m currently working on an article for the Fuller Youth Institute on boys and emotions — more specifically how we as a culture tend to sabotage boy’s emotions — making it unsafe for them to express[…]

The above is a quote from Chapter 8 in my new book (coming out May 1) What it Means to be a Man: God’s Design for Us in a World Full of Extremes. Vulnerability is one of the major themes that has emerged over the last 18 years in my work with men. Many men […]

To understand the importance of leverage, you have to understand grandiosity, especially male grandiosity. Therapy and self-help have mostly focused on helping people come up from a one-down position of shame. But we don’t really talk much about what it means to help people come down from the one-up position of grandiosity. This is really pivotal in terms of working with men, because they typically tend to lead from the one-up, grandiose position, while women present in the more one-down, victim position.

“When a father tells a child that he can do something, he can do it. I don’t know why that is, except to say that there is some mysterious energy that passes from the male to his children. It is some sort of creative energy that can make things be when they are not, and […]

“Little boys and little girls start off with similar psychological profiles. They are equally emotional, expressive, and dependent, equally desirous of physical affection. At the youngest ages, both boys and girls are more like a stereotypical girl. If any differences exist, little boys are, in fact, slightly more sensitive and expressive than little girls. They […]

The last 6-7 months have been a blur as I was busy reading, researching, writing, editing — and a whole lot of staring at a blank screen — in preparation for my new book, What It Means to be a Man: God’s Design for Us in a World Full of Extremes. It’s my second collaboration […]

I have to admit to you all that I knew little about male depression until the last ten years when I started reading more and more writers who were openly talking about it. People like Henri Nouwen, Parker Palmer and Archibald Hart to name but just a few. The more and more I read, the […]

In Thomas Moore’s book, Care of the Soul, he writes eloquently about the gift that depression may offer people. It’s an opportunity to embrace emotions that we often don’t deal with, leading us to a better understanding of ourselves and how we want to direct our life. Though he acknowledges that depression can become debilitating […]

“What is the most important thing you can do for a depressed husband, father, or son? Without a doubt it is to communicate love and acceptance to them with all the power you can muster, and to avoid blaming them or being judgmental about their depression. Your loved one has not chosen to be depressed. […]

Sex addiction is a big topic in the news headlines these days, especially as more prominent celebrity figures have checked themselves into rehab for it. So it’s not surprising that this last month TIME Magazine ran a lengthy article, Sex Addiction: A Read Disease or a Convenient Excuse? Here are a couple of quotes from […]

I’m not sure why I wanted to write about this topic now. Because in reality, I have been thinking about it for a long time. Maybe it’s because I work with a lot of men. And maybe because a lot of the men I work with (both in counseling and in ministry) struggle between two […]