Counseling for Men in Arkansas
Give yourself permission to be the person you want to be.
Therapy for cisgender and transgender men and those assigned male at birth in Arkansas. Offering online counseling and Walk-Talk Therapy at Kessler Mountain Regional Park in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
You’re used to being a problem-solver. You get stuff figured out and get things done. You’re good at it.
And yet, there’s one person’s problems you can’t figure out… your own. You try to follow the rules to be a successful man, but the rules don’t make sense.
Have your feelings, but keep them under wraps and don’t let people see you struggle. Let it out, but only in ways that seem to make your problems worse. Be a strong figure but tender partner. Carry everyone’s load but don’t share your own. Be a good communicator, but keep the personal stuff to yourself.
It’s like you’re playing a game you can’t win. Then step out of line, break the “rules” and dare to admit you could use some help and you get a lot of advice that leaves you feeling clueless and like a failure.
Man up. Buck up. Suck it up. Quit your whining. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Get your head right and back in the game. Don’t get sad, get angry!
These messages don’t help. In fact, they make things worse.
Because it’s not just others saying this to you. It’s you saying this to yourself. It all gets in the way of everything you’re trying to deal with. You feel stuck, frustrated, and isolated. You feel like a shame, a failure. And it shows up in so many different ways.
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Who are the people you look to as heroes and models of the person you you think you're supposed to be? Do these feel really right for you?
Often, men are given role-models that are like masculinity on steroids. Like… sometimes literally on steroids. John Wayne. Indiana Jones. Dwane “The Rock” Johnson. Rocky. Rambo. Jason Bourne. Tony Stark. Thor.
You’ve been told a man is strong, independent, financially successful, rugged, a survivor, an individualist, tough-as-nails, no-nonsense, and a loner. He has a ripped bod, a glorious head of hair, a big knife, and a bigger truck. He gets in, gets the job done, and gets out. No complaints, No attachments. He rides off into the sunset before he can get attached to anyone with his theme song playing in the background and maybe even a fireball somewhere in there.
You’ve tried to hold yourself to that standard and maybe even succeeded in some ways.
And yet, you still feel like you fall short.
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Men in our society are often taught to hide those deeper and more vulnerable emotions. You’re stressed and worried about the future or finances. You spend so long feeling anxious that it wears you out and drags you into hopelessness and depression. You grieve things or loved ones lost and have no way to express it. You hate how you feel and you hate yourself for what you feel. You bottle it all up and try to put on a brave face.
The pressure builds as you keep it all in until it releases itself, loudly, explosively, even violently. Through your words or actions, you hurt others around you or even yourself. (Ever punched a wall?)
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Men are taught to show affection and support by their deeds rather than their words. This can lead to a breakdown in communication that has you feeling isolated from others, struggling to find a friend group that actually understands you, and misunderstandings in your relationships. You want to be heard but you can’t find the words.
The only way you know how to be supportive is to do things. You fix stuff, buy things, and try to help others by telling them what they need to do about their problems. You mean well, but somehow it all lands flat - leaving you confused as to how this whole social thing works.
You’ve probably also been taught that sex is the main way you find and express intimacy. Meaningful, non-sexual touch can be so important and yet it is denied to so many men, especially among other men. And when it is allowed, it comes with even more rules. Don’t get too close. Don’t hug too long. Clap each other hard on the back like you’re helping someone who is choking on a breadstick.
Sexual intimacy can also feel hollow, because you’ve been taught to focus on the physical act in a very narrow way. Part of you wants deeper connection in those times but you have no idea how to talk about sex, communicate during sex, or explore mutual pleasure and sensuality that go beyond the basics of what you’re taught and shown about sex.
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Issues related to erectile reliability, low sex drive, and premature ejaculation that have a medical cause are best addressed with a doctor.
Other times, however, mental factors and lifestyle issues can contribute to these problems. Performance anxiety, stress, depression, substance use, social stigmas around sensuality and kink, and internalized worries about your sexuality or gender identity take you out of the moment. You’re up in your head instead of connected with yourself, your body, and those special people there with you.
The adult entertainment industry also complicates things with unrealistic depictions of sex, masculinity, and intimacy. You may be holding yourself to unrealistic standards if these form the base of your ideas around “what it means to be a man” in the bedroom.
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You’ve spent a lifetime masking your emotions and pushing them down without even thinking. It’s a trained reflex and you’re so skilled at it that you’re practically a ninja when it comes to disconnecting from your feelings.
