On the manosphere
Last night I watched Louis Theroux’s Manosphere documentary, and it left me thinking about boys, my boy, and the future of what it means to be a man.
And that topic is what I ended up exploring in recent podcast with another Clinical Psychologist, Dr Marianne Trent.
In the episode, we talk about what it’s like to grow up as a boy not understanding your inner world, not having the language for what’s going on in your head, and how that confusion can turn into fear, and how that fear can then be expressed as aggression, control, or certainty.
We explore why black-and-white thinking can feel so compelling - they’re the wrong ones, we’re the right ones, better to feel strong than to feel weak - and how that kind of mindset can feel like safety when you don’t know who you are yet.
We also go into the key psychosocial tasks of adolescence - the need for belonging, identity, and direction - and what can happen when a young man isn’t met in those moments through healthy relationships and secure environments.
And importantly, we turn towards how we respond - as parents, as teachers, as helping professionals - because there’s always a pull to correct, to challenge, to explain… but often those approaches lead to defensiveness and disconnection.
Instead, we focus on what actually gets through.
