Men's Mental Health Specialist Training

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Program Information

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Jett Stone, PhD Related seminars and products

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Jett Stone, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and leading voice in men’s mental health, helping men develop emotional depth, resilience, and connection. He is the author of Quiet Your Mind: A Men’s Guide and the voice behind the blog Souls of Men, exploring the inner lives of men. Dr. Stone earned degrees from the University of Michigan (B.A.) and Columbia University (M.S., M.A.) before completing his PhD in clinical psychology at Adelphi University, followed by clinical training at the Manhattan Veterans Affairs Hospital, focusing on PTSD in combat veterans. He is the founder of a psychotherapy practice in Connecticut, where he works with individuals and couples and supervises trainees. He frequently shares his expertise on masculinity and fatherhood through podcasts and media, including The New York Times, CNN, The Guardian, and Fortune. Dr. Stone is also a founding contributor to the US launch of the Men’s Therapy Hub, a new global platform advancing access to care for men and training for therapists working with male clients. He provides workshops and clinical trainings on effective, culturally attune strategies for engaging male clients – particularly those who, in previous generations, would not have sought therapy – equipping therapists to build motivation, foster emotional insight, and create lasting change.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Jett Stone maintains a private practice and has employment relationships with Men's Therapy Hub and Work Haven. He receives royalties as a published author. Dr. Stone receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Jett Stone is an expert contributor with Psychology Today.

 

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Program Information

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Objectives

1. Identify key issues affecting men’s mental health, including stigma, emotional suppression, self-reliance, and high dropout rates. 
2. Examine how traditional masculine ideologies and ideas about “toxic masculinity” shape men’s mental health. 
3. Develop a clear way to introduce therapy that resonates with men to build rapport. 
4. Choose gender-responsive therapeutic techniques to tailor language, treatment style, and interventions to meet men where they are. 
5. Develop strategies to navigate withdraw, avoidance, and anger without losing the working relationship. 
6. Determine readiness for therapy and create realistic goals based on motivational interviewing stages of change. 
7. Identify common misconceptions about therapy and provide a transparent roadmap of the therapy process. 
8. Utilize ACT and EFT to work with anger, emotional withdraw, emotional restriction, and suicidal ideation. 
9. Examine the psychological undercurrents of modern challenges, including isolation, video game immersion, and compulsive pornography use. 
10. Utilize reflective exercises, role plays, and case studies to bridge theory and real-world practice. 
11. Determine assessment and intervention techniques for men’s specific presentations of anxiety, depression, and trauma. 
12. Choose strategies for crisis intervention and suicidality specific to men.

Outline

What Men Need in Therapy

• How traditional psychotherapy underserves men
• Break “The Man Box” and explore the Masculine Mystique
• From gender roles to gender role strain
• Drop-out rates, “triangulations,” stigmas, and suicide risks
• How men view help-seeking
• Toward a positive masculinity framework
• Ethics, risks, limitations
• Exercises: Man Box Defusion & Self-As-Context, “Competency One” Sentence Completion

Treatment Planning Through a Gendered Lens Using Stages of Change and ACT

• Motivational assessment using the stages of change model
• ACT Primer
• Honor strengths with ACT’s “creative hopelessness”
• Balance traditional masculinity using functional analysis
• Recognize when masculinity is healthy vs. immature/destructive/restrictive
• Diverse masculinities in America
• Exercises: Case Study, Design a treatment plan

Gender-Responsive Techniques & Practical Strategies That Cut Across Modalities

• Harness the working alliance to go deeper
• Make therapy user-friendly for diverse masculinities
• Why “How does that make you feel?” won’t land
• “Benevolent Confrontation”
• Interventions when therapy feels “alien”
• Help men identify feelings using the Mood Meter and Ruler Method
• Target the body to help men feel deeper
• Exercise: Deepening questions to foster “creative hopelessness” with patients in the pre-contemplative and contemplative stages of change in beginning sessions

Expect and Navigate Inexpressiveness

• What doesn’t work when managing blocks/avoidance
• Emotionally Focused Therapy (EFT) primer
• How to engage men who withdraw
• The benefits of distance and the cost of disengagement
• Paint a vision that encourages future investment
• Use EFT’s RAVES Technique
• Gary Brooks’ Ten Provocative Thought Questions
• Role Play: RAVES, Case Vignette: Dan – The Officer Who Can’t Cuddle

Expect and Navigate Intensity and Anger

• Why men need to know you can handle their intensity
• The evolutionary & psychological role of anger
• Match the intensity of men and maintain your boundaries
• Understand your countertransference
• Identify emotions, underlying anger, reappraisal, and mindfulness
• Role Play: Handling Anger in Session, Case Vignette: Alan – When Anger Is Overwhelming

Masculinity, Substance Use, and Suicidality

• Unique factors in suicide risks with men
• The silent suffering and emotional isolation
• Shame & the “Burden” narrative: how “neediness” fuels despair
• Strategies for engaging suicidal clients
• Address thwarted belongingness
• Crisis planning for men
• Ethics, risks, limitations
• Case Vignette: “Chen”

Reconnect the Modern Young Man: Video Games, Porn & Solitude

• The digital lives of young men
• Small steps to behavioral activation
• Gaming as connection, escape, and mastery
• Pornography & emotional disconnection
• Meeting compulsions with curiosity, not shame
• Solitude vs. loneliness
• Strategies to construct a bridge through mens’ interests
• Case Vignette: Leo – The Client Who Lives Online and discussion

Recognize Diagnostic Presentations

• Anxiety disorders: Low perceived control, somatic symptoms, rumination
• Depressive disorders: More in depth externalizing behaviors
• Body Dysmorphic Disorder: Muscle dysmorphia, obsessive exercise, dietary habits, and hair loss
• Trauma and stressor-related disorders: Identify emotional numbing, aggression, hypervigilance, avoidance, and substance misuse
• Substance use disorders: problematic alcohol use and masculinity expectations

Support Engaged Fatherhood

• The benefits of involved fatherhood
• Paternal mental health challenges, risks and interventions
• Encourage shared household labor and parenting responsibilities
• Fathers’ unique impact on resilience, EQ, empathy, and self-regulation
• The future of fathering and the workplace

Target Audience

• Counsellors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Addiction Counsellors
• Case Managers
• Physicians
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals