I'm Good, Thanks (and Other White Lies Men Tell their Psychologist)

What men are carrying, and how a woman psychologist is learning to meet them where they are

I am a woman in my mid-forties. I have two daughters, a partner, and a private practice in Melbourne. When a man walks into my consulting room, he does not see someone who looks like him. He sees a woman, often of a different generation, in a profession that was not designed with him in mind. And increasingly, he comes anyway.

In 2023, there were 29,896 registered female general psychologists in Australia compared to 7,168 registered male general psychologists. That works out to approximately a 4.2:1 female-to-male ratio, or roughly 81% female and 19% male among general registrants. The AIHW's workforce data confirms this pattern, reporting that 80% of psychologists nationally are female.

Over the past two years, I have noticed a marked increase in men seeking therapy at my practice. Some are in their twenties, others in their fifties. They come in with relationship difficulties, workplace stress, identity confusion, anger they do not understand, or a quiet misery they struggle to name. What connects them across age is a particular quality of uncertainty. They are trying to work out their place in this world. The models available to their fathers and grandfathers feel outdated, and the cultural conversation about masculinity often sounds like an accusation rather than an invitation. They want to be good men, good people. They are questioning what that looks like in practice today.

The landscape men are navigating

The context matters, and the data paints a consistent picture across the lifespan. Australia’s Real Relationships Report 2025 found that nearly one in three Australians feel socially isolated, a figure that jumps to 58% among Gen Z. But isolation is not a young person’s problem. A 2025 population survey by Lim and colleagues,

published in the Health Promotion Journal of Australia, found that men aged 35 to 49 had nearly twice the odds of reporting severe loneliness compared to men aged 18 to 34. The Botha and Bower HILDA study (2024), drawing on over 20 years of longitudinal data, found that when a multi-item loneliness measure was used, loneliness among Australian men peaked in the mid-forties. It dipped around age 70, then rose again as health declined and partners were lost.

Across all age groups, certain factors were consistently associated with greater loneliness: social isolation, relationship dissolution, and rigid beliefs about traditional gender roles. Having a romantic partner was protective at every stage of life. For men in their working years, job security was particularly important: insecure and contract work discouraged investment in workplace friendships and left less time for socialising. For men beyond working age, volunteering and holding less rigid gender role attitudes were both protective, suggesting that the ability to adapt one’s sense of purpose and identity matters more as external structures fall away.

Movember and beyondblue’s joint research on men’s social connectedness found that half of Australian men rarely discuss personal matters with their friends. The reasons were consistent regardless of age, such as fear of breaking the stoic image, uncertainty about whether others could be trusted with their emotions, and a tendency to form friendships through shared activities that evaporated when circumstances changed. A man in his twenties loses contact with his university mates after graduation. A man in his fifties loses his social network along with his marriage. The mechanism is the same. Connection, for many men, is something that happens incidentally through structure, and when that structure shifts, the relationships go with it.

Relationships Australia NSW reported during Movember 2025 that a long-term study of more than 14,000 men found a significant rise in suicidal ideation following separation. International research on separation after age 50 suggests that divorced men experience greater loneliness than widowed men, likely because the social responses differ: a widower receives concern and support, while a divorced man is often expected to simply get on with it. Three-quarters of people who die by suicide in Australia are men.

Where men are looking for guidance

When men go looking for answers about how to handle rejection, build confidence, or navigate relationships, they increasingly find those answers online. Movember’s 2025 Young Men’s Health in a Digital World report, surveying over 3,000 men aged 16–25 across Australia, the UK and the US, found that 63% were regularly consuming content from masculinity influencers. Forty-three percent described it as motivating and 45% found it entertaining. But the same report identified a concerning paradox: men who regularly engaged with this content reported higher rates of psychological distress, including feelings of worthlessness (27% vs 23% of non-viewers), and were less likely to prioritise their mental health or to value social connection as part of success.

Dr Zac Seidler, Movember’s Global Director of Men’s Mental Health Research and a clinical psychologist at the University of Melbourne’s Orygen Institute, has described the appeal as rooted in an intolerance of uncertainty. Men are searching for clear answers, and the influencers provide certainty, even when that certainty is false. While the Movember data focused on men under 25, the underlying dynamic is not age-specific. I see it across my caseload. A young man arrives with language borrowed from online culture like 'tradwife' or describing 'looksmaxxing'. An older man arrives with insecurity about career status and his financial future, and the challenges of working for what he perceives to be a less experienced women (promoted for quota-filling). They are different challenges, but the underlying need is the same. They want to feel competent, worthy and connected. And they are looking for solutions.

