Men and Depression…
Hammer, J., & Vogel, D. (2009). Men’s Help Seeking for Depression: The Efficacy of a Male-Sensitive Brochure About Counseling The Counseling Psychologist, 38 (2), 296-313 DOI: 10.1177/0011000009351937
This article revolves around how to produce a male-friendly brochure for men who know that they are or might think that they are depressed. I don’t know how pushing the medical model of depression in this brochure would encourage men to seek therapeutic (et al.) help. ‘Cos as we all know, the medical model says that once you get the taint of mental illness, you are stuck with that curse for the rest of your life. The best that you can hope for are momentary flashes of near normalcy before the gloom sets in once more and you are grabbing for your Prozac, or sugar pills, whichever are at hand. I like the positivist assumption at the outset of this article that when depressed, people should see a counsellor. Is it just me or does it not look like stunning hypocrisy to seem to want to foster resilience in troubled people but only if that means creating relationships of eternal dependence between us (mental health professionals) and them? Afterall, the goal of the good mental health professional is to work toward their own redundancy in the lives of the people for whom they are working…
Update: A personal story of depression (see link, below), eerily similar to the personal stories of other celebrity-type people who have suffered with depression…
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