Textbook of Men's Mental Health

Abstract

Textbook of Men's Mental Health edited by Jon E. Grant and Marc N. Potenza. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Press, 2007,417 pp. There are many ways a textbook of health might approach its subject matter. It might, for example, examine recent studies literature on social construction of masculinity (Levant & Pollack, 1995) and its implications for emotional well-being. In doing so, attention would be given to how male gender role restricts optimal potentials and sometimes produces behavior disordered enough to be labeled A second approach might start with recognized categories of illness and identify differing epidemiologies and symptom expressions between sexes. The present volume takes second tack since in first paragraph of Introduction uses terms mental health concerns and interchangeably, and although it strives to cover both approaches, it primarily succeeds in its efforts to explore the clinical presentation and treatment of various psychiatric disorders in (p. xiii). As such, most of material reads very much like an expansion of DSM-IV-TR, with great of attention paid to rates, clinical courses, and co-morbidities of specific psychiatric disorders. It is a worthy ambition to provide greater attention to previously recognized male and female differences in psychiatric disorders. This is, however, an inherently limited approach to broad subject of health, since it restricts attention to those men with diagnosed psychiatric pathology, so that what we have here is a textbook of men's illness. In fairness, however, editors have made efforts to incorporate life-span and sociocultural perspectives, thereby addressing matters relevant to non-clinical male populations. Some of chapters are very well done, but some of them are not. Before discussing merits of various chapters, a few additional comments are needed on textbook's adoption of a DSM-IV-TR conceptual framework. First, a common challenge of this psychiatric diagnostic system is need to deal with co-morbidity and overlapping of diagnostic categories (for example, depression and anxiety disorders). The issue is important since much material presented is redundant (for example, anxiety disorders with depression; substance abuse with antisocial personality disorder; impulse control disorders with sexual disorders). A more fruitful approach would be one that integrates these symptom expressions with a broader coverage of developmental issues, coping styles and help-seeking patterns. second, any approach to health that begins by looking primarily at characteristics of men with psychiatric diagnoses cannot pay enough attention to critical issues of men who fly under radar. That is, there are many more men whose lives are impaired by depression, anxiety, sexual problems, and substance abuse than those reflected in even best epidemiological statistics. The book's final chapter on stigma and barriers to health treatment for men is superb. The authors generate a broad theoretical model to account for underutilization of health services. The model incorporates general socio-psychological principles of stress and coping with more specific theories of masculinity ideology. It is unfortunate that, although many of text's authors make reference to this chapter, few incorporate its perspectives into their own chapters. The book makes an effort to address life-span issues by including separate chapters on childhood, adolescence, and older men. No rationale is provided for omission of mid-life period. The chapter on childhood includes interesting observations about problems resulting from boys' delayed language development, attachment issues, and rough and tumble play style. It does not pay much attention to special qualities of boy culture (Rotundo, 1993) or role of bullying and trauma in young lives (Lisak, 2005). …