How we train boys

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Loss of feelings is the male wound

most obvious to therapists.

Most men arrive in my office unable

even to identify what they feel,

much less express it.

But they don’t come to therapy

for help with feelings. 

They come the way you go to a

dentist when a toothache gets

intolerable.

Their symptoms — anxiety, depression,

addictions, ruined relationships,

chronic anger, a pervasive sense of

despair or bewilderment — have simply

become too painful to bear.

And then there are other problems 

that flow from the same wound:

•  American men, on average, live

for five years less than women do.

• They have twice as many vehicle

accidents, twice as many fatal heart

attacks, three times as many deaths

from injuries, twice the deaths from

liver disease.

•  Over 90 percent of convicted acts

of violence are perpetrated by men,

and men account for over 70 percent

of the victims.

•  Over 90 percent of prison inmates

are male.

•  In schools, 90 percent of kids with

behavior problems are boys, as are

more than 80 percent of kids with

learning problems.

• Men and boys commit suicide at

five times the rate of girls

and women.

~ From “The Feeling Wound,” Chapter 3 of The Four Wounds of Men by Steve Hauptman