ABSTRACT
This chapter explores one aspect of male personal life: how adult males respond to emotional problems. It examines data which show that men are less likely than women to seek help about emotional concerns. The chapter shows that the gender pattern recurs whether the problem is construed as individual, couple, or family based. It focuses on some of the explanations for the phenomenon of the so-called emotionally disengaged man or peripheral father. The chapter also focuses on therapist-male client interactions in the consulting room or clinic and considers the implications of engaging men in therapy, particularly family therapies. Finding out more about the specificity of men's relationships will illuminate psychological and social processes which maintain and recreate power differentials in families and other intimate systems. The chapter shows that therapists need to be sensitive to the consequences of this process, especially for women, and may have to utilize imaginative therapeutic strategies in this regard.
