The Highly Sensitive Man

Finding Strength in Sensitivity

Tom Falkenstein

• Publisher: Citadel Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780806539348
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Personality in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Highly sensitive people think deeply, empathize instinctively, and behave in an ethical way that benefits everyone. Today, with the negative effects of "toxic masculinity" and aggressive behavior in evidence all around us, we need highly sensitive people—especially men—more than ever. Yet for men in particular, being highly sensitive brings distinct challenges, such as gender stereotypes that portray them as too emotional or not "manly" enough. Cognitive behavioral psychotherapist Tom Falkenstein offers the first psychological guide that specifically addresses highly sensitive men and those who care about them, and explores the unique advantages and obstacles they face. Drawing from his training with pioneer in the field Dr. Elaine Aron, and his own groundbreaking work, Falkenstein incorporates the most
up-to-date research on high sensitivity—what it is and isn't—how it relates to male identity, and provides one-of-a-kind advice and practical tools, including: · Self-assessment tests to measure high sensitivity
· Strategies to cope with overstimulation and intense emotions
· Exercises that enhance relaxation, mindfulness, and acceptance
· Advice on self-care and self-compassion
· Techniques to deal with situations that highly sensitive people often find difficult
· Interviews with men who have learned to live well with high sensitivity
· Insights into the key role that highly sensitive men have to play in today's world
Including an illuminating conversation with Dr. Aron, The Highly Sensitive Man is an invaluable book that will help redefine masculinity and reveal how high sensitivity can enrich men's lives, their communities, and the lives of those who love them.

PART I

The Phenomenon of High Sensitivity

CHAPTER 1

A Turning Point in Masculinity: The Importance of Highly Sensitive Men in Society

HAS THE TIME COME FOR male emancipation? And if so, then what would that emancipation look like? While feminism is experiencing its “fourth wave,” men seem to be having a much harder time dealing with themselves and their place in society. And yet anyone who follows current trends in the media will have noticed that questions around male identity and role models and men’s psychological well-being have been an increasingly common topic of discussion over the last few years. You only have to open a magazine or newspaper, turn on your TV, or open your browser to discover an ever-growing interest in stories about being a father, being a man, or how to balance a career with a family. Many of these articles have started talking about an apparent “crisis of masculinity.”

The headlines for these articles attempt to address male identity, but often fall into the trap of sounding ironic and sometimes even sarcastic and critical: “Men in Crisis: Time to Pull Yourselves Together,” ¹ “The Weaker Sex,”² “Crisis in Masculinity: Who is the Stronger Sex?”³ and “Search for Identity: Super-Dads or Vain Peacocks”⁴ are just a few examples. They all seem to agree to some extent that there is a crisis. But reading these articles, one gets the impression that no one really knows how to even start dealing with the problem, let alone what a solution to it might look like. One also gets the impression from these articles that we need to keep any genuine sympathy for these “poor men” in check: the patriarchy is still just too dominant to allow ourselves that luxury.

In this chapter, I want to begin by dealing with the question of how men are really doing in Western societies and to bring in some opinions and studies from the United States, Europe, and beyond. Because this is a book about highly sensitive men, I think it’s important that we clearly outline the social context in which men are currently living. This chapter is therefore, in the first instance, a plea for greater diversity in masculinity—a diversity I believe we need and that could represent a possible solution to our so-called “crisis of masculinity.” I’m also convinced that highly sensitive men have a key role to play in this long-overdue emancipation of men from classic stereotypes of masculinity, precisely because they challenge and therefore expand our image of the “typical strong man.”

Is Masculinity in Crisis?

Though it was founded in 1901, it took the renowned British Psychological Society until 2014 to dedicate a whole issue of its journal, The Psychologist, to the psychological health of men.⁵ This followed a series of discussions among politicians and in the media about an apparent “crisis of masculinity” that was raging in the country.⁶ But this recent interest in the male psyche and in male identity isn’t just a European phenomenon. In the United States, too, the term toxic masculinity, describing a particularly unhealthy form of male identity, has increasingly been doing the rounds.⁷ Indeed, one of the most influential psychologists of our time, Philip Zimbardo—who gained international notoriety for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment—devoted his last book to the male identity crisis.⁸ Toxic masculinity has also been addressed by British author Jack Urwin in his book Man Up: Surviving Modern Masculinity,⁹ and in Germany, the magazine Der Spiegel published a column dedicated to the topic, titled “It’s a Boy.” The author, Margarete Stokowski, wrote, “There’s an English term, ‘toxic masculinity,’ used to describe a form of masculinity based on dominance and violence that rejects emotions. It’s a problem that boys and men are constantly told that ‘real guys’ don’t cry, are highly, almost animalistically sexual, and crush anything that stands in their way. It’s a problem for both men and women. This is the form of masculinity that we need to address. Just because it’s widespread doesn’t mean that it’s natural.”¹⁰

