 Hey, what's up, men? I've got a new prize to show you. This is my documentation of Continuing Education Credit from the American Psychological Association for their online course on their first ever guidelines for practice with men and boys. And I don't mean to brag, but I did get 100% on the exit exam, so I went ahead and gave myself a smiley face sticker and I framed it. And if you got the sense that I'm taking this less than seriously, you're right. So let me hang this bad boy up and we'll talk about what's going on. An interesting article came out in the APA Monitor this month. Now the APA Monitor is the magazine of the American Psychological Association, which is the national professional organization that is supposed to represent and guide psychologists like myself. The title of the article is APA Issues First Ever Guidelines for Practice with Men and Boys. The purpose of the article is just to announce that the APA has now this very brief online Continuing Education that psychologists can take to familiarize themselves with these new guidelines. We'll call the article Exhibit A. Exhibit B is the actual set of guidelines. We'll look at both of them, but I want to tell you right up front where I stand on this. These guidelines are ideologically driven and they're dangerous. Let's start with Exhibit A. The article in the monitor starts off by talking about how men are overly privileged and were violent and were overly represented in positions of power and we are the beneficiaries of this conspiracy called Patriarchy, which is never defined. And yes, we may face some hardships, but that's our own damn fault. And as you read into the article, there's this one line that has gotten a lot of attention on social media and I want to read it to you. The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance, and aggression is on the whole harmful. How do you even begin to deconstruct that level of prejudice? And especially when they tell you that everything that follows is going to prop up this prejudice. It's a ridiculous statement to say that these qualities, which by the way are just qualities, they have upsides and they have downsides. To say that they're harmful on the whole is just absurd. It's no different than saying that feminine qualities are harmful on the whole. And it's a stupid statement because while these qualities may certainly have caused hardship in some individual lives and on a societal level, they also are largely responsible for the nice, safe society that these academics are working in and the nice cozy building that's shielding them from the elements and providing them with water and power as they write these words. That's also a result of traditional masculinity, which by the way I think is just code word for conservative values. But I don't want to discuss the ups and downs of male traits. I want to focus on how these guidelines were built because they were not built on anything resembling science. They certainly were not built on any concern for men. They're built on ideology and in particular they're built on a radical anti-male feminist ideology that I am now supposed to inflict upon my clients. Let's move on to Exhibit B, the actual guidelines. And I want to give credit where credit is due because there are a couple of places in the guidelines where the APA actually give men a fair shake. One of those areas is fatherhood. And frankly, I expected that if the APA was going to discuss men and children in the same paragraph, they would focus exclusively on abusers and pedophiles, but they didn't do that. They talked about the benefits that children gain from having intact relationships with their fathers. And that was nice. And it was a nice recap of the literature. Another area where they're almost fair with men is in acknowledging that men can be the victims of domestic violence. But this is one of those areas where their ideology really seeps through and it stinks to high heaven. For example, here's what I mean. When they talk about men behaving badly, they're meticulous with their statistics. Man, they got their numbers nailed down. But when it comes to men being on the receiving end, and particularly when it comes to women behaving badly and mistreating men, suddenly the statistics seem to elude them. For example, they completely ignore the readily available and very reliable data from the Centers for Disease Control about the prevalence of domestic violence between men and women. And that data says that, yes, men are more intense when they're violent. They're scarier and they're more dangerous and they do more damage. And it's a bad scene when men get violent. But women are more frequently violent, and they are more frequently psychologically aggressive. Particularly, they turn more often to coercive control methods than men by a pretty large number. These numbers seem to have vanished from the APA's attention. Now they do quote the Centers for Disease Control elsewhere several times. I think they quote them about four times, but never where it conflicts with their ideology. So what do we get instead in the area of domestic violence? We get the Duluth model. Now I'm not going to deconstruct the Duluth model here because I've done it elsewhere, but I will summarize it for those who aren't familiar by saying that the Duluth model was never built on statistics or research. It is a supposed way of explaining and treating domestic violence that was based exclusively on the opinions of a small group of very angry feminists damn near 50 years ago. And it has permeated psychology and the legal system like a cancer. But if you really want to understand what causes violence between people, the Duluth model has nothing to offer because there's no data behind it. It's purely theoretical and it's purely ideological. It's bankrupt when it comes to actually explaining and treating violence, but it's good enough for the APA because it fits with the ideology and we can sum up their belief in this system, their faith in this Duluth model with this sentence that comes out of the guidelines. Feminist scholars have argued that some men use violence and control in relationships as a way of maintaining sexist beliefs and dominance over women. Yes, this is true. Lots of people have argued lots of things. I didn't know that I was supposed to build my clinical interventions around argumentation and opinion. I thought it was supposed to use reliable data and research, but apparently not when it conflicts with the APA's approved ideology. I could spend weeks deconstructing these guidelines and the quality of the research that goes into them. But as Solzhenitsyn said, to taste the ocean, you only need one gulp. So let's get to the point. What is the purpose of these guidelines? Is it treatment? No, there's nothing in here about treatment. It's about advancing ideology. And that becomes readily apparent in guideline number three, where the APA charges psychologists with understanding the impact of power, privilege, and sexism on the development of boys and men and on their relationships with others. Again, nothing here about treatment. This is about me making sure that my clients know how powerful and privileged they are, whether or not that squares with their experience. And