Is It Time to Treat 'Male' Mental Health?

The great reckoning taking place in America about male behavior and men in general leads to a question: What is male mental health and what can we, as a profession of mental health clinicians, do to promote better mental health in men? I am Dr Drew Ramsey, reporting for Medscape Psychiatry. I am an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University in New York City.

In my clinical practice, I see a lot of men. I found this somewhat surprising in my early days of practice because we [mental health care professionals] often think of the therapeutic room as a place where we see more women. After all, the statistics tell us that twice as many women as men become depressed,^[1]but maybe one of the reasons for this disparity is that we have not focused on male mental health at all. Think about it. We have female mental health care centers at every major academic institution in America, yet I could not find a single male mental health care center. This is very concerning when you look at some of the mental health statistics. For example, of the 40,000 annual suicide-related deaths in America, roughly 78% were white males.