And yet, they’re there. You can sense them. You want to taste them. Life without them is drab and gray. You’d love to bring the color back into your life like when you were a kid, but you can’t imagine how.
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Growing up in a society, culture, or even family where emotional displays and experience were frowned on means you had to find ways to control those emotions. With no way to express everything you were feeling, you had to find other ways to cope.
Drugs and alcohol are common ways those raised as men try to dull the pain of their hurtful thoughts and feelings. Keeping people at a distance is another common one, not allowing yourself to “catch feelings” by limiting emotional connection and closeness. Distractions and outlets like video games, television, and pornography are also common tools for controlling emotions or giving them an outlet that are considered appropriate for men.
All of these battles go on inside of you, but they affect other areas of your life as well.
Being emotionally closed off affects the relationships you have and makes it hard to find new ones. Friendships are hard because men are told about “brotherhood” and the importance making friends but aren’t shown how to do that as adults. Your partners want something more from you emotionally, yet you don’t know how to give it.
Keeping everything to yourself builds up your stress and that affects your work, your sleep, and even the things you want to do for fun. Spending some time learning a new hobby or skill feels like a luxury you don’t have with everything you have to get done.
Your successes and achievements even start to feel hollow. Maybe you have a great job. Finances are good. Maybe you’ve been hitting the gym and making some solid gains.
Outwardly, life looks great. But inwardly, you feel like a shell or a sham. It’s like you’re just going through the motions and checking the boxes you’re supposed to check.
Somehow, it doesn’t quite feel like you.
“Mental health problems don’t define who you are. They are something you experience. You walk in the rain and you feel the rain, but you are not the rain.”
~ Matt Haig ~
The good news is, you can be the person you want to be!
What if you could throw off the chains of all of those scripts, checklists, and social messages you carry inside and choose the things that are really important to you? Imagine being able to attract the kind of people into your life that feed your desire for better connections, deeper friendships, and meaningful relationships. Picture yourself as the kind of person who is emotionally tuned into both yourself and others around you.
What would life be like for you if you could feel and recognize your emotions but also unhook from them and be a master of your responses? You could spend less time fighting against or running away from your emotions and more time living your life with the highs and lows of the human experience. You could bring the color and flavor back into life knowing that you’ll be able to choose how to respond and express yourself in ways that improve your life and relationships rather than make things worse.
Imagine being able to move through life, taking what comes with a solid sense of who you are, what you value, and what directions you want to go.
You have the power to define who you are.
Not society. Not your family. Not the marketing hype that tries to tie your identity to the products they want to sell you.
But that can look different depending on the relationship you’ve had, and want to have, with masculinity and manhood. Whether you’re a cisgender man, a transgender man, or a person who was assigned male at birth (AMAB) unpacking their own relationship with masculinity, you get to define the person you become.
But saying that and doing that can are different things. Our work together will challenge you to grow and do the hard work to change. It will be unique to you but may involve some common themes depending on your desired outcomes and personal challenges.
Ponder
We’ll start by creating a vision of the person you want to be and determining what stands in your way, such as internalized messages, anxieties, and the chains of the past.
Plan
From there, we’ll create a plan to help plot your course through it all with scalable goals. Our work will be based on the things you want to bring into your life more than the things you want to get rid of to give you a sense of hope for the future.
Progress
Together, we’ll build the skills you need to be the person you want to be. We’ll help you become more focused on the present and tied less to the past or future so you can live your life here and now. You’ll carry these skills out into the world for meaningful change beyond the therapy space.
Our work will provide the support and accountability to help you challenge yourself and move forward. But we’ll also honor the struggle and brainstorm how to recover when setbacks happen. Confidence isn’t the belief that nothing will ever go wrong, but your trust in your ability to handle yourself and be the person you aspire to be when things do get challenging.
Therapy for men’s issues can help you…
Understand your core values as a person.
Create your own unique framework for measuring your worth and success.
Develop better emotional intelligence.
Respond to your emotions and express yourself in constructive ways rather than in ways that make things worse.
Free yourself of rigid, dated ideas of “what it means to be a man.”
Release the ideas about masculinity that don’t serve you.
Embrace the things that make you feel good without fear that it invalidates your identity.
You’ve spent a lifetime trying to follow rules that don’t make any sense. It’s time to write the rules for yourself.
