I did not intend to develop expertise in working with men in psychotherapy.
My first big job out of graduate school was Director of the Women’s Health Empowerment Project, a multimillion dollar grant from the National Institutes of Health. I taught Psychology of Women as an adjunct professor at The Ohio State University for many years. I have worked rape crisis call centers, volunteered at domestic violence shelters and provided therapy for sexually trafficked and traumatized women. I am the “woman behind the high profile woman” leading banks and health care systems and non profits.
And yet.
The majority of my clients at my practice are men.
A confluence of events, an accident of history. I will not bore you with my resume.
And every time we lose a high profile or famous man because of mental health, it weighs heavy on me. I know that for every public figure that we lose (with resources to spare) there are an unknown and innumerable number of men suffering in silence.
Is it getting better?
Yes.
At the apex of the COVID nightmare, a handful of my long time clients were gathered around a firepit commiserating about their companies and someone disclosed he had an executive psychologist that had been a life saver, and they realized that more than one of them had been working with me for years….all unbeknownst to each other. They had a laugh about it, the shame/secrecy/stigma of it all.
And yet.
We have some work to do.
When the news of Matthew Perry’s death was made public, there was a collective grief. The character he brought to us managed to strike that pitch-perfect note of “snark” while managing to avoid “smug”. I think that is a difficult personality to portray, and speaks to his acting chops.
He suffered in silence for YEARS. I mean we saw it…didn’t we? But it was hushed and ignored. It was the 90s after all. A cultivated indifference was tonal to the time.
When he finally began to share his pain, it was years later. It was brave, and vulnerable.
And not enough.
I suppose that is the part I hear about in my offices.
“Good god, if he can’t beat it, how in the HELL can I?”
And yet they do. They recover. They get sober. They heal their Inner Critics, silence the suicidal ideations, build lives and careers and friendships that are meaningful. They wrestle with the fundamentalist religions of their childhoods that shamed them. I am often the FIRST PERSON to ever hear the story of their sexual abuse, their bullying, their eating disorders, their secretive self-destructive self-medication they feel hopeless to change.
Sometimes it is a fine tuning, an exploration of desire or want, the resolution of an old flawed self-narrative, slaying the people pleasing habit, learning the language of healing or how to affect label and show empathy in service of connection with others. Sometimes it is a relationship challenge, a career change, a professional pivot that feels impossible.
This is a gentle , a loving nudge, that healing IS possible.
I partnered in the opening of an integrate ketamine practice because it is a modality that is powerful. It is a tool that is changing lives. Ketamine is biologically impactful for most people, but I see it as the behavioral potentiator, the 10xer, the VC-hockey-stick-trend-line-creator in a life.
Sometimes it is hard to change your MiNDSET. But if you can change your mind, you CAN change your life.
Ketamine Infusion Therapy means that ketamine will be in your body for about 4 hours, under the care of a very experienced physician at MiNDSET. Then it is no longer in your body.
At MiNDSET we believe the labor of changing your life comes AFTER the infusion. It is about what you do next. It is about how you behave forward.
Matthew Perry had ketamine in his stomach almost 2 weeks post his therapeutic infusion, which means he consumed it recreationally. He did not die from ketamine. He took ketamine in a hot tub and then died by drowning. Do not let the media scare you away. Incendiary headlines get clicks, we know this.
Ask us anything.
We look forward to helping you see the world beyond the given.
Dr M
