Male Mental Depression in the West

By Elder George, MMNS

An article that appeared in the Manchester Guardian written by Peter Barker, indicated that an alarming number of English men suffer mental health problems, but most are too “macho” to seek help. The article indicated that men don’t step forward as women do with their feelings of depression; that they must learn to acknowledge their feelings and be willing to receive treatment. Barker reported that in order to de-stigmatize mental health problems a lot more work would have to be done.

The above paragraph illustrated the feminine and material thinking of Western society mixed in with a generous amount of ignorance. Could it be that men do not step forward as women do with their feelings of depression because they are not women? There are many things that women don’t do that men do because they are not men. Of course this is a deep concept to a society that does not understand gender differences. What benefits will accrue if male mental depression becomes de-stigmatized? Unwed motherhood became de-stigmatized in the West and it has increased ten-fold in just two generations. Divorce became de-stigmatized and has now become the norm in Western society. De-stigmatizing the un-natural or harmful tends to make it popular and propagated; it definitely does not eliminate the condition. However, the West as we shall see, has no choice but to de-stigmatize all that is un-natural and immoral.

The Manchester Guardian article never addressed the question of why male mental depression exists, and therefore could not get to the next question of how to prevent it.

The feminine psyche of Western civilization cannot deal with the unseen; therefore, it cannot deal with causes but only with effects. It expends considerable money and effort to treat male mental health but not a penny on how to prevent it.

Peter Barker didn’t even pose the question, are rates of male suicide in England high or low when compared to the rest of the world? Denmark and Sweden have the same rates of male suicide, which are 150 times that of Iraq, 200 times that of Syria, and 300 times that of Egypt. This is not a typographical area; I did not meant percent. Now when a nation has a national suicide rate two hundred to three hundred times that of other nations, one would expect that they would ask why.

High rates of male suicide, depression, and mental illness in England, and in the West in general have already become an acceptable norm. In 2005 The World Health Organization announced that the major health issue of England, the United States, and Canada is mental illness. Last year the National Institute for Mental Health announced that 26% of all Americans are now classified as mentally ill. Western society is going insane; a viewpoint supported by its own statistics.

If the West cannot locate a cause for its high rates of mental health problems among its men (they are even higher among its women) it at least might try to find a common factor in those societies that have low rates of mental illness, such as among Arabs, East Asians, African peoples relatively not influenced by the West, and various Pacific Island groups.

A common factor of these groupings is extended family. People raised in a strong extended family environment have a sense of security not known in the West; they also have a strong sense of purpose, a commonality of interest, an appreciation of the world of their creator, and a well-developed spiritual awareness.

Elder George’s website is www.mensaction.net and he can be reached at 212-874-7900 ext. 1329.

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