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Men in Therapy

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Factual: Health & Wellbeing

23/04/2010

BBC Radio 4 - Men in Therapy

Tim Samuels explores why increasing numbers of metropolitan males are turning to therapy.

Tim Samuels explores why increasing numbers of metropolitan males like him are turning to therapy and asks what is driving a particular kind of man onto the couch.

Tim Samuels is your average professional, metropolitan, 30-something man, and like so many of his male friends and colleagues, he has found the need to bare his soul to a therapist.  

"Sometimes, it's hard to be...a man" - as country singer Tammy Wynette never said. But metrosexual, madeover, new man Tim senses that men are finally turning away from squash and beer to relieve the tensions of modern life - and heading for therapy.  Why?  What is driving a particular kind of man onto the couches the shrinks?

Tim explores the different kinds of therapy men turn to to help them cope with the stresses and strains of their lives. He talks to the practitioners and the users as well as historians and academics about the challenges facing the modern male and looks at the positive and negative effects of therapy for men. He compares therapy in all its different guises - from brief, function based Cognitive Behavioural Therapy to long-term analysis and  personal and motivational development. He wants to find out why there is still a stigma attached to men being in therapy and whether men are admitting to going to a therapist - especially to each other. Is this trend for therapy among men a sign that male repression coming to an end? Tim delves into male psyche, and his own to find out.

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