The Greatest Story Never Told
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Jed Diamond, PhD, MCSW, is the Founder and Director of the MenAlive, a health program that helps men live long and well. Though focused on men’s health, MenAlive is also for women who care about the health of the men in their lives. “My passion in life,” says Diamond “is to support men, and the women who love them, in eliminating the stresses that undermine their health and wreck their relationships.”
Anger is an increasingly serious problem in our society today according to Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former President of the American Psychological Association. “Out-of-hand anger ruins many lives,” he says. “More, I believe, than schizophrenia, more than alcohol, more than AIDS. Maybe even more than depression.” Seligman’s research also shows that when couples fight, it can damage their children, often in lasting ways.
Leslie Carol Botha: Jed Diamond has written another excellent article about male depression. Diamond believes that depression is becoming an increasingly significant problem for men and the women who love them.
Jed Diamond: Before I wrote my book, The Irritable Male Syndrome, I thought I might call it The Jekyll and Hyde Syndrome, since men often seem to change rapidly from “Mr. Nice to Mr. Mean.”
Marc Blackman, M.D., chief of endocrinology and metabolism at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center says, “The male menopause is a real phenomenon and it does similar things to men as menopause does to women, although less commonly and to a lesser extent.”
Why are men so unhappy? The Feminine Mystique told women that they should be satisfied with being wives, mothers, and homemakers. The Masculine Mystique told men that they should be happy to compete with other men to find a woman and then compete with other “breadwinners” to create ever greater material wealth for themselves and their families. We were told that “he who dies with the most toys, wins” and “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.” Both women and men become depressed trying to fit into roles that no longer work for us. -Jed Diamond
