and it's a very difficult thing to address. Overall, it's something that is an emerging field, the Journal of men's studies, through the APA, is it started in 1992. And even then there may be two issues per year five or six articles per so as the years have gone by, and the more research that we've done, based on these feminist theories, it's gotten better and better at the actual problems that we're facing. So you're right, you know, when the feminine, you know, rose up in the 60s and 70s, they started to really identify and point out a lot of issues that our society was facing, specifically within the patriarchy. Right. And there's, you know, there's the political patriarchy and then there's the psychological patriarchy and back then it was, it was a combination of both. And from that, it was identifying the privilege that men have experienced, specifically cisgender, heterosexual white men. And the problems that came along with that. And as the women found their voice stood up for their rights and started to actually do significant work on themselves and become empowered and continue to move on. We, men, have been left behind. And that's where I actually get some pushback. You know, I've been really active on my social media, specifically my Instagram over the past month, and I've literally gained close to 1000 followers in that month's time. And most of the positive feedback I get is from women or individuals who identify as feminine. And most of the pushback is the comments that I have to delete or be very careful about how I respond to are from men.

Steve Martorano 
Because as you point out, it's not unusual that this issue which ought not to be a political problem, is or is framed that way. And because everything is now. Everything. And that's unfortunate. I guess what I'm saying is, we talked about a crisis among men, and their confusion, and their sort of lostness as it were, coming to a head or being, you know, crystallized through the feminist movement. A lot of people are gonna go, What do you mean, men don't know where they fit in? There's never been a problem defining what a man is in this culture. So what changed that caused the confusion? Am I right? There's never been when men are men, they go out, they hunt, they bring the food home, and they provide shelter. You know, that's what men do. Where does the confusion come from?

Phil Treiber 
The confusion comes from is that that is such a small subsection of what it means to be a human being, you know, yes...I mean, it really what it comes down to, and what I was getting to talk about the feminist side of it is that there has been, it's a really an unfinished gender revolution. Right? And the crises that we're seeing because of this very rigid, precarious idea of manhood, something that continually needs to be reasserted, right, like I made an Instagram reel recently about you know, there is no word for sissy or emasculating, or emasculated for anyone who identifies as feminine. It's only something that is unique to the masculine ideal because our manhood is something that continually needs to be asserted that can be taken away immediately. I mean, we even saw, you know, one of the reasons why I think it was either Remington or Bushmaster was sued after the Sandy Hook shootings, and you look at their ads, right they literally before the shooting, they put out an ad about You know, send your buddy his man card, which is literally like to go purchase a rifle. Right now, of course, like, Listen, I'm not gonna get into all that stuff. But it's always having to reassert that because it's the unfinished gender revolution, right? Compared to women, men have higher rates of alcoholism and drug addiction, vastly higher rates of aggression, as well as violence. Higher successful suicides earlier means of death, as well as this covert depression, and this almost impossibility, or difficulty, identifying their feelings and their emotions, and we wonder why all of these things are happening. Right, the problems that we face specifically, like male homicide rates, and of all homicides in the world, 79% of them are men, right? 86% of suicides are completed by men, mostly through self-inflicted gunshots, you know, 98% of murders for women were committed by either their current partner, a past romantic love, or an ex. We look at these issues that our countries and our world is facing and for me in the way that I see it. And if I look at the numbers in the good research, it all boils down to the pain of men. And I get significant pushback specifically from some female colleagues, that why focus on men? And the problem is there is that like, my focus on men's issues is by no means a way of deflecting or not focusing on the pain of women, children, and other marginalized groups. For me, I see it as a direct solution. Right. And that's the crisis that we're facing is that these guys, divorce rates are so high suicides, addiction, all of these things can be traced back to the fact that men are adhering to this very traditional ideal, right? We put our boots on, we go to work, and we bring home the bacon, right? We are the provider for some reasons, only financial. And then we wonder why these things are happening.

Steve Martorano 
You know, this is the expression "If mom ain't happy, nobody's happy." Right? But it would seem to me that the problems that plagued women are insolvable if you don't address men and their issues, right?

Phil Treiber 
Of course.

Steve Martorano 
So we have been for a very long period of time, looking at the two sexes, men and women, as opposing forces, rather than anybody going no, we're all in this together.

Phil Treiber 
The most harmful book that has been written that in my view, besides some of the ones that happened in the 30s and 40s...

Steve Martorano 
Women are from Venus Men are from Mars. Is that it?

Phil Treiber 
This is by...it was by far, like, the most harmful book to this gender revolution that has ever come out in the 20th century.