So it seems everyone is talking about a “crisis in masculinity.” It is a crisis marked by men’s insecurity about their role in society, their identity, their values, their sexuality, their careers, and their relationships. ¹¹ At the same time, academics are telling us that “we know far less about the psychological and physical health of men than of women.”¹² Why is this?

Michael Addis, a professor of psychology and a leading researcher into male identity and psychological health, has highlighted a deficit in our knowledge about men suffering from depression and argues that this has cultural, social, and historical roots. If we look at whether gender affects how people experience depression, how they express it, and how it’s treated, it quickly becomes clear that gender has for a long time referred to women and not to men. According to Addis, this is because, socially and historically, men have been seen as the dominant group and thus representative of normal psychological health. Women have thus been understood as the nondominant group, which deviated from the norm, and they have been examined and understood from this perspective. One of the countless problems of this approach is that the experiences and specific challenges of the “dominant group,” in this case men, have remained hidden.¹³

As we have discussed, though, this is finally beginning to change, with men’s psychological health beginning to become part of our public discourse. What in the past was taken for granted is now being questioned. And perhaps it is precisely this questioning and the identification, analysis, and redefining that this entails, that is being understood as a crisis in masculinity and as a challenge to the “stronger sex.”

How Are Men Doing?

While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States. In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world.¹⁴ Men are more likely to suffer from addiction,¹⁵ and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don’t receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment.¹⁶

Young men are currently less academically successful at secondary school than young women. The number of men applying to university is now lower than the number of women applying,¹⁷ and a far higher number of men drop out.¹⁸ Men are also far more likely to be arrested. Ninety-three percent of people in prison are men.¹⁹ These are startling numbers.

Even in wealthy industrialized nations, men die on average around five to ten years earlier than women. Although the causes are potentially manifold, medical opinion increasingly points to lifestyle, behavior, and environment, rather than biological difference, as being the most likely reasons behind this disparity between the sexes. Indeed, Dr. Thomas Perls, a professor at Boston University’s School of Medicine, has been researching life expectancy for many years, and he believes that around 70 percent of this difference in life expectancy is due to lifestyle, behavior, and environment, with the remaining 30 percent being attributed to genetic or biological factors.²⁰ The conviction that lifestyle and behavior, rather than biological difference, are the reasons behind men dying earlier than women is also backed up by Dr. Marc Luy’s “cloister study.” His research shows that life expectancy among monks and nuns, who live in a nearly identical environment with a very similar lifestyle, is almost exactly the same. What’s more, the monks who took part in the study lived on average around four years longer than men in the general population. Luy believes that the reasons for this difference are rooted in the monastic lifestyle, which is based on a daily routine that is consciously organized and highly regulated, a healthier lifestyle, and lower levels of stress.²¹

If behavior and lifestyle do indeed have such a decisive impact on men’s psychological and physical health compared with simple biology, then this raises the question, What is influencing men’s behavior and the sometimes self-destructive lifestyle that results from it? The answer, to a very great degree, appears to lie in the socialization of men and the “masculine” values and norms that men consequently internalize and then express in their behavior.

When Is a Man a Man?

If we take a moment to ask ourselves what makes a man “manly,” that is to say, what the social expectations for men are, we will likely come up with different answers. I would assume, however, that many of us would name several classic, traditional masculine attributes: physical strength, stamina, emotional control, stoicism, independence, heterosexuality, drive, bravery, dominance, risk-taking, competitiveness, professional success, and sexual performance. In other words, we would probably describe, more or less, the typical image of the “strong man.” I suspect that words such as sensitive, emotional, delicate, or compassionate would come up less often.

