Why we need more men in the mental health profession

Despite the crisis in male mental health, fewer men are entering the field of psychology. Therapy therefore risks losing voices that help other men find words for the pain they've never spoken of

- By Muhammad Coovadia

I remember the day as if it were a meme that I cannot scrub from my phone's library: master’s selection interviews.

Ask any psychology graduate and they will tell you about the ritual of waiting rooms and the cruel arithmetic of limited places.

On that day, 20 applicants sat in a room heavy with the smell of nerves that was so apparent it did not require a psychologist to diagnose. As soon as the selection process began, I quickly scanned the room to count the number of males. Somewhere deep in my gut, I knew that my competition for admission was not the 16 female candidates, but rather my fellow male applicants.

Weeks later, my intuition was confirmed. There was only one chair at a table that once belonged mostly to men. The chair was mine, and I should have felt triumphant, but a colder question trailed me. Where are the men in psychology?

Walk into a lecture hall, a hospital therapy wing or a professional conference in South Africa and the pattern is clear: women constitute the majority of psychologists. The Health Professions Council of South Africa reports that roughly one in five registered psychologists is male. There are many plausible reasons for this, but gender expectations and gender stereotypes are cited as major contributors.

Social expectations shape the careers children imagine for themselves. Boys are nudged towards analytical fields, whereas girls are steered towards helping professions. And when a young man dares to say he wants to study psychology, he is often met with smirks and the soft violence of humour.

"Going to listen to stories all day?" "Male psychologists are all gay, right?" "So, you are the sensitive type?" "Isn't that for women?"

These comments are offered as a joke, but they function as a fence. They keep men out of a field where their presence could save lives, not with a scalpel but by helping to break the silence.

The problem is the balance