Stop playing someone else’s game and become a master of your own!
Ready to take that first step?
Click the link below to schedule a free, 20-minute consultation call. We’ll talk at that time to answer any questions you have about our work together so you can decide if it feels like a good fit. No pitches. No pressure.
FAQ for Men’s Therapy
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Yes and no. Forget this business about Mars and Venus. Men are human and we all have common things we experience as humans. You get scared and angry. You feel sad. You experience joy.
But how you are allowed to express these things can vary depending on your culture, religion, and the gender you were assigned at birth. Men are often allowed less emotional expression and taught less emotional intelligence than those assigned female at birth. Anger is often the main form of expression allowed.
Men are also less likely to seek help for mental health like anxiety and depression and even day to day challenges like dealing with stress or coping with grief.
The stigma against admitting to their struggles for fear of being labeled as “weak” often leads men to bottle things up, avoid their feelings, and turn to unhelpful ways of coping such as excessive use of drugs, alcohol, pornography, and gaming. -
The therapy space provides a place that is confidential and free of judgment. During a therapy session, you can express the things you want in the ways you want without worrying about how you’ll be perceived by others.
My approach to therapy is also informed by my previous work as a teacher and as someone with training in physical fitness. Many men’s experience with therapy is someone who is sweet and caring and lets them feel heard and validated but without actually challenging them to change. While I will always make sure we’re not overloading you with too much too soon, I realize you may choose to work with me because you want actual change.
The number one thing I hear from many clients, especially men, is, “I need someone to call me out on my bullshit.” And that’s what I’ll do, because you’re not getting your money’s worth if I just let you spin your wheels without getting anywhere.
I don't want you to just feel better. I want to help you live better!
Much like the idea of progressive resistance in the gym, we’ll assess where you’re at now and where you want to be to determine how you want to be challenged. But, rather than loading the bar up with 100 pounds, we’ll start bit by bit. You’ll grow and adapt and increase your skills a little at a time. Once you’re comfortable at one level, we’ll start moving to the next.
Therapy for Men’s issues helps create a plan to challenge your growth edge, holds you accountable for making change, but also supports you when you struggle so you don’t get stuck beating yourself up for struggling. -
I won't force you to do anything, but I will challenge you to connect with your emotions more.
Becoming more emotionally intelligent doesn't mean you have to display those emotions any more than you want to. If you want to become more emotionally expressive then we can certainly work toward that.
The main point of bringing more emotional awareness into life is to empower you to choose how you react to those emotions - rather than automatically suppressing or ignoring them.
Think of emotions as information to help you be the better version of yourself you want to be. -
The use of ethical pornography and safe, consensual, healthy sexual exploration - including ethical nonmonogamy - can be a natural part of exploring one’s sexuality or gender identity. However, the use of porn or sex as a tool for coping or distraction from other underlying problems can become problematic - as well as feelings of shame or guilt around enjoyment of these or issues related to secrecy and other behaviors that conflict with your personal values.
Porn and sex addiction, as they are typically described, are not recognized by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) due to a lack of empirical evidence to support such a classification. You can read their stance in more detail by clicking here.
Rather than treating “porn addiction” or “sex addiction,” our work would focus on the deeper problems that create a difficult relationship with otherwise healthy forms of pleasure, self-exploration, and intimacy to a degree that becomes unhealthy and disruptive of the life you want to be living. -
Erectile dysfunction - or "erectile reliability" as some professionals have renamed it - can have different causes. If the cause is medical, such as in the case of nerve damage, blood pressure issues, or testosterone levels then you are best served by going to see a doctor about this.
On the other hand, erectile function can be affected by mental health issues as well. Stress, anxiety, depression, substance use, and distractions such as self-doubt or questions about your sexuality or gender, your sexual performance, and your partner's enjoyment can affect your ability to be present in the moment and experience pleasure.
The effects of aging can also affect your mental health. As we age, it is very natural for people with a penis to lose the ability to get and maintain an erection with the same reliability as they used to. This is why I call it “erectile reliability” instead of dysfunction, because this change is actually a natural part of aging. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s not frustrating, embarrassing, and potentially damaging to your self-concept.
Coming to terms with these changes, moving past embarrassment to consult a doctor if you wish, and learning to experience intimacy and pleasure in ways that don’t require an erect penis are all things that can be worked on in therapy sessions.