Of course, we have been talking about the “new man” for decades, embodied by the likes of “metrosexuals” and style-conscious figures like David Beckham. There is no question that society’s ideas around male identity have changed over the past decades, and there are plenty of indicators to back this up. For instance, fathers now spend on average eight hours a week on childcare; this is three times as much as was reported in 1965. And they spend on average ten hours on household chores, up from four hours in 1965.²² And yet our image of “new men” is still heavily influenced by those classic, traditional attributes: professional success, stamina, status, performance, self-control, and heterosexuality. This is backed up by numerous psychological studies over the last forty years that tell us that, despite huge social change, the stereotypical image of the “strong man” is still firmly with us at all ages, in all ethnic groups, and among all socio-economic backgrounds. In the face of problems, men tend not to seek out emotional or professional help from other people. They use, more often than women, alcohol or drugs to numb unpleasant feelings and, in crises, tend to try to deal with things on their own, instead of searching out closeness or help from others.²³ A new metrosexual masculinity that focuses simply on external appearance and the existence of paternity leave in many countries (ninety-two countries, but not the United States) have done very little to change this.

The socialization of men, so essential to their identity, lifestyle, and behavior, seems to be a decisive part of the problem. When we talk about socialization, we mean the process of integrating and adapting to the society and culture that surrounds us, through, for instance, the family, school, friends, the church, or the media. Early on in his life, a boy will begin to take on those gender-specific behaviors, attitudes, values, norms, and ideologies that the society in which he is growing up deems to be masculine and acceptable. The unfortunately still popular blue onesie is just the beginning of this process and is a public symbol of a socialization that often takes far more subtle forms.

We know, however, that the internalization of particularly restrictive socially masculine norms can have negative consequences on how a man feels.²⁴ This happens when he begins to feel that the way he is does not fit with the way he thinks he should be. We call this “gender role strain” and “gender role conflict.” Both concepts are used to measure and describe the emotional stress and conflict that men feel when they suffer emotionally from internalizing restrictive and unachievable masculine norms.²⁵ Jim O’Neil, the psychology professor and pioneer who first described gender role conflict, described the concept as follows: “Gender role conflict (GRC) is defined as a psychological state in which socialized gender roles have negative consequences for the person or others.”²⁶ Psychologist Michael Addis also uses this concept in his work, showing that it is precisely those men who have strongly internalized traditional masculine norms and values—such as self-sufficiency, strength, and independence—who have a higher risk of suffering from depressive episodes and are less likely to seek professional help to deal with them.²⁷ It seems that old but still active adages such as “boys don’t cry” and men need to “keep a stiff upper lip” can actually be detrimental to men’s physical and mental health. Certainly, all men could benefit from loosening the restraints put on them by traditional masculine norms and values, but unfortunately, the fear of not being manly enough holds them firmly in place.

The Fear of Not Being Manly Enough

O’Neil believes that men’s fear of not appearing to be masculine enough—or even worse, feminine—is often the main source of the hard and rigid armor that men put on, or allow society to put on them. He argues that this fear of the feminine is connected to strong, negative feelings that are related to stereotypes about feminine values, beliefs, and behaviors and that these stereotypes are formed during our childhoods by parents, peers, and social norms. Men’s conscious and subconscious fear of the feminine has been a consistent theme in academic literature for years.²⁸

I often observe this in my work with male clients—men who quickly feel ashamed when they believe that they haven’t behaved in a way that, in their opinion, fits with the behavior of a “real man.” The process often begins in childhood. Shame is an intense emotion and a powerful tool of socialization. When we feel ashamed, we often connect this with a fear of being shut out, of no longer belonging to a group. Among prehistoric societies, this was a matter of life or death.

But when the internalization of traditional masculine values and ideals has reached such a pitch that it has clear and grave psychological and physical consequences, when it even leads to men dying earlier because they seek out medical help too late or are unaware that they’re even ill, when they won’t ask for help or confide in anyone else, then it is surely high time that we question and broaden our definitions of these traditional masculine values.

I believe that the highly sensitive man has a key role to play in this, because his inborn high sensitivity and the emotionality and subtlety of feeling that comes...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Introduction
• PART I - The Phenomenon of High Sensitivity
• PART II - Living (Well) as a Highly Sensitive Man
• APPENDIX - A Conversation with Elaine Aron About Highly Sensitive Men
• Endnotes
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author