Men’s mental health issues and becoming the Warrior Monk.

Men are not okay! It’s not an insult. It is not a weakness. It is not some dramatic overstatement designed to sell therapy, self-help books, or a subscription to an AI-generated meditation app where an AI character with a soothing, Morgan Freeman-style voice tells you to breathe while your life is burning to the floor. It is the sad reality of men in the West in 2026. Men are struggling, and far too many are doing exactly what men have been taught to do: shut the F up, work harder, provide, protect, suppress your feelings, joke about it, drink about it, rage about it, and then wonder why their relationships, health, purpose, and nervous system are quietly collapsing in the background.

The numbers are not subtle. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA) reports that nearly 1 in 10 men experience depression or anxiety, yet fewer than half receive treatment. Men also die by suicide about four times more often than women (ADAA, 2024). The National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) similarly reports that 20% of males experience mental illness, only 42.1% receive treatment, and 79% of people who die by suicide in the United States are male (NAMI, n.d.). So, before society lectures men again about “opening up,” maybe we should ask why so many men believe no one actually wants to hear what comes out when they do.

Men avoid therapy for many reasons. Some of it is cultural or subcultural. Some of it is personal fears and stigma. Some of it is pride. Some of it is fear of what he will discover. And some of it is because men have learned that vulnerability is praised in theory and punished in practice. Fall? Get up and walk it off. Got hurt? Rub some dirt on it, you’ll be okay. Feeling depressed? Get over it, everyone’s life sucks! Anxiouy getting in the way? Stop being so dramatic. Suicidal? Well, unfortunately, that one only gets noticed after everyone says, “I had no idea he was struggling. Why didn’t he say anything?”

Of course, they didn’t. He was trained to make pain look like productivity, keep quiet to not disturb anyone else, and suck it up.

The research even supports the fact we have a men’s mental health crisis on our hands. Dr. Shepherd and colleagues (2023) found that men’s reluctance to seek counseling or psychotherapy is shaped by masculine identity, male behavioral norms, and psychological services and therapists themselves. That last part matters. The therapy field does not get to sit on a throne of moral superiority and blame men for not showing up while ignoring the possibility that therapy has not always been built, marketed, or practiced in ways that actually understand men (Shepherd et al., 2023). Just take a look at the abhorrent document titled “The APA Guidelines for the Psychological Practice with Boys and Men.” (2017).

The APA’s Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men are exactly why many men distrust therapy. The document makes some valid points about male suicide, trauma, health risks, and the need for gender-sensitive care, but then repeatedly frames traditional masculine traits through suspicion. It describes masculinity as socially constructed, links male identity to power and privilege, and suggests that “emotional stoicism,” “self-reliance,” and “competitiveness” may interfere with men’s relationships. That is where the field loses men. Stoicism is not the enemy; emotional suppression is. Strength is not pathology; uncontrolled aggression is. Competitiveness is not toxic; ego without discipline is. Leadership is not domination; domination is leadership corrupted by insecurity. Men do not need therapy that deconstructs their masculinity until nothing useful is left. They need therapy that helps them refine it into courage, restraint, purpose, responsibility, emotional regulation, and love. That is the Warrior Monk path.

This is where we need to be honest. A lot of men do not avoid therapy because they are emotionally defective cave trolls who hate feelings. Some avoid therapy because they believe they will be misunderstood, judged, pathologized, blamed, or treated as if masculinity itself is the disease. And unfortunately, oftentimes, they are not wrong. I know, I’ve experienced it more than once as a counseling client, as a mental health graduate student, and as a therapist from other therapists.

Dr. Whitley (2019) criticized approaches to men’s mental health that frame traditional masculinity negatively, arguing that men need practical, individualized, action-oriented care that listens to their story, supports goal-setting, builds resilience, and recognizes that achievement, responsibility, competence, adventure, and discipline can be psychologically protective rather than pathological. In plain English, men do not need therapy that treats masculinity like a tumor to be removed. They need therapy that helps them discipline it, mature it, aim it, and redeem it.

This is where the idea of becoming a Warrior Monk comes into the picture.

At Warrior Monk Mental Performance & Counseling, the Warrior Monk represents a balanced path of healing, growth, and disciplined living. Historically, warrior monks were men who combined strength, courage, and protective capacity with spiritual wisdom, self-mastery, and inner peace. The Japanese Sōhei defended temples while pursuing religious devotion. Shaolin monks cultivated martial discipline alongside mindfulness and spiritual development. Many Native American warrior traditions also understood that strength in battle had to be balanced by reverence, service, purpose, and responsibility to tribe and family.

The Warrior Monk is not defined by violence. He is defined by controlled strength.

That distinction matters because modern society often gives men two terrible options: become aggressive, detached, emotionally numb, and destructive, or become passive, ashamed, disarmed, and disconnected from their masculine nature. Congratulations, we have created a buffet of dysfunction and resentment. These binary options are what create "toxic masculine men” Either bullies or the bullied. Assholes or Nice Guys. Pick your flavor: unchecked aggression or spiritual castration.

The Warrior Monk rejects both. The Warrior Monk chooses Integration!

Becoming the Warrior Monk means learning how to carry strength without brutality, vulnerability without weakness, courage without recklessness, compassion without passivity, and leadership without domination. It means becoming the kind of man who can protect without needing to control, feel without falling apart, lead without becoming a tyrant, and love without losing himself.

This is not some poetic fantasy. It is a practical mental health model.