Steve Martorano 
What about it made it harmful? I think I know but go ahead.

Phil Treiber 
It's complete hogwash. It has no basis in any science, biological, psychological or sociological in any way possible. Right? Between men and women, our brains are exactly the same, right? Just as much as our kidneys. And livers are this guy who wrote this book was not a psychologist. He took a correspondence course in psychology, his degree was in meditation, but yet because of the marketing machine, behind his publisher, etc, etc. This was deemed as this book that would completely transform this battle between the sexes, and it was probably one of the most harmful works to come out with that and put us back years.

Steve Martorano 
And you can see...I remember the book very well. And the success of it was insidious when you think about it because what it really did at the end of the day was validate that we're different. You know, why you don't get along with your wife, you know, why you don't get along with your boyfriend, because you're different.

Phil Treiber 
And there are some differences in the way that we approach things, right? Like, you know, there are the stereotypical and somewhat factual things that most men think very logically and want to fix problems, right? And women or people who identify as female are much more in tune with their feelings, their emotions. Those things are mostly true, right? But it doesn't negate the whole idea that our intimacy needs are different, complete, not true, right? We are human beings, and we have the need to be touched, to express ourselves to be validated to feel a part of ourselves, but the whole idea is that the socialization process that we boys go through teaches us that we don't need those things. Right? Terry Real who's a big guy in the men's world, specifically, when working with difficult narcissistic men and couples, he calls this the great cleaving. It's where we have this full circle of humanity, right? And we are only taught to hold on to this masculine side, right? And this goes into Pollock, as well as David Brandon when their theories that they came out in the late 70s and early again in the 90s. About the boy code and the guy code, right? We were only allowed to be men, this traditional idea of men where we are strong, are invulnerable and do not share our feelings and emotions. We are self-sufficient, like the prototypical John Wayne. And through that process, we are taught to cleave off and cut off anything that can be perceived as feminine, which includes feelings and emotions, which includes vulnerability, which includes things like empathy, but then also expressing ourselves. And that's the problem. We are taught back throughout that socialization process. So we're no different. We all have the same needs because we're human beings. Right? And you we see that in adolescents, and how the socialization process changes us from there on out.

Steve Martorano 
Our guest is Phil Treiber, he is the founder of Dude, Breathe counseling. He specializes in mental health issues. Concerning men, do you also do substance abuse among men? Do you do counseling in that regard as well?

Phil Treiber 
Absolutely. I mean, the men's world. That's my specialization, that's the way that I perceive a lot of the struggles that my guys go through. My history is I worked for a large substance abuse treatment center down here for years, and that was my major focus. So I treat and I am qualified to treat a lot of different things that guys are struggling with, you know, substance abuse, relationship issues, severe and significant mental health, but the way that I conceptualize a lot of the struggles, and also a lot of the guys that are coming to see me now, you know, they're from couples, counselors, their partners, their wives, or girlfriends, their kids, their daughters, find me, and then talk to them about coming to speak to me about these things. So it's not just these men's issues struggles is the conceptualization of the struggles that these guys are having, regardless of what it might be through this lens and this extremely culturally competent approach to men, which works because, in school, we're not taught to approach men in the proper in the appropriate way. And then we wonder why these guys are failing out of treatment, and they're not actually getting better because we're not approaching them appropriately.

Steve Martorano 
Well, we often don't even you know, it's sort of antithetical to talk about it in terms of problems, you know, or if they are man up. Man up, man up may be one of the most empty statements of all time,. What does that even mean? Let's talk about a couple of these specific things that men face that are problematic. Too often, I think we still have this, as you called it, a cleavage between the men and women as though, you know, they were the only other force causing the difficulty among men, you know, it's women, I don't know how to act around them anyway. But there are all kinds of forces at work right now, that are challenging traditional, masculine roles. Certainly, we only have to look at the emergence of very recent, artificial intelligence, which is going to change the work world, profoundly going forward. So at some point in the not-too-distant future, the idea of the breadwinner. As a, you know, a sort of foundational idea about a man is going to go away.

Phil Treiber 
And thank God for that.

Steve Martorano 
Well, I agree, long-term, but right now, it's a problem for men. Right?

