dangrous's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
This was fine, I much prefer his later book - which shows a lot of growth on his part. Definitely interesting stories in here and sort of gave me things to think about but it wasn't as directed, or as goal-driven as the other one I read (Us). It is also a bit dated in some of its ideas, which is understandable since it's from the late 90s. Very first season of the Sopranos in a lot of ways. But interesting enough!
sarahhbeth_reads's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Helpful for understanding and contextualizing male depression. Published in 1997 but remains applicable today. A useful resource for people socialized in masculinity or anyone with men in their lives.
My brother recommended me this book as an essential read, and I did find it very relevant and informative. Be aware that, as many psychology books, it may be triggering.
One thing I didn't like was that in nearly all client cases referenced it turned out that the client had experienced some form of EXTREME trauma in their past, which they had then repressed. I worry that this may reinforce beliefs that male depression only results from severe trauma and deter people who do not have that level of traumatic past from getting the help they need.
sarahelizabeth856's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
5.0
u5182926's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
zabs90's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.5
nehasavant's review against another edition
4.0
I appreciated the many stories he weaved into his explanations of theory. From a stylistic point of view, Real used too many superlatives for my taste. But masculinity is at the core of so many issues (especially our global environmental issues, appreciate that Real braids this in during the conclusion) that some may be warranted. Though this book has helped me understand the socialized men in my life, it’s also helped me understand the masculine parts of myself and how I can better care for them. Would be great to see another edition of this book, 25-30 years later, that includes more discussions of differing gender identities, especially the philosophies of gender non-conforming and trans people.
Quotes:
“ in depression, the childhood violence that has been leveled against the boy – whether physical or psychological, active or passive Dash takes up permanent habitation within him. The depressed man adopts a relationship to himself that mirrors and replicates the dynamics of his own early abuse. This phenomenon, which I called empathic reversal, is the link connecting trauma to depression. To understand the mechanism of empathic reversal, we must except a disturbing truth - that trauma intrinsically involves fusion between the offender and his victim. In the very moment of damage, some form of unholy intimacy occurs, in part because trauma always involves a failure of boundaries. In active trauma, a child’s boundaries are violated. The parent is uncontained, out of control. In passive trauma, the parent neglect the child’s needs; The boundary between parent and child is to rigid, impenetrable. Both are instances of a boundary dysfunction. Most often, childhood trauma results from the layering of both kinds of boundary failure” (pg. 204)
“When a child is traumatized - by a parent who is either negligent or out of control – his first and most profound response will be to take responsibility for the failing parent. When a child comes face-to-face with the caregiver’s pathology, that child will do whatever he must to reinstate the caregiver psychological equilibrium. A child’s need to preserve his attachment, his willingness to contort himself into whatever shape the parent needs him to be in during such moments represents one of the least recognized, most pervasive, and most powerful psychological forces in human development.” (Pg. 205)
“When a parent traumatizes a child, he is in a state of shamelessness. If the injure felt appropriate shame, he would contain his humful behavior. The shame apparent does not consciously feel will be absorbed along with other unconscious feelings, by the child.” (pg. 206)
“This culture, with its reliance on performance-based esteem, gives men few models for healthy sacrifice. I often give men I work with the following simple example: a small manufacturer finds himself in the position of being able to triple his profits by dumping toxic waste into a nearby stream. But he might also understand that his children and grandchildren would run an increased risk of getting cancer. Any sane man would forgo the immediate gain of increased profits for the long-term gain of safety and a clean conscience. This is not a dispute between selfishness and altruism. It is a dispute between shortsighted greed and farsighted wisdom. Similarly, when a man “gives in“ to his wife’s desire to stay at home and watch a video on a particular evening rather than go out to the movies, he does so not because she has one and he has lost, but because he is caretaking a relationship that is in his best interest to preserve.” (pg. 332)
Quotes:
“ in depression, the childhood violence that has been leveled against the boy – whether physical or psychological, active or passive Dash takes up permanent habitation within him. The depressed man adopts a relationship to himself that mirrors and replicates the dynamics of his own early abuse. This phenomenon, which I called empathic reversal, is the link connecting trauma to depression. To understand the mechanism of empathic reversal, we must except a disturbing truth - that trauma intrinsically involves fusion between the offender and his victim. In the very moment of damage, some form of unholy intimacy occurs, in part because trauma always involves a failure of boundaries. In active trauma, a child’s boundaries are violated. The parent is uncontained, out of control. In passive trauma, the parent neglect the child’s needs; The boundary between parent and child is to rigid, impenetrable. Both are instances of a boundary dysfunction. Most often, childhood trauma results from the layering of both kinds of boundary failure” (pg. 204)
“When a child is traumatized - by a parent who is either negligent or out of control – his first and most profound response will be to take responsibility for the failing parent. When a child comes face-to-face with the caregiver’s pathology, that child will do whatever he must to reinstate the caregiver psychological equilibrium. A child’s need to preserve his attachment, his willingness to contort himself into whatever shape the parent needs him to be in during such moments represents one of the least recognized, most pervasive, and most powerful psychological forces in human development.” (Pg. 205)
“When a parent traumatizes a child, he is in a state of shamelessness. If the injure felt appropriate shame, he would contain his humful behavior. The shame apparent does not consciously feel will be absorbed along with other unconscious feelings, by the child.” (pg. 206)
“This culture, with its reliance on performance-based esteem, gives men few models for healthy sacrifice. I often give men I work with the following simple example: a small manufacturer finds himself in the position of being able to triple his profits by dumping toxic waste into a nearby stream. But he might also understand that his children and grandchildren would run an increased risk of getting cancer. Any sane man would forgo the immediate gain of increased profits for the long-term gain of safety and a clean conscience. This is not a dispute between selfishness and altruism. It is a dispute between shortsighted greed and farsighted wisdom. Similarly, when a man “gives in“ to his wife’s desire to stay at home and watch a video on a particular evening rather than go out to the movies, he does so not because she has one and he has lost, but because he is caretaking a relationship that is in his best interest to preserve.” (pg. 332)
lory_enterenchanted's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle
Reread this in 2022, three years after my first read. At that time it was an eye-opening introduction to the concept of covert male depression, something I had encountered in family members, colleagues, and even been seeing in action on the world stage without understanding what I was experiencing. The book is extremely helpful in identifying the dysfunction that plagues so many men and in articulating a path toward healing.