Being a woman in the room

I want to talk honestly about something that comes up regularly in my practice, sometimes spoken, sometimes not. Many of my male clients have complicated feelings about women. Some have been hurt in relationships. Some carry anger they are ashamed of. Some have absorbed messaging, whether from online spaces or from decades of unexamined assumptions, that frames women as adversaries. And they are sitting across from a woman in a position of professional authority, being asked to be vulnerable. This is, clinically speaking, an extraordinarily rich therapeutic situation. It is also one that requires deliberate self-awareness.

A 2021 study by Seidler and colleagues, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, surveyed 421 Australian therapists about the challenges of working with male clients. Three themes emerged: men’s wavering commitment, therapists perceiving men as “ill-equipped” for therapy, and therapists’ own uncertainty. The researchers noted that much of what therapists attributed to fixed male traits was better understood as changeable, given the right conditions.

Movember’s randomised controlled trial of its Men in Mind training program, conducted with 587 Australian mental health practitioners, found that female therapists initially reported significantly lower confidence in working with male clients compared to male colleagues. After completing the evidence-based training, their confidence rose to match that of male practitioners, with no significant difference post-training.

I recognised myself in that confidence gap. I am a competent psychologist with signficiant experience, but when I sat with it honestly, I could see I had been less certain in my work with men than with other client groups. That recognition is part of why I enrolled in Men in Mind myself. The program, developed by Dr Seidler and funded by Movember, helps practitioners understand how masculinities interact with distress and develop practical, gender-responsive strategies. It is the first evidence-based training of its kind, and it has already shifted how I approach the men sitting across from me.

What I am learning about meeting men in the room

Since starting Men in Mind, I have made several deliberate adjustments informed by the research, the training, and the men themselves. These apply across my male caseload, though the emphasis shifts depending on the person.

First, pacing and directness. Men tend to prefer therapy that is action-oriented and goal-focused, rather than heavily weighted toward emotional disclosure in the early stages. I start where the client is, which often means practical problem-solving or structured skill-building. The emotional work comes when the man feels confident that we are doing something useful.

Second, language. Many men lack a working vocabulary for their internal experience. For some, this is a socialisation gap that reflects a generation of “toughen up” messaging. For others, particularly men who built their adult identities around provision and control, it is the product of decades of emotional suppression so thorough that the idea of having feelings about something, rather than just opinions, can be genuinely novel. Men in Mind dedicates specific attention to strategies for working with men who struggle to articulate their emotional world. I use body-based cues, scaling exercises and pattern-mapping rather than expecting clients to arrive fluent in the language of feelings.

Third, the therapeutic relationship. The literature on alliance with men suggests they develop stronger connections with therapists who remember personal details, treat them as individuals, and adopt a collaborative stance. The men who stay in therapy are the ones who feel I am genuinely interested in them as people.

Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, naming the gender dynamic openly. When a man is monitoring my reactions as he talks about anger, conflict with a partner, or the frustrations of dating, I will sometimes say something like, “You seem to be observing me closely right now. I wonder if there is a concern about how I am hearing you.” This tends to be deeply relieving. It communicates that I am aware of the dynamic and that his experience can be held without judgement, even by a woman who might, in his mind, be inclined to take the other side.

What men deserve

The men in my consulting rooms are not a threat, not a problem to be solved, and not ticking time bombs. They are ordinary, good people struggling with circumstances that would strain anyone. In May 2025, the Albanese Government appointed Dan Repacholi MP as Australia’s first Special Envoy for Men’s Health, a recognition that men and boys have specific health needs that deserve serious attention. The Australian Government’s 2024 partnership with the Movember Institute to promote healthy masculinity positions this work as preventive and strengths-based, designed to help men build the skills and confidence for healthy relationships.

The men I work with want a version of masculinity that is strong without being rigid, emotionally present without being performative, and capable of real intimacy. What they need varies with where they are in life. For some, it is structural, like affordable housing, secure employment, community spaces for genuine connection. For others, it is about rebuilding after loss, such as re-establishing identity beyond a career, learning to maintain friendships independently of a partner, finding purpose when life looks nothing like the one they planned. Across all of it, they need relational skills. The ability to sit with discomfort, to name what they feel, to repair after conflict, and to stay present when every instinct says to shut down, to name a few. Programs like Men in Mind exist because the profession recognised that therapists needed better preparation for this work. I am grateful to be doing that preparation now, alongside the men I am already seeing.

I do this work as a woman who is, depending on the client, the same age as a mother, a sister, daugther, a partner, or an ex-wife. I am not the obvious person for this job, and perhaps that is part of why it works. A woman who holds the line, who does not flinch at their anger, who does not confirm the fear that vulnerability will be punished, can be a corrective experience in itself. It gives them evidence, lived evidence, that they can show up fully and still be respected.

