ABSTRACT
We believe that the roots of masculine depression style are in the man’s family of origin. What a boy learns about himself and about relationships with other people is very often different from what a girl learns, even when both are raised in the same family. We will demonstrate how boys experience unique mother-son relationships and unique father-son relationships, and how they begin to develop the defenses that they will later use in the gender socialization pro cess. These experiences result in unnecessary and unnatural limita tions in men’s intimate relationships as adults. In this chapter, we will present a model for understanding the origins of masculine depres sion, beginning with a view of family development through a gender perspective.
