Men and Suicide

The author of The Highly Sensitive Man writes (pg.13 & 14): “So it seems everyone is talking about a ‘crisis in masculinity.’ It is a crisis marked by men’s insecurity about their role in society, their identity, their values, their sexuality, their careers, and their relationships. At the same time, academics are telling us that ‘we know far less about the psychological and physical health of men than of women.’ Why is this?

Michael Addis, a professor of psychology and a leading researcher into male identity and psychological health, has highlighted a deficit in our knowledge about men suffering from depression and argues that this has cultural, social, and historical roots.

If we look at whether gender affects how people experience depression, how they express it, and how it's treated, it quickly becomes clear that gender has for a long time referred to women and not to men. According to Addis, this is because, socially and historically, men have been seen as the dominant group and thus representative of normal psychological health. Women have thus been understood as the nondominant group, which deviated from the norm, and they have been examined and understood from this perspective. One of the countless problems of this approach is that the experiences and specific challenges of the ‘dominant group,’ in this case men, have remained hidden. ...

While it is true that a higher percentage of women than men will be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder or a depressive episode, the suicide rate among men is much higher. In the United States, the suicide rate is notably higher in men than in women. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, men account for 77 percent of the forty-five thousand people who kill themselves every year in the United States. In fact, men commit suicide more than women everywhere in the world. Men are more likely to suffer from addiction, and when men discuss depressive symptoms with their doctor, they are less likely than women to be diagnosed with depression and consequently don't receive adequate therapeutic and pharmacological treatment. Young men are currently less academically successful at secondary school than young women. The number of men applying to university is now lower than the number of women applying, and a far higher number of men drop out. Men are also far more likely to be arrested. Ninety-three percent of people in prison are men. These are startling numbers. ..."