OPINION:
With Father’s Day nearly here and June marking Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month, you might expect to see a lot of mental-health-oriented ads targeting men. Yet you probably will not.
Sadly, men’s mental health has yet to rise to the same level of public visibility and discussion as women’s. The reasons for this are many, including social expectations around masculinity, lower overall rates of help-seeking, and stigma.
Men make up 50% of the population, but they constitute 80% of all suicides, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Over the years, some of the most successful and memorable mental health campaigns have been spearheaded by federal agencies, state and local governments, political figures and more. Private enterprise — namely, advertising and public relations agencies — were often just the “hired guns,” developing the attention-grabbing creative to propel the campaigns.
Yet their contributions are significant and, in some cases, are becoming the campaign drivers themselves. In 2012, we took on the issue of reducing suicide among working-age men and launched Man Therapy. We learned a lot about the best ways to reach this audience, including:
• Remembering that the best defense is a good offense. If you wait until men are in crisis, then you are too late, as many initial suicide attempts are successful. We must encourage all men to identify when they may be struggling and get help before things spiral out of control.
• Using humor and giving men the tools to help themselves. Men’s mental health topics — including depression, anxiety, relationships, addiction, stress and suicide — can be very heavy. Leveraging humor and a no-nonsense approach, paired with connecting men to the right resources, can go a long way.
• Empowering men by reaching their loved ones. We must connect with and empower the key people in men’s lives — spouses, parents, siblings, children and friends — to recognize man-specific signs of mental health struggles, including irritability, anger and impulsivity.
Men’s mental health has been “in the trunk” for hundreds of years but is finally moving to the “back seat.” Private enterprise and the creative community have major roles to play in bolstering governmental efforts to advance men’s mental health.
JOE CONRAD
Creator, ManTherapy.org
Denver, Colorado
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