Phil Treiber 
Right, absolutely not so, I didn't, you know, and...to reframe my statement, not thank God that, you know, people will be losing their jobs and their inability to, you know, to provide for their families, whether they're masculine or feminine, or identifies either. But what it's doing is that, like, I mean, one of the main things that it's a consistent issue with the guys that I work with, right, whether they lose their job, I mean, we look at the rates of suicide during the Great Depression. But you know, during these times, when there are recessions, in the early 90s, I think it was there was a significant recession in Japan, the suicide rates skyrocketed, because unfortunately, this idea of being a quote-unquote, man, is so closely tied with this idea of being the provider. And what in that process, what it does is that it actually really invalidates the...what's the word I'm looking for...the contribution of the feminine partner and the home of being, you know, taking care of the kids and doing the household tasks, etc., etc. So the whole idea is that as we challenge this concept of what a provider is, to where we're now changing the word over to being a co-provider, but also what you're we're talking about is not being able to be the primary breadwinner is going directly against and challenging this long-held role of a traditional male. Right? And specifically, when it comes to David Brandon like there are four components of what makes a male like it's the idea of the big wheel, right? Which is that we need to be successful. We have to be important. We have to be powerful, and we have to be in charge So when we lose a job, let's say it's due to outsourcing or because AI or technology comes in, it's directly challenging this idea of what a man is. Because if I can't provide, I'm no longer a man.

Steve Martorano 
I'm guessing that the impact of women in the workplace, which has accelerated over the past several decades, has had a significant impact, and is not always favorable towards men. I mean, you know, even those of us who are old know, the generation before us, who had no concept of working side by side with a lot of women. That's a relatively new thing that the workplace, it's not completely coeducational. Right. So it's, we think it's always been that way. It hasn't it? That has had a big impact on men, hasn't it?

Phil Treiber 
It has, and it's specifically I mean, of course, like within the workplace itself. It is difficult. I mean, you watch shows like Mad Men, of course, it's a Hollywood interpretation of what was going on, but also fairly accurate. But it's, and that's where, again, we come back down to the socialization spiritual male role, right? We are taught that anything feminine is weaker, not as good as, or we need to be this protector or provider. And this idea that men are one up on women. It's this power struggle aspect to it. But one of the biggest aspects, and I really, and got a significant amount of pushback on this on Instagram, specifically for men -- women loved it, right. But one of the things that Terry Real talks about is that when we look at the divorce rates over the past few years, of course, this is an oversimplification. But one of the bigger aspects of what we see in the literature is that because women no longer need men to be the financial providers, right, we look at the rates of college graduates, drastically, many more females are graduating from school and getting good jobs being able to provide for themselves. And because of that, they no longer have to stay in these relationships that are no longer healthy specifically to have their financial and socio-economic needs met. And if we look at the reasons why most women are leaving these relationships is because they can. They don't have to stay in these toxic unhealthy relationships, for financial reasons. And one of the bigger reasons why they're leaving these relationships is because most men, and I say most not all, absolutely not. This is not an over or gross generalization. Most men are not able to provide the level of emotional intimacy that their partners are demanding, whether it's male-male, male-female, male-non-binary, or whatever that might be. But because of that, and because it's almost an indirect byproduct of women entering into the workforce, is that it's changing the nature of our relationships, but also, it's changing what they're demanding from the relationships that we have. And that's the reason why I've been getting so much, you know, information and so much an outpouring from women on Instagram and social media saying, Thank God, you're talking about this. And then they in the comments, they put, you know, dozens and dozens and dozens of comments about like, how grateful they would be if their partner actually went into treatment, or went into therapy and did these things. That's biggest thing that I see.

Steve Martorano 
Do you do couples therapy as well?

Phil Treiber 
I do. It's something that...most of the time when I work with couples, it's with couples, counselors who have gone to school specifically for that, right? So when there's a significant strain in the relationship, I'm not, I mean, I can do it. But I really outsource those things. And I work in junction with couples, counselors, and most of I work a lot very close with those couples, counselors. And what they do is they refer the guys to me, and we do intensives. And then they go back into the couples counseling setting. And then they're able to really engage once they're able to actually identify their feelings and emotions...

Steve Martorano 
Are clients referred to you...from other clinicians who are dealing with women, their relationships, or how do you...because...I know we want to get into, you know, the actual, you know, meat and potatoes of how you treat these guys, but the first thing that comes to my mind is how did they even get in your office? Because you know, you know, why would men go to see some counselor and talk about what's wrong? How do they get to you?