This path can only begin when an individual man himself decides to stop the cycle begun by relational trauma, and go a different way, a way of facing his condition rather than running from it and covering it up with addictive defenses. We can't legislate or force such a decision. But only if enough men make it -- as the inspiring stories in the book show that many men are capable of doing -- can our world survive, in my opinion. Among all the crises clamoring for our attention, this is THE central crisis. The others all stem from this one, especially from the addictive defenses with which men combat their depression.
During this reread I really longed for some discussion of how covert depression also affects and presents in women. Women may be more prone to overt depression, which is a more obviously disturbing, but ironically probably less dangerous form of the disease -- because it has come out into the open and there is at least a chance of seeking help. However, women are also highly prone to covert depression as well, and I suffered from it for many years.
Real describes depression as a disease of "carried emotions," emotions generally carried over from a dysfunctional parenting relationship, and I started to wonder about this in relation to the gender gap. Far from being a "women's disease," as it's often considered, depression may be in fact a men's disease that women frequently end up carrying for the men in their lives, covertly or overtly. Men have trouble naming, cognizing, and processing emotional experience, but they are not less emotionally needy than women -- if anything, they are more needy than women. Maybe their depression infects the women around them, who have more innate tools for dealing with emotional issues. And their presentation of overt depression may at least sometimes be a cry for help on the behalf of those who are too emotionally shut-down and repressed to do it themselves.
Unfortunately this often does not lead to the healing of the real, root problem, which is fundamentally one of failure to protect and nurture the fragile human core. Without awareness of what is going on, this failure gets transmitted unconsciously down the generations, and continues to compound and be strengthened. Those who present overt symptoms can end up scapegoated by others who don't want to fully confront the issues, while others with more covert symptoms are discouraged from revealing and releasing their pain. I feel as though that is what has happened in my family.
But I don't want to be one of the deniers any more. I really want to wake up now, and break the cycle of depression in my own family, and I appreciate books like this that are helping me. It is not about blaming anyone, but about uncovering unconscious patterns that have been controlling our behavior and harming everyone they touch. There is so much work to be done, but it is a source of hope to have a new orientation towards the problem.
Reread this in 2022, three years after my first read. At that time it was an eye-opening introduction to the concept of covert male depression, something I had encountered in family members, colleagues, and even been seeing in action on the world stage without understanding what I was experiencing. The book is extremely helpful in identifying the dysfunction that plagues so many men and in articulating a path toward healing.
This path can only begin when an individual man himself decides to stop the cycle begun by relational trauma, and go a different way, a way of facing his condition rather than running from it and covering it up with addictive defenses. We can't legislate or force such a decision. But only if enough men make it -- as the inspiring stories in the book show that many men are capable of doing -- can our world survive, in my opinion. Among all the crises clamoring for our attention, this is THE central crisis. The others all stem from this one, especially from the addictive defenses with which men combat their depression.
During this reread I really longed for some discussion of how covert depression also affects and presents in women. Women may be more prone to overt depression, which is a more obviously disturbing, but ironically probably less dangerous form of the disease -- because it has come out into the open and there is at least a chance of seeking help. However, women are also highly prone to covert depression as well, and I suffered from it for many years.
Real describes depression as a disease of "carried emotions," emotions generally carried over from a dysfunctional parenting relationship, and I started to wonder about this in relation to the gender gap. Far from being a "women's disease," as it's often considered, depression may be in fact a men's disease that women frequently end up carrying for the men in their lives, covertly or overtly. Men have trouble naming, cognizing, and processing emotional experience, but they are not less emotionally needy than women -- if anything, they are more needy than women. Maybe their depression infects the women around them, who have more innate tools for dealing with emotional issues. And their presentation of overt depression may at least sometimes be a cry for help on the behalf of those who are too emotionally shut-down and repressed to do it themselves.
Unfortunately this often does not lead to the healing of the real, root problem, which is fundamentally one of failure to protect and nurture the fragile human core. Without awareness of what is going on, this failure gets transmitted unconsciously down the generations, and continues to compound and be strengthened. Those who present overt symptoms can end up scapegoated by others who don't want to fully confront the issues, while others with more covert symptoms are discouraged from revealing and releasing their pain. I feel as though that is what has happened in my family.
But I don't want to be one of the deniers any more. I really want to wake up now, and break the cycle of depression in my own family, and I appreciate books like this that are helping me. It is not about blaming anyone, but about uncovering unconscious patterns that have been controlling our behavior and harming everyone they touch. There is so much work to be done, but it is a source of hope to have a new orientation towards the problem.
ajnovy's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent. If you’re a male, this should be required reading at some point during your 20s or 30s.
The concept of “fathering” as not only something that fathers do, but that men choose to pursue in their adulthood was a really intriguing idea. The maturation of men is moving from “what can I get” to what can I do for others.
The concept of “fathering” as not only something that fathers do, but that men choose to pursue in their adulthood was a really intriguing idea. The maturation of men is moving from “what can I get” to what can I do for others.