the money quote comes way down in the middle of page 10, and it reads like this. Indeed, awareness of privilege and the harmful impacts of beliefs and behaviors that maintain patriarchal power have been shown to reduce sexist attitudes and men and have been linked to participation in social justice activities. I take that to mean that the APA is creating a policy which compels psychologists to compel their clients to participate in a political agenda. Well, APA, I'm not going to participate in your agenda, and I'm going to give you three reasons just off the top of my head. Number one, it's unethical and it's dishonest because when people come to me with some kind of problem, they're looking for me to apply data and research and clinical experience to help them solve that problem in exchange for their time and their money. And if I don't provide that, if I provide anything less than a solution, then I'm taking their time and their money without offering anything in return. I find that to be unethical. Number two is I don't see it as my job to reshape society and reshape human nature. This is an interesting one because let's look at something like conversion therapy. If you don't know what it is, conversion therapy is this very unethical, very dangerous form of therapy where a gay or lesbian person will come to a psychologist and say, make me not gay or lesbian. The APA has rightfully said that this therapy is dangerous and it is not to be done. And they have rightfully pointed to the biological predisposition for homosexuality. I agree with all that, but now suddenly with masculinity, the APA are a bunch of blank slaters. Masculinity has no biological basis, apparently has no evolved adaptation that separate men from women. Suddenly now it's all just malleable and with the proper reeducation, a man can be taught to get past the basic problems of masculinity like competitiveness and aggression and so forth. A little bit of a double standard there. Number three, and this is probably the most compelling reason to me, is that I find it just plain predatory to take advantage of somebody who's approaching me in a moment of vulnerability looking for a solution to a problem and I'm supposed to capitalize on that vulnerability and advance my own agenda, whatever that may be. That's just creepy as hell and I'm not going to do it. And you might be saying at this point, John, you're getting a little carried away. How do you know that the APA is asking you to use your position to advance their ideology? And the answer is I don't. I know what I read. I can't read their minds. I can only read their words and I know what they asked me to walk away with because I took the test to get my little certificate here that I'm so proud of. So let me give you a sense of the test questions because I think that's a reasonable indication of what they want clinicians to walk away with. Question number one is, as of 2018, what percentage of chief operating officers at Fortune 500 companies were men? Question two, in the 115th Congress of the US, what percentage was male? Question three, men commit what percent of homicides in the US and represent what percent of homicide victims? And it goes on in that vein. There are a couple of questions related to things like prevalence of suicides. But for the most part, it is this ideologically driven, you're a member of the patriarchy, you need to understand how privileged you are. So let's say that I take this approach to the clinic and let's say that somebody walks into my office and says, hey, Sean, I'm feeling a little suicidal. Well, why do men get suicidal? Well, there are as many reasons for suicidal ideation as there are men. But if you're looking for an overarching theme, men become suicidal when they feel like their problems are overwhelming and they have no way to solve it. They feel powerless and hopeless. Now, if I approach them with this and I say, hey, Mr. Suicidal Man, you know what your problem is? Your problem is you're too privileged. Let me lay some mad stats on you and knock you down a couple of pegs. You think that's going to help? I don't. So man, this video is not a message from me to the APA because I know they're not listening to me. I'm just one person. And worse than that, I'm a man. I smoke cigars and I tell dirty jokes and I'm sure that they don't want me contaminating their ideological purity. The video is a message from me to you because I've heard a lot of you guys on social media saying that you will never again trust the field of psychology. And all I can say to that is I don't blame you. I'm sorry. This is an embarrassment to me and I hope to persuade you that this policy doesn't represent most clinicians because there's a world of difference between the kind of ideologue who writes a policy like this and a clinician who's out there in the trenches day after day working with real people trying to solve real problems because by definition, if you're in that position, then you're in contact with people's humanity. And when you're in contact with their humanity, it's difficult to hold them in the kind of contempt that the APA seems to hold men in. But I know those clinicians are out there. I don't know them, but they're out there. I hear the stories. And now that the APA has codified their contempt into policy, I think it makes sense that on the off chance that any of you guys are out there struggling and you are willing to take a shot on a mental health worker that you should vet them for this issue. And I think it makes sense to talk to them on the phone and ask them point blank, do you think masculinity is toxic? Do you think masculinity is a problem? Ask it like that and ask it with a neutral tone. And if you get anything other than an automatic quick no, then just hang up the phone and move on to the next person. I want to leave you guys with one last thing here. As I'm sure most of you are aware, if you take a continuing ed class, you usually have the opportunity after you've taken the test to leave some feedback for the organization. And I left some feedback for the APA. I don't know if they're going to listen to it. I don't know if they're going to care, but I want you guys to know that I left it. And maybe I just want it in the public record. So if I turn up missing, you'll know to look for me in a shallow grave outside the APA headquarters. But here's what I told them. This first ever guidelines for practice with men and boys is nakedly ideological and is transparently hostile toward any man or woman who values masculinity, particularly those who hold, as you put it, traditional read conservative values. I believe these guidelines will be actively harmful as they will discourage men in need from seeking treatment. These guidelines have received much attention among men. So far, the effect seems to have been to sever whatever delicate threads of trust many of them had with our profession. The APA has sent a very clear message. Men are unwelcome in the dogmatically pristine halls of our temple. Please recant this mess before it causes direct harm to men and the families who depend on them. All right, guys, I don't know if this was useful, but hopefully it was the least entertaining. And I'll talk to you soon. Take care.