Phil Treiber 
So a variety of ways. One, if it gets bad enough, right? And if there's a sharp enough stick in a man's back, he will enter into treatment and therapy. So most of the time I hear a lot of the phone calls I get are from partners, other clinicians, so like they'll a variety of ways, right? It's either a couple's counselor referring the man to me, it's a wife, a partner, girlfriend's sister, who found me and then I kind of coached about how to appropriately talk to the guy to then kind of get them to get on the phone with me. Some guys are directly off my Psychology Today, or they see my Instagram or they find my website. It's a variety of different ways that these men are finding me. But usually, it's when things are burning down. It's not so much in the way of, like, hey, things aren't really great right now. But I really want to get ahead of it. It's usually, you know, worst case scenario: I got the ultimatum, if I don't go to treatment or therapy, my wife's gonna leave me. I got a DUI. You know I overdosed. I got into an argument with my boss at work. It's usually way further down the road than would have been really beneficial if you were to enter. But that's where I also get buy-in.

Steve Martorano 
So I tell them I walk, they walk in, and they sit down. And you're right, they are perhaps acutely or vaguely aware that something's wrong. Do you say to them, what's wrong? What do you want to talk about today? Because I don't see them volunteering a lot when they first walk in.

Phil Treiber 
That is probably one of the biggest faux pas that therapists make, right? Because we have to remember that a lot of clinicians are female, right? You know, me being a cisgender, heterosexual, white male in South Florida as a clinician, and when I go to networking events or anything else of that nature, I am the minority. Right, specifically, when I start talking about men's issues, they're like, Oh, my God, like, let me get my card, like, I'm gonna say, my husband like this. And that's a very, very common occurrence for me. But one of the biggest factors, and this is why I've developed specific culturally appropriate training for clinicians and group practices, as well as larger treatment centers, is because we do not approach men the proper way. We...we remember from the cleaving that anything feminine feelings, emotions, vulnerability, compassion, is pushed aside. Because if I adhere to those things, I would be weak, I would be less than. And the worst case scenario when it comes to the boy code is that I could be perceived as queer, gay, sissy, or effeminate, and they're weak. Right?

Steve Martorano 
Just weak. Just weak. Yeah. So how do you...how do you approach?

Phil Treiber 
So the therapeutic space is inherently feminine, right? And many therapists come in, and the guy sits down, right? They fill out all this paperwork about what's going on and how they're feeling, they sit down in session, and the first question that they get asked is, How are you feeling? And then most men are not going to be able to infer a lot of actual, you know, conceptual and clinical research-based backing reasons why they are not able to provide that, you know...

Steve Martorano 
If I can jump in here, right now, as these things just keep popping into my head, it's so...it's so obvious what you're talking about. When...when men get together in purely male gatherings. It's never to talk about how they feel.

Phil Treiber 
No, it's like some type of task.

Steve Martorano 
Unless, unless it's sports. They'll tell you how they feel about...because sports is the male equivalent of talking about your feelings and gossip. But when men come together, historically, it's been to avoid talking about how miserable they are. For the most part. Nobody wants to sit in a bar with a guy who's telling you how miserable he is all the time and how he's lost, right?

Phil Treiber 
Bonding over alcohol and things of that nature is actually one of the safer places because it lowers inhibitions.

Steve Martorano 
Alright, so you're not going to say to them, how you feeling? What are you going to say?

Phil Treiber 
So part of it is like developing a rapport. That is one of the biggest aspects when it comes to working with men. And there are actually culturally appropriate ways to do this. Right for, you know, and this is why I kind of walk on thin ice a little bit. But part of like the training that I do in this larger talk, I'm doing it, Lynne, in the fall is talking to female clinicians about how to better approach the guys, because the nature of like the men themselves, they are guarded. They don't know what they're experiencing and feeling. They are not comfortable. And they test. And if they're not led and paced the proper way when it came just down to like a basic conversation. They're going to clam up; they're going to slam things shut, they're going to say you're on my wife's side, you don't understand because you're a woman, and they're going to close up. So a lot of it what it looks like is an appropriate level of self-disclosure, and talk about what that looks like and experiencing along those things. Because a lot of it is if we go up a little bit, they'll meet us where we're at. We start talking about basic things in their life. What do they like? A lot of it is smashing that discomfort and allowing them to feel much more comfortable and demystifying the therapeutic process.

Steve Martorano  
Phil, you mentioned in the notes, you said to me that when you work with men in therapy, there's the approach that you're talking about right now, making sure you don't make a mistake. But you also mentioned leverage. What do you mean by leverage?