Men need the Warrior because healing requires discipline, resilience, courage, strength, accountability, and the willingness to confront pain rather than outsourcing responsibility to others. The Warrior is the part of a man that gets up, trains, protects, provides, endures, tells the truth, and refuses to quit. But without wisdom, the Warrior becomes reactive, angry, impulsive, and dangerous to himself and others.

Men also need the Monk because healing requires stillness, self-awareness, emotional regulation, humility, compassion, forgiveness, and meaning. The Monk teaches a man to pause before reacting, to examine his suffering, his thoughts, and options, to regulate his nervous system, and to stop confusing rage with power. But without strength, the Monk can become passive, avoidant, detached, and useless when life demands action.

Finally, a good warrior and a good monk are scholars of their discipline. Listen to Jocko Willink, DJ, Shipley, and Shi Hung Yi and you will find they are brilliant philosophers while being masters of their martial craft. Drawing from Counselor Jon Nelson’s Warrior, Monk, and Scholar framework, healthy masculinity includes not only strength and stillness, but also the disciplined pursuit of knowledge and self-understanding (Nelson, n.d.). The Scholar studies his own wounds. He asks where his anger came from. He examines his father wound, mother wound, attachment patterns, shame, addictions, avoidance, relational failures, and the stories he keeps living inside of. He does not blindly bleed on everyone who didn’t cut him, and blame it on his astrological sign, or shrug his shoulders and say “That’s just how I am.”

This is how we combat the men’s mental health crisis: not by shaming men out of masculinity, but by helping them integrate into healthier form of masculinity.

Concerns about bias against men in therapy, especially couples therapy, have also been raised in recent literature. When men perceive therapy as a place where they are automatically treated as the problem, blamed for relational dysfunction, or viewed through a hostile ideological lens before their story is even heard, they are less likely to return (Alam, 2025). Shocking, I know… Men do not usually line up around the block to pay someone $175 an hour to be professionally scolded by someone who has no vested interest in their lives or marriage.

This does not mean all therapists are anti-men. They are not. Many therapists are amazingly compassionate, ethical, and deeply committed to helping men heal. But there is a real professional problem when some clinicians interpret male pain only through the lens of toxicity, privilege, patriarchy, emotional incompetence, or danger. If a man walks into therapy and feels like he is already on trial because he is male, therapy has failed before it has even started.

They need therapy that respects strength while confronting avoidance. Therapy that understands anger is often grief wearing armor. Therapy that knows silence is not always emotional emptiness; sometimes it is shame, fear, loyalty, trauma, or the absence of language. Men need therapists who understand responsibility, sex, marriage, fatherhood, faith, work pressure, loneliness, combat, competition, failure, and the quiet terror of feeling useless.

Men, let me be abundantly clear… needing help does not make you weak. Refusing help while your life burns down around you is not strength. That is pride and arrogance. If you are angry all the time, numb, isolated, drinking too much, addicted to work, sexually checked out or addicted to porn, resentful, depressed, anxious, suicidal, disconnected from your wife, distant from your kids, or quietly wondering what the hell happened to the man you used to be, that is not something to ignore. That is your body, your soul, your nervous system, and probably everyone who loves you begging you to take action!

Becoming a Warrior Monk is not about becoming perfect. It is about becoming integrated.

It is the path of the man who trains his body, disciplines his mind, regulates his emotions, studies his wounds, takes responsibility for his relationships, and finds meaning in suffering. It is the man who refuses to be ruled by anger, shame, fear, lust, resentment, or despair. It is the man who becomes strong enough to be gentle, honest enough to be vulnerable, disciplined enough to change, and humble enough to ask for help.

My work with men is not anti-man in the slightest! After being on the receiving end of anti-man therapy, I’d never subject anyone to therapy that judges them based on social narratives. It is not built on shaming masculinity, blaming men for everything, or turning therapy into a weekly seminar on why your existence is problematic. I work from a direct, practical, psychodynamic, existential, family systems, cognitive-behavioral, performance-based, and meaning-centered approach. I believe men need accountability, but also dignity. Challenge, but also respect. Emotional honesty, but not performative softness. Strength, but not emotional constipation pretending to be discipline.

If you are tired of carrying everything alone, tired of being misunderstood, or tired of being told that the parts of you that made you strong are the same parts that make you broken, come work with me. You are not toxic because you are male. You are not weak because you need help. You are a man who may need guidance, structure, truth, healing, and purpose. That is the path of the Warrior Monk. And that is exactly the kind of work I am here to do.

References:

Alam, N. (2025). Biases against Men in Couples Therapy. https://doi.org/10.32388/substack.p9y3xx

APA Guidelines for Psychological Practice With Boys and Men. American Psychological Association. (2017d). https://www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf

Mental health by the numbers. National Alliance on Mental Illness. (n.d.). https://www.nami.org/mental-health-by-the-numbers/

Nelson, J. (2025, July 26). The warrior, the monk, and the scholar. Tactics Total Wellness. https://tacticstotalwellness.com/the-warrior-the-monk-and-the-scholar/

Shepherd, G., Astbury, E., Cooper, A., Dobrzynska, W., Goddard, E., Murphy, H., & Whitley, A. (2023). The challenges preventing men from seeking counselling or psychotherapy. Mental Health & Prevention, 31, 200287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mhp.2023.200287

Understanding men’s mental health: From awareness to action. Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA). (n.d.). https://adaa.org/find-help/by-demographics/mens-mental-health

Whitely, R. (2019, February). Why the APA guidelines for men’s Mental Health are misguided. Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-men/201902/why-the-apa-guidelines-mens-mental-health-are-misguided