I have been helping improve the mental, emotional, and relational health of men for more than fifty years. My passion to improve men’s health is personal as well as professional. It began for me when I was five years old and my mid-life father took an overdose of sleeping pills after he had become increasingly depressed because he couldn’t make a living to support his family. Fortunately, he survived, but many men don’t. I grew up wondering what happened to my father, when it would happen to me, and what I could do to help other men and their families to live long and healthy lives.
My colleague, Marianne J. Legato, MD, is an internationally renowned academic, physician, author and lecturer. She is a pioneer in the field of gender-specific medicine. In her book, Eve’s Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your Life, she says,
“Until now, we’ve acted as though men and women were essentially identical except for the differences in their reproductive function. In fact, information we’ve been gathering over the past ten years tell us that this is anything but true, and that everywhere we looked, the two sexes are startlingly and unexpectedly different not only in their normal function but in the ways they experience illness.”
I first heard about the work of Man Therapy in 2019 when I met its founder and creator, Joe Conrad. I did an interview with Joe and wrote an article, “Man Therapy: Why Gender-Specific Health Care is Good for Men, Women and The World.”
“We realized early on that if we waited until men were in crisis, we would be too late,” Joe Conrad told me. “I have always felt that creativity, innovation, and communication could solve any challenge. From the beginning, our team set three goals for Man Therapy:
1) “Break through the stigma surrounding mental health by making it approachable.”
2) “Encourage help-seeking behavior.”
3) “Reduce suicidal ideation.”