“I’m used to getting everything I want. But recently, it seems to me more and more often that I am going in the wrong direction, ”one successful manager of 37 years explained his condition to me. Accustomed from childhood to live in a world where a man must always be ready to repel a blow or inflict it himself, until recently he believed that only this path leads, if not to complete happiness, then at least to a state of satisfaction with life.
More recently, it was believed that psychotherapists were treated predominantly by women. If a man ended up in a psychologist’s office, then most likely at the request of his wife or girlfriend. But here is a sign of recent years: men appeared in our reception rooms who came there on their own, on their own initiative. Who are they?
One might assume that these people are in that difficult period, which is commonly called the “mid-life crisis.” But the age of those actively seeking help ranges between 25 and 50, a much wider range. As a rule, they are accomplished and quite wealthy people: after all, therapy is not a cheap pleasure. Surrounding people are most often sure that these people are lucky, because they are doing well. This is generally true. The paradox lies in the fact that they go to psychotherapists for advice precisely because they have managed to realize all or almost all of what they themselves dreamed about ten years ago.
Now they write and talk a lot about the crisis of traditional male values, which prescribe to win, not to negotiate, to destroy, not to transform. These principles have served us faithfully for several thousand years: without the masculine desire to conquer spaces and circumstances, humanity probably could not have reached the level of progress at which we are now. But the fact is that the problems that progress brought with it can no longer be solved using the same masculine principle of “win and master”. So, for example, ethnic conflicts can no longer be resolved with the help of force. And in the field of big politics, qualities that have traditionally been considered feminine are now more in demand than ever: the ability to build relationships, to make compromises. This unconscious need for a change of orientation is becoming more and more clear.
“I’m used to getting everything I want. But recently, it seems to me more and more often that I am going in the wrong direction, ”one successful manager of 37 years explained his condition to me. Accustomed from childhood to live in a world where a man must always be ready to repel a blow or inflict it himself, until recently he believed that only this path leads, if not to complete happiness, then at least to a state of satisfaction with life. And so he conquered, won, ran first, took possession, but all this only increased his loneliness. “You don’t even know when your daughter first fell in love,” the wife of another client of mine reproaches.
Attempts to fix things in the usual ways (buy a new car, remarry, etc.) do not help in such a situation. Today, men (and all of us) need something different. One way to understand what this “other” is is through therapy. I think many of them go to psychotherapists in search of a new meaning and a new way to master reality. And in general, this is good news for all of us.