There is a particular kind of man who does not come to therapy.
He is doing well. The job is good, or at least it is respected. The relationship is functional. He is fit enough, solvent enough, liked enough. He is the person others describe as having it together and by most external measures he does.
And he feels almost nothing about any of it.
Not sadness exactly. Not the heaviness people picture when they hear the word depression. More an absence. A flatness that sits underneath a life that works. He can tell you what he is supposed to be enjoying. He cannot tell you the last time he actually did.
If that is recognisable, this is written for you.
Why it takes so long to name
Most men in this position wait years and the reason is not stubbornness. It is that nothing is obviously wrong.
Distress usually announces itself. Panic, a breakdown, a loss, something that breaks the surface and demands attention. This does not. It is quiet and it is compatible with a functioning life, which means there is never an obvious moment to act. You do not miss work. You do not stop showing up. You keep performing the shape of a life while the experience of it has gone somewhere you cannot reach.
The other reason is that the vocabulary is wrong. The language available for men’s mental health tends to assume crisis and crisis is not what this is. “Are you okay?” is a question built for a different problem. The honest answer here is usually “yes, technically”, which closes the conversation.
So it gets explained away. A phase. Work stress. Tiredness. Getting older. Each explanation is plausible, which is exactly why it holds for another year.
What it tends to look like from the inside
People describe it differently, but some things recur.
Going through the motions competently. Doing the things well and feeling separate from doing them, as though watching yourself from slightly outside.
Irritability that seems disproportionate to whatever set it off and which is often the only emotion that still arrives at full volume.
An intellectual relationship with your own life. Being able to analyse it clearly, explain it well, describe it to someone else accurately, and feel none of it. Some men are very good at this. Being articulate about your inner life is not the same as being in contact with it and the skill can stand in for the thing for a long time.
Relationships that are fine and slightly distant. Present, reliable, not quite reachable.
A sense that this is simply what adulthood is and that expecting otherwise is naive.
It is not a character problem
It is worth saying plainly, because most men who arrive with this have already decided it is a personal failing. That they are ungrateful. That they have a good life and should be able to feel it and the fact that they cannot means something is wrong with them specifically.
That framing is common and it is not accurate. Numbness is usually protective. It is what happens when feeling things fully was, at some point, not workable, because of what was going on, or because the environment did not have room for it, or because getting on with it was the thing that was needed at the time. It was a reasonable adaptation. It just does not switch itself off when circumstances change and it is indiscriminate: the same flattening that dulls the difficult things dulls everything else too.
Which is why the usual advice does not land. Exercise more, sleep better, be grateful. These are fine and they are not the issue. You cannot address an adaptation by optimising around it.
What the work actually involves
Less than people fear and slower than they would like.
Early on it is largely about noticing. Building some tolerance for feeling things again, in a setting where doing that is safe and unhurried. That is often more uncomfortable than the numbness was, which is worth knowing in advance rather than discovering in week three.
It usually involves looking at where the pattern came from. Not because everything traces to childhood, but because these adaptations are learned somewhere, and understanding what they were for makes them easier to hold differently.
And it tends to involve the relationship in the room. For men who are used to being the capable one, the competent one, the one others come to, being in an ongoing conversation where that is not required is unfamiliar and frequently where the useful work happens.
How long depends on the person. Some of it moves quickly. Some of it takes a while. Anyone who tells you otherwise before meeting you is guessing.
Where we fit
Fellow Psychology is a psychology clinic at 3 Macquarie Street, Prahran, working with men across Melbourne and by telehealth. We offer 50-minute individual sessions in person and online, for men weighing up whether what they are experiencing counts as a reason to come in.
It counts.
Dr Beau Growcott (Psychologist) is the practice director. His post-graduate studies examined the mechanisms and effectiveness of hypnosis and his interests include the experience of adolescent and adult men, sleep, and the relationship between mind and body. The wider team works with men through a range of approaches including ACT, CBT, schema therapy and psychodynamic therapy, and you can read about each of those and about the practitioners, on our site.
If you are weighing it up, the practical questions (costs, rebates, whether you need a referral, what the first appointment involves) are answered on our new clients page. You do not need a referral to book.
If you are reading this at 2am
Not everyone reading this is merely flat. If things are darker than that, or you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14, or go to your nearest hospital emergency department. That is not an overreaction and it is available tonight.
For everyone else: you do not have to be in crisis to be entitled to this. “Things are fine and I feel nothing” is a complete reason to talk to someone. It is one of the most common reasons men eventually do and most of them say afterwards that they wish they had not waited as long as they did.
Our booking form is online and available at any hour: request an appointment. If you would rather talk to someone first, the practice number is (03) 9964 0717.