Phil Treiber 
Leverage is, and that can come down from either the verbal self-report that the guys offer, or this can be from a release from the wife or partner or the children. Right? So the leverage is like, hey, if a guy contacts me and says, Hey, I just got a DUI, I'm facing some legal charges, that is a significant amount of leverage, right? If the partner, you know, discloses specific things to me, right, within reason. Or he comes to me, or they come in as a couple first, just to kind of like set the stage before I do individual work with that guy, she says, I've had enough, if he does not engage with this, I'm leaving. And then I say, well, actually, you tell him that you don't need to tell me that, right? You communicate that much more effectively to him. The idea of leverage gets a bad rap. And it seems like almost a manipulation tactic because a lot of men fear that they're going to come into the therapeutic space and they're going to be changed against their will. That is not what I do.

Steve Martorano 
They're gonna let their guard down, and they're gonna then be vulnerable and be manipulated as a result of letting the guard down.

Phil Treiber 
Right. And I'm going to somehow make them sissy or effeminate. And they use a lot of other words that I'm not going to say here about what they're fearful of becoming. But the whole thing is like, again, in the substance abuse setting, or the mental health or inpatient setting, we get a bio -- biopsychosocial, we have releases for family, they fill out family packets, and all of that is leverage, right. But when let's say I don't have a release for a guy, part of what we do is that one, there's the negative leverage, if you don't do this work, you are going to experience these consequences. Or on the other side, which is also one of the bigger sides and the heavier side that I utilize is, what type of man do you want to be? What type of guy do you want to be? Do you want to continue to keep repeating these behaviors that your father taught you or that your mother taught you? I'm here in front of you, blocking you from that negative consequence, and I'm also here standing beside you, helping you to get those things that you want, like a healthier family, a happier family, and maintaining your marriage. I am here aligned with you. And part of that leverage aspect is, you know, whether it's the negative or the positive consequences, it's really about enhancing the guy understanding and pacing and leading them to this an appropriate timeline. You know, I'm not just gonna start hitting them per session. But after a report is developed a little bit, it's about leading them to the fact that listen. I'm here to help you. You can either accept my help or not. And that's the idea of having this leverage because we don't want to keep repeating these patterns, and there's a reason why they're here.

Steve Martorano 
I can understand either resistance to the process being broken down over, you know, through the methods you talked about, and a desire to be helped in the therapeutic setting. But you, I think you're, correct me if I'm wrong, you go a little step beyond that, with regard to help by saying to these men, there's another way to be a man. There's a new way to be a man, and you should buy into it. Because if your pain is you're operating on an old paradigm. Is that what you're doing?

Phil Treiber 
It's yes and no. Right? So I don't couple...I don't like really smashing home the fact and saying, like, listen, what you're doing is wrong. What it really is, is that like when I explain the socialization process, about what the messages that they receive, how they're being policed by other men, how they're being kept in this box, and not able to actually experience this whole spectrum of humanity, nine and a half times out of 10, I'm getting this...their heads are nodding, they are relating to that. So it's not that I'm shoving it down their throat or saying like, hey, the way that you're approaching life isn't working for you. Because the thing is, it's not completely adaptive, not completely maladaptive, or unhealthy. It's just no really longer serving them. And the whole idea is not to just completely wipe the slate clean. It's about modifying and being more mindful of those components of the traditional role, as well as pulling in a lot of these other things we've been taught to cleave off. So it's about developing this full component of a man, right, a good man, not like a real man, because a real man is very unhealthy. But really leading them to like, Hey, you can be a better version of yourself. Not trying to feminize men, not sissified men, but just help them become a better version of themselves in that process.

Steve Martorano 
Phil, we could go on and on, I will have you back if you agree because we don't do this enough. Just a couple of questions, practical questions. Do you, in your practice, have group sessions?

Phil Treiber 
Yes. So one of the things that I do is that I do run men's groups. Just men. I've had the idea, and I've gotten some feedback from some female clinicians about starting a group for women. So also just talk about all of these same things.

Steve Martorano 
Do you think the therapeutic environment is better served with just men in one group and women in another? Is that an ideal situation for you?

Phil Treiber 
It depends on...it depends on what we're talking about. If it's a pure group on masculinity, I think it's much more beneficial to have a group of men because that's when they're gonna feel much more comfortable being vulnerable. When there are women present, you know, it's a thing like substance abuse treatment center, mixed gender groups. Sure. Like, you know, when we are the same thing with, like, specific groups when it comes to like sex addiction, right, having, you know, your particular partner in those groups -- probably not a good idea.

Steve Martorano 
I had an occasion recently to talk to a friend who has been attending Al-Anon meetings...

Phil Treiber 
I'm a huge fan of Al-Anon.

