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What We Know About Depression and Teen-age
Boys
Teen-age boys are much more likely to express their
sadness through anger than are girls.
Traditional school counseling and therapy are
often not best suited for connecting with young
males. Finding something to “do” together
makes talking much easier.
Even though teen-agers, and boys in particular,
often act hostile or indifferent to our offers to
help, they are hungry to have someone who really
wants to understand them.
Remember that what seem like “small”
slights can seem “huge” when you’re
a teenager. Our self-esteem and connection to
others is very vulnerable. It doesn’t take
much—a negative word, an indifferent stare, a
lack of appreciation, a rebuff from a girl we
like—to throw us into a tailspin.
Being laughed at, teased, or humiliated is one
of the most crushing experiences young people go
through, particularly males. The resulting
experience of shame is at the core of much of the
violence we see in young males. “I have yet to
see a serious act of violence that was not provoked
by the experience of feeling shamed and humiliated,
disrespected and ridiculed, “says James
Gilligan, M.D., author of Violence: Our Deadly
Epidemic and It’s Causes.[i]
Sex, success, and self-esteem are very much
intertwined for teen-age boys. We need to find ways
to reach out to them and discuss these often taboo
topics. One of the techniques I used with my
teenage son (on separate occasions with my teenage
daughter) was to get him in the car to take him
somewhere. I would always take the long way around
and use the time to talk to him about all the
things I wished my father had said to me when I was
his age. Usually he was silent or would make
disgusted or disgusting sounds. But he
couldn’t escape and later as an adult we joked
about it and he told me they were even helpful at
times.
While suggestions of suicide should always be
taken seriously, we need to be particularly
concerned about young males. They are much less
likely to let us know that they are becoming
increasingly depressed and much more likely to
complete a suicide attempt than are young
females.
There are a number of researchers and clinicians
who work with boys that recognize the different
ways boys express their unhappiness. “We see
boys who, frightened or saddened by family
discord,” say Dr. Dan Kindlon and Dr. Michael
Thompson in their book Raising Can: Protecting The
Emotional Life of Boys, “experience those
feelings only as mounting anger or an irritable
wish that everyone would ‘just leave me
alone.’ Shamed by school problems or stung by
criticism, they lash out or withdraw
emotionally.”[ii]
“In so many cases, what in the teenage
years may look like a bad boy is really a sad boy,
whose underground pain may lead him to become
extremely dangerous to others, or much more likely,
to himself,” says Dr. William S. Pollack,
author of Real Boys’ Voices. Tragically, boys
rarely ‘attempt’ suicide; when they reach
out for a knife, a rope, or a gun, generally they
are not crying for help. Rather, they are very much
trying to get the job done.”[iii]
[i] James Gilligan.
Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. New
York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1996, 119.
[ii] Dan Kindlon and
Michael Thompson. Raising Cain: Protecting The
Emotional Life of Boys. New York: Ballantine
Publishing Group, 1999, 3.
[iii] William S. Pollack
with Todd Shuster. Real Boys’ Voices. New
York: Random House, 2000, 148.
©2023 Jed
Diamond
See Books,
Issues
+ Suicide
* * *
Wealth can't buy health, but health can buy
wealth. - Henry David Thoreau
Jed Diamond
is the internationally best-selling author of nine
books including Male
Menopause,
The
Irritable Male Syndrome: Managing. The 4 Key Causes
of Depression and
Aggression. and
Mr.
Mean: Saving Your Relationship from the Irritable
Male Syndrome. His
upcoming book, Tapping Power: A Man’s Guide to
Eliminating Pain, Stress, Anger, Depression and
Other Ills Using the Revolutionary Tools of Energy
Psychology will be available next year. For over 38
years he has been a leader in the field of men's
health. He is a member of the International
Scientific Board of the World Congress on
Men’s Health and has been on the Board of
Advisors of the Men’s Health Network since its
founding in 1992. His work has been featured in
major newspapers throughout the United States
including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Wall
Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and USA
Today. He has been featured on more than 1,000
radio and T.V. programs including The View with
Barbara Walters, Good Morning America, Inside
Edition, CBS, NBC, and Fox News, To Tell the Truth,
Extra, Leeza, Geraldo, and Joan Rivers. He also did
a nationally televised special on Male Menopause
for PBS. He looks forward to your feedback.
E-Mail.
You can visit his website at www.menalive.com
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