Men, therapy and the space in-between.

Many of the men who sit across from me don’t come to therapy because they’re curious about their emotions. They come because something has finally given way. The pressure they’ve been carrying for years has nowhere else to go. Often, they’ll say things like, “I don’t really know why I’m here” or “I’ve never done anything like this before.” What they usually mean is: I’ve never had a place where I didn’t have to hold it together.

Most men were never taught how to feel safely. They were taught how to cope. From an early age, many learned that emotions were something to manage privately, to push through, or to turn into something more acceptable. Anger would pass. Sadness was uncomfortable. Fear was rarely spoken about. Attachment theory helps us understand this, when emotional needs aren’t reliably met, we adapt. We become self-reliant, guarded, competent. We learn that needing others is risky, and so we stop asking.

Those adaptations make sense. They often lead to success on the outside. Men build careers, families, identities around being dependable, capable, strong. But the nervous system doesn’t forget what it learned early on. What isn’t felt doesn’t disappear it shows up later as anxiety, shutdown, irritability, or a sense of emotional distance that’s hard to explain. Many men tell me they feel disconnected from their partners or children, even though they deeply care. Others feel constantly on edge, like they’re bracing for something they can’t name.

In the therapy room, we often slow things down and start with the body rather than the story. This is where trauma-informed and attachment-based work becomes important. Long before we have language, our nervous systems learn what feels safe and what doesn’t. For men, safety often became linked to control and competence. Therapy gently challenges that by offering a different experience: a relationship where nothing is demanded, where there’s no performance, and where emotions aren’t judged or rushed.

I’m often aware of how unfamiliar this can feel. Silence can be uncomfortable. Naming feelings can feel clumsy or exposed. Some men worry they’re “doing therapy wrong.” There is no wrong here. Part of the work is simply noticing what shows up, the urge to intellectualise, to joke, to minimise, to change the subject. These aren’t problems; they’re protective strategies. Once they’re understood, they soften.

Psychodynamically, we might explore how early relationships shaped current patterns, how closeness became associated with responsibility, or how vulnerability became linked to disappointment. From an attachment perspective, many men discover they developed avoidant or anxious strategies not because they lacked care, but because care was inconsistent or emotionally limited. These insights aren’t about blame. They’re about making sense of why certain relationships feel harder than they “should.”

What I see, again and again, is that men don’t become less strong through therapy. They become more integrated. They gain access to parts of themselves that were set aside in the name of survival. Anger begins to reveal the hurt beneath it. Emotional distance starts to soften into curiosity. Self-criticism gives way to something closer to compassion.

This work isn’t about turning men into someone they’re not. It’s about helping them come home to themselves. To feel without losing control. To connect without losing independence. To need others without feeling weak.

If you’re a man reading this and something resonates, you don’t need a crisis to justify being here. You don’t need the language or a clear explanation. Therapy can be the place where you stop carrying everything alone, where strength and vulnerability aren’t opposites, but parts of the same whole.