Steve Martorano 
...and he's had a lot of positive reactions. And he said, when I told him I was going to talk to you about men's issues, he said something very interesting. He said, You know, I went to an Al Anon meeting, and for the first time, it was all men. Just coincidentally, it was all men. And he couldn't put his finger on it, as he was discussing to me how he found it off putting, he said, I just didn't feel right. And I said, and this is a total guess on my part. I said, Yeah, you probably weren't used to hearing men talk about their feelings. And he went, he went, Yes. He says it didn't seem right, everybody complaining and whining. And I said, well, they weren't whining. They were talking about their feelings. That's a common experience?

Phil Treiber 
It's the boy box. It's a box that we are kept in, specifically in groups of men. If we venture outside of that code. If we violate the code, it's almost like a. It's we are transported back to the playground, when we're younger kids, that if we skinned our knees and cried, right, if we somehow violated this male code of being strong, stoic, of not showing our emotions of being tough, keeping our emotions in check, if we violate that, we are policed. And that's the problem. Like a lot of the times, like you'll see in 12 Step fellowships, as I'm a member of one, right, you'll see the men's groups like it is a different vibe, right? I know a lot of women or people who identify as female, like going to female groups is a lot more emotion sharing. But I also have seen these guys and these men in my life, specifically with these guys in groups. It's interesting to see new guys come into the group. And they're kind of standoffish, and they're not really experiencing stuff. And then they're being challenged by my veteran guys in the group in a compassionate way. Like, no, no, I didn't ask you what you did about the situation. I asked you how you felt. And it's like... It's like, in the part of that process is being comfortable sharing and identifying these emotions.

Steve Martorano 
And they don't have a language for it. It's because they know what you're talking about. They can't express it.

Phil Treiber 
Well. So there's this concept called normative male alexithymia. Right. And it's a mouthful. But the idea is that, you know, pure pathological alexithymia is someone who has a very wooden expression. They are unable to identify their physical and emotional feelings, right? They almost feel shut down. Some key it can be perceived as a personality disorder. Some clinicians who really aren't trained in the higher levels of significance, and psychiatric issues will just say like, oh, this person shut down. They're depressed. But with the normative mental alexithymia, and it's not normative in the way that this is normal for men, it just takes scribing how often we see it. It's where those most men are unaware of their feelings and emotions, and they do not have the ability to identify what they're experiencing. So where the theory is literally in this is the working theory is that their neocortex is not connected properly with their limbic system because the limbic system is where we have a lot of our feelings and emotions and our amygdala and everything else. We don't know how what the mechanism of it is, right? It's either that the neocortex, the limbic system, never developed those connections the way that most girls do, as they're socialized to express themselves, or we don't have the verbal and emotional coding, which then translates into the emotional intelligence to be able to put words to our feelings and our emotions, It's what I experience a lot of guys

Steve Martorano 
Well, I'm sure the longer they poke around with brain science and neurology. We'll find out more about that. But it wouldn't surprise me in the long run, is if that wiring that's not working well was not favored in an evolutionary sense. I mean, you know, it was, it was about being big, strong, fast, and kill...kill the lion before he killed you. Don't worry about how you feel about it so that that stuff wasn't developed. It's interesting, I do know at the end of the day, though, just guys just don't have the language. They just don't...I mean, they'd something's wrong, and I can't even explain to you what it is. Let's go get drunk or something. So anyway..

Phil Treiber 
Yep, and they act out. And that one of the big aspects of working with men is that it's all about the work with the aspect is that we have to install the verbal coding as well as, you know, watching as a clinician with body language when they're tensing up to get it. Okay, what are you experiencing there? Like what I'm like, I literally have had to laminate this tool that I have three times over the past couple of years, which is just the feeling. We'll have, as you start in the middle, happy, sad, mad, depressed, like whatever it might be. And then we work out to actually identify what these guys are experiencing. Really a lot of men's work is installing emotional intelligence and teaching them and putting words to what their experiencing.

Steve Martorano 
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can't discuss something if you don't have the tools to talk about it. Phil Treiber's counseling service is called Dude, Breathe. We'll have a link to Phil's work. You'll be able to see it all. And we thank him so much. I can have you on once a month. If your schedule permits.

Phil Treiber 
I would love to.

Steve Martorano 
I'll be in touch. Thanks a lot. And thank you, guys, as well. We appreciate your attention and questions, and comments. You know how to do all that. Follow us like us and subscribe and do all that and we'll get you next time on the Behavior Corner.

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