If any of this resonates with you, or with someone you know, reaching out to a psychologist is one of the most practical things you can do. There are many of us that care about understanding the unique needs and experiences of our male mates.

Resources

Behavioural Edge Psychology  –  www.behaviouraledgepsychology,com

Men in Mind (Movember practitioner training)  –  meninmind.movember.com

Movember  –  au.movember.com

beyondblue  –  www.beyondblue.org.au or 1300 22 4636

Lifeline  –  13 11 14 (24 hours)

MensLine Australia  –  1300 78 99 78

Man Cave  –  www.themancave.life

Top Blokes Foundation  –  www.topblokes.org.au

Frequently Asked Questions

Why are more men seeking therapy in Australia?

Men across all age groups are increasingly presenting to therapy with relationship difficulties, workplace stress, identity confusion, and a quiet distress they struggle to name. Contributing factors include rising social isolation (58% of Gen Z report feeling socially isolated), the decline of structured social networks through work and relationships, and growing awareness that traditional models of masculinity are no longer adequate guides. Australian data shows that men aged 35 to 49 have nearly twice the odds of severe loneliness compared to younger men.

Can a female psychologist effectively work with male clients?

Yes. Research by Seidler and colleagues (2024) found that after completing evidence-based training such as the Men in Mind program, female therapists' confidence in working with male clients rose to match that of male practitioners, with no significant difference post-training. A female therapist who understands how masculinity interacts with distress, names the gender dynamic openly, and adopts a collaborative, action-oriented approach can provide an effective therapeutic experience for men.

What is the Men in Mind training program?

Men in Mind is an evidence-based training program developed by Dr Zac Seidler and funded by Movember. It helps mental health practitioners understand how masculinities interact with distress and develop practical, gender-responsive strategies for working with male clients. A randomised controlled trial with 587 Australian practitioners demonstrated significant improvements in clinical competence and confidence following the training.

How does male loneliness differ across the lifespan in Australia?

Research using over 20 years of Australian longitudinal data found that male loneliness peaks in the mid-forties, dips around age 70, then rises again as health declines and partners are lost. Key risk factors across all ages include social isolation, relationship dissolution, and rigid beliefs about traditional gender roles. For working-age men, insecure employment discourages investment in workplace friendships. For older men, volunteering and holding less rigid gender attitudes are protective.

What therapy approaches work best for men?

Research suggests men tend to prefer therapy that is action-oriented and goal-focused rather than heavily weighted toward emotional disclosure in the early stages. Effective approaches include starting with practical problem-solving or structured skill-building, using body-based cues and scaling exercises rather than expecting emotional fluency from the outset, adopting a collaborative therapeutic stance, and naming the gender dynamic openly when it is present in the room.

References and Sources

• Botha, F. & Bower, M. (2024). Predictors of male loneliness across life stages: An Australian study of longitudinal data. BMC Public Health, 24, Article 1285.

• Bumble (2024). Global Dating Trends 2025. Bumble Inc.

• Department of Social Services (2024). Movember partnership to help young men to have healthy and respectful relationships. Australian Government.

• Forbes Health & OnePoll (2025). Dating App Burnout Survey. Forbes Health, July 2025.

• Lim, M.H. et al. (2025). Understanding loneliness as a preventive health priority among men: Findings from an Australian population survey. Health Promotion Journal of Australia.

• Movember Foundation (2025). Young Men’s Health in a Digital World. Movember Institute of Men’s Health.

• Arbes, V., Coulton, C. & Boekel, C. (2014). Men’s Social Connectedness. Report for beyondblue, funded by the Movember Foundation. Hall & Partners Open Mind.

• Real Insurance & MYMAVINS (2025). Real Relationships Report 2025. Sydney.

• Relationships Australia NSW (2025). When relationships end, men’s mental health can be at serious risk. Media release, November 2025.

• Seidler, Z.E. et al. (2021). Challenges working with men: Australian therapists’ perspectives. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 77(12), 2781–2797.

• Seidler, Z.E. et al. (2022). Protocol for a randomized controlled trial of the Men in Mind training for mental health practitioners. BMC Psychology, 10(1), Article 174.

• Seidler, Z.E. et al. (2024). A randomized wait-list controlled trial of Men in Mind: Enhancing mental health practitioners’ self-rated clinical competencies to work with men. American Psychologist, 79(3), 423–436.

• Seidler, Z.E. et al. (2025). Does therapist gender matter when working with men? Movember Institute of Men’s Health, Substack.

This article is intended for general information and psychoeducation purposes only. It does not constitute individual psychological advice. If you are experiencing distress, please contact one of the services listed above or book an appointment with a registered psychologist.

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