
18 Jan The Seven Male Attributes (ALON GRATCH) | Part A’
The first two male attributes which I explore in this book explain why it’s so hard for men to talk about their feelings. These elements are discussed first because they are used by men as psychological defenses to guard against the emotional pain associated with the other five elements. Our path will thus simulate the progression of a therapeutic relationship, or of any close relationship: from the outside to the inside, from appearance to substance, from guarded inhibitions to comfortable expositions.
The first male element is simple, yet profound. Shame (boys don’t cry) refers to the most common reason men do not indulge in emotional dialogues. We all know what shame feels like — it’s disturbingly painful. What we don’t always realize is how destructive it can be. In relationships, for example, men often project their own performance shame onto their partner. They do so by criticizing her appearance, by requesting that she wear certain clothes, or by demanding that she wear her hair a certain way when they go out. In this kind of interaction, the man is trying to get rid of feelings of shame over his own sense of inadequacy by insisting that his partner shine, so that he can feel better about himself in her reflection. The woman in this situation feels controlled and evaluated. Worst of all, she ends up feeling ashamed about her own (bodily) imperfections. When the circle of projection is thus completed (she ends up feeling what he felt at the beginning of the interaction), a terrible fight ensues. She accuses him of being critical and controlling and he accuses her of being sensitive and defensive. Clearly, this type of fight can be avoided if, at the outset, rather than focusing on his partner’s performance, the man has the self-knowledge and the facility to say something to the effect of “I felt inadequate at work today.” In the absence of such self-knowledge, the fight can still be avoided if the woman, in her own self-interest, comes to the man’s help.
While breaking down the shame barrier helps all men to open up, most men have yet a deeper, even more troubling resistance to the language of feelings. This is the second male attribute, Emotional Absence (I don’t know what I feel). Here, we are on a more complicated terrain where the usual psychological tools don’t necessarily work. For example, the rather uninspiring question “How does that make you feel?” which many therapists (and I hate to admit, myself included) resort to in desperation or for lack of imagination, is particularly useless here. The typical male response to such a question is, “I think…,” to which the therapist might say, “That’s not a feeling.”
Men’s proclivity to live in their heads and to distance themselves from their feelings is an obvious liability in intimate relationships. But it can also be a subtle yet devastating problem in business situations. For example, one young investment banker was “sent” to therapy by his fiancée, who was concerned about his workaholic tendencies. When he came to see me he had already amassed eight million dollars. But within two years, he gambled it all away in risky investments. Because he was incapable of feeling any fear or anxiety when making business decisions, he couldn’t calibrate the degree of risk involved. Remarkably, after losing everything, including his job and office, he was able to use his cell phone (from a bench in the park!) to raise new capital and to bounce back — until his next and final fall, at which point he also lost his fiancée.
As for relationships, whereas the shame barrier to communication can be broken relatively quickly, the problem of emotional absence does not yield itself to a quick fix. What to do when someone doesn’t feel? Part of the solution is to look for feelings where they are, not where they are not; to nurture and welcome any feelings, even such unpleasant ones as anger or depression.
The other part of the solution is to learn to accept, even admire, the appearance of strength which comes with that dull male calmness, and to join men’s emotional experience in their own domain. For example, in working with a business executive, rather than ask him about his feelings regarding the lack of intimacy in his marriage, I will start by inquiring into his strategy for his upcoming meeting with the company’s CEO. From there we’ll go into what’s important about this meeting, why his career’s so important to him, and what is life all about anyway. This will lead to a discussion of what’s missing from his life, which invariably will uncover the quiet pains of his marriage. So you can see that such words as “strategic thinking” and “negotiation tactics,” which are practically aphrodisiac for some men, can be a pathway to words of intimacy. This may sound like a manipulation, but it’s not. It’s not, because I genuinely care about the patient’s strategy for the meeting. Not that I am so interested in the business outcome of the meeting or even in the patient’s career. What I am interested in is the patient’s mind and how it works. And I don’t mind starting with the intellectual part: if you can’t beat the enemy, join it.
If Men Could Talk: Translating the Secret Language of Men
Alon Gratch