PART 2
What makes the group safe enough for men to go against the deeply ingrained cultural pressure to white-knuckle life, repress feelings and dissociate from anything perceived as weak or vulnerable? There are many possible answers, but I believe these are the three most important:
- Commitment to confidentiality: Group is a larger, less controlled container than individual therapy, yet it is a container, nevertheless. It is a sacred honor to hold confidence regarding the men that we care about. This mutual agreement is crucial to the process.
- Consistent attendance: Even under the best conditions, trust is a slow growing plant that must be cultivated, nurtured and tended to. The men that consistently show up to group form powerful bonds of trust with each other and witness each other’s inner and outer lives in a unique way.
- Individual therapy: Members who are currently in therapy or have in the past made a commitment to their individual therapy are aware of the self-reflective capacities that are prerequisites to be a trusted group member.
What are the benefits of joining an ongoing men’s group? Each man would answer this question differently, but these are my top five:
- Connection: Inevitably, when a man shares something difficult, particularly issues of shame and worthiness, the other men relate, even though their context and narrative might be radically different. The relief of realizing that other men struggle with the same or similar issues helps break patterns of shame and isolation.
- Encouragement: Compassionate encouragement from other guys is particularly crucial for men who didn’t grow up with positive fathers or male role models. A feeling of acceptance from other men, not because we have repressed and hidden the challenging parts of ourselves, but quite the contrary, because we have shared them, is a necessary part of the healing process.
- Accountability: Trust and vulnerability encourage follow through in life outside of the group. When a man opens up and says something like, “I really need to share this difficult thing with my partner/parent/boss/child,” inevitably the following week, supportive and loving men are going to ask how it went.
- Healthy competition: The fact that men tend to have a competitive nature works to the advantage of deep work in men’s groups. When one man is courageous and vulnerable, other men are inspired to match his level of vulnerability. Competition has a light and a dark side. Men can challenge each other to dominate and humiliate, or challenge to support and strengthen.
- Emotional nuance and expression: Generally, men tend to have an on/off switch. We either withdraw/numb out or explode/act out, and often ping-pong erratically and reactively between the two. Group creates a third space to explore the possibility of showing up instead of withdrawing when confronting challenging emotional material.
Men are often accused of being unwilling to talk about their emotional lives. In many cases, this is a distortion of what’s actually happening. It’s not that men are unwilling, it’s that men are often paralyzed in the face of overwhelming emotions and have never had the encouragement or opportunity to develop enough awareness and language to even identify, much less communicate what they’re feeling. In many ways it’s like learning a foreign language as an adult. A second language cannot be improved without immersion and a million humbling conversations, just trying to make yourself understood. If men are not fluent in the language of emotion, they must have the opportunities to stumble, to struggle finding the words, and to be witnessed and understood. Group is the rehearsal space for men to learn and practice their own emotional language.
In his book From Wild Man to Wise Man: Reflections on Male Spirituality, Richard Rohr writes “We all need someone with inner authority who can let us know we are OK, that what we are going through is normal, and what battles are worth fighting. Sometimes we just need to hear from someone who believes in us, but who believes in us enough also to challenge us.” This gets to the heart of group work. The Center for Healing Arts and Sciences offers groups for men, women and teens as well as meditation and yoga groups and educational classes. Check out our website for more information.