Engendered Expressions of Anxiety: Men's Emotional Communications With Women and Other Men.

Brendan Gough,Hannah Luck,Steven Robertson

doi:10.3389/fsoc.2021.697356

Abstract

While the contemporary therapeutic discourse inveigles us to talk about our personal problems, a countervailing neo-liberal healthist discourse, aligning with conventional masculinity norms, presumes that we will manage any issues independently. This discursive tension can be difficult to navigate, especially for men confronted with still powerful traditional expectations around masculinity (e.g., self-reliance; personal control; restricted emotionality). Although qualitative research has examined how men negotiate masculinities with respect to depression, to date there has been scant attention focused on men experiencing anxiety. This article reports on an interview study with men, some with anxiety diagnoses and some without (N = 17). Thematic analysis highlights that participants can and do talk about their anxieties, most readily with significant women in their lives (e.g., partners; mothers)–although this is not always straightforward. Talking to other men was more fraught, and while participants were wary of sharing problems with male friends, or signaled issues indirectly, they also highlighted situations where they would open up e.g., workspaces where they felt safe; with best friends. Those who had gone through a therapeutic process over many years tended to me more comfortable talking to others, male or female, about their mental health–and were also keen to other support to others where they could. Our analysis suggests that despite stereotypical notions of silent, self-contained men, there are many contexts where men may feel comfortable sharing their stories of pain and suffering. This chimes with wider cultural changes and the reported experiences of some mental health initiatives.

Highlights

According to the 2013 Global Burden of Disease study, anxiety is the second most commonly diagnosed mental health problem worldwide (Vos et al, 2013), with approximately 264 million people thought to suffer from anxiety globally (World Health Organization (WHO), 2017)
Gender differences in the statistics relating to mental health are widely recognised, with women understood to be twice as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or depression throughout
Researchers have suggested that the lower prevalence rates of common mental health problems in men do not mean that men experience depression or anxiety less overall

Summary

Introduction

According to the 2013 Global Burden of Disease study, anxiety is the second most commonly diagnosed mental health problem worldwide (Vos et al, 2013), with approximately 264 million people thought to suffer from anxiety globally (World Health Organization (WHO), 2017). Researchers have suggested that the lower prevalence rates of common mental health problems in men do not mean that men experience depression or anxiety less overall Rather, their expressions of symptoms are constrained by hegemonic masculinities that privilege practices such as selfreliance and restrictive emotionality (Addis and Mahalik, 2003; Mahalik and Rochlen, 2006; Robertson et al, 2016). Given the association between depression and suicide (Zhang and Li, 2013; Luo et al, 2016), it is perhaps unsurprising that the overwhelming majority of research has focused on how men experience and manage depression (e.g., Oliffe et al, 2016; Lee et al, 2017; Seidler et al, 2018) This focus has meant that other important common mental health problems, anxiety, have been relatively unexplored in gender and mental health research. Recent research by Drioli-Phillips et al (2020a), Drioli-Phillips et al (2020b) has examined how men talk to each other about anxiety online and highlights the importance of presenting credible accounts, with anxiety characterised as loss of control

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Conclusion