A Personal Perspective: It's important to learn how to truly love. For men, it's even harder since our culture puts so much emphasis on romance and sex as the standard for love.
recovery, even more so than individual therapy. While individual therapy has merit in helping a client deep dive into their own issues, what it lacks is the interpersonal connections that a group can foster.
behavior, this means not only a sense of connection with others who struggle similarly, but it also holds immense value inreduction. Shame reduction is much harder in one-on-one therapy because it’s just me and the client. Whereas in a group setting, the shame can be significantly ameliorated by witnessing others empathize with each other. Another reason I value group therapy over individual therapy is the potential to help men learn how to love unconditionally without the entanglements of romance. The men I see in early recovery don’t have a wide enough scope of true love. Their “love” has been biased towards sexual, and romance. In addition, what they’ve learned about adult love oftentimes is skewed and swayed as their love is intertwined with people-pleasing, codependency, and enmeshment. In these men’s groups, the guys get to experience"Phileo love," or a deep, brotherly love that isn’t complicated with romantic attachments . In this crucible, this experience deepens and enriches how they view relationships, and thus they can return to their romantic partners with a renewed sense of what’s possible when it comes to depth and emotional intimacy.of group therapy. We ask men to be honest with each other about their feelings, both about themselves and about how they feel towards others. As the therapist, I make it clear that emotional intimacy is dependent on honesty. The honesty and transparency foster depth, even if disagreements occur. If anything, it’s in the discomfort and challenging relational ruptures where growth finds its way into the process.of abandonment is real. Maybe not in physical abandonment per se, but at least in terms of emotional abandonment. Will my partner judge me? Will she reject me? Will she think I’m weak? All of this blunts what a man feels they can share with a woman. So, in group therapy, while these same concerns may be there, there’s also emotional safety in knowing the guys are there for each other, no matter what happens, both within group therapy and in their normal lives. For example, men will not have to fear as much when sharing in group therapy about their slips or, knowing group therapy is about growth, not perfection. Also, if they give or receive feedback from another man in the group, there is safety undergirding any misinterpretations or hurt that may occur. An example of this from one of my groups is when a guy kept relapsing tooutlet ostensibly to read news, but kept stumbling onto provocative images of women. When group members saw this pattern, they firmly suggested the guy find another news outlet. Initially, the man balked at this idea and was defensive, citing that this was his only source of news he could trust. He was hurt because he didn’t think his peers understood him. But over time, he was able to see theirand came to also see that their feedback wasn’t done to deprive him but was done out of love. When he was able to experience this act as love, his demeanor shifted. The defensive grip not only loosened in group but also with his wife and teenage kids. In the months to follow, he would beam about group therapy, sharing how much that experience made him see a level of love that he had never experienced, both growing up and with his wife. He also uttered these words in a group, “I love you guys!” He blushed at first, stating, “I’ve never said that to anyone but to my wife and kids”. But he also knew that this love that he learned in relationships with other men was transformative. It gave him a new way of relating to his wife. He could love her in a new way. He not only could be more emotionally honest with her, but he also learned that love meant being courageous enough to say what he had to say, even if it meant risking rejection, judgment, or experiencing feelings of inadequacy. Truth be told, most of those fears were of his own making. Regardless, the adage, “You can’t truly love a woman until you learn to love a man,” was a lesson learned in his step towards recovery.Whatever your goals, it’s the struggle to get there that’s most rewarding. It’s almost as if life itself is inviting us to embrace difficulty—not as punishment but as a design feature. It's a robust system for growth.Self Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist? Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
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