Introduction
Many men today are quietly questioning the messages they’ve absorbed about what it means to be strong, capable, and masculine.
Therapy offers space to rewrite those scripts — to explore strength not as control or endurance, but as authenticity and connection.
Modern Masculinity and Mental Health
Conversations about masculinity and men’s mental health are becoming increasingly common.
Younger men, often in their twenties or thirties, are asking questions their fathers and grandfathers rarely voiced:
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What kind of man am I supposed to be?
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Why do I feel so disconnected from myself?
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Why does “being strong” feel so exhausting?
In a culture shaped by social media, phrases like “alpha male” and “high-value man” dominate timelines, linking worth to dominance, control, and self-sufficiency.
But behind the polished surface, many men describe quiet anxiety, self-criticism, and uncertainty about identity.
Inherited Scripts
Earlier generations often modelled masculinity through reliability and hard work. Fathers provided; mothers carried the emotional load. Vulnerability was rarely spoken of.
The unspoken message was clear: coping alone equals strength.
For today’s men, juggling emotional and financial pressures, that message can feel like a heavy weight.
Outward success often hides inner emptiness — the sense of living out someone else’s idea of who they should be.
The Alpha Illusion
The modern “alpha” narrative promises control but leaves little room for emotional life. Strength becomes performance.
To ask for help feels like failure; to express fear or sadness feels unmanly.
Beneath the armour, many men experience isolation, shame, or exhaustion. Some channel pain into work or fitness; others withdraw entirely.
Therapy helps men recognise that emotional awareness isn’t weakness — it’s depth.
Making Space for New Narratives
Therapy invites reflection:
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Who taught you what it means to be a man?
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What were the unspoken rules in your family?
These questions can reveal both admiration and grief — respect for a parent’s steadiness alongside sadness at emotional distance.
Recognising both allows compassion and choice: I can honour what I learned and still grow beyond it.
Through counselling, men begin testing new ways of relating:
“I can say I’m tired.”
“I can be uncertain.”
“I don’t have to have it all together.”
Redefining Strength
Healthy masculinity doesn’t abandon toughness or ambition — it integrates them with empathy and emotional honesty.
Therapy helps men build resilience through connection rather than control.
When strength becomes the capacity to be honest, relational, and emotionally present, everything changes:
relationships deepen, self-respect grows, and the pressure to perform begins to lift.
Conclusion
Masculinity is not a fixed identity but a living conversation between past and present.
The younger men entering therapy today are carrying forward a generational story while daring to write a new one — one that includes emotional depth as part of strength, not in opposition to it.
Our role as therapists is not to tell men who to be, but to help them discover who they are beneath the layers of conditioning.
In that discovery lies the possibility of a masculinity that is grounded, open, and real.
About the Author
Paula Peden is an Integrative Counsellor and Therapeutic Coach based at Wrest Park, Bedfordshire.
She works with adults and young people exploring relationships, anxiety, identity, and men’s mental health, drawing on psychodynamic, CBT, and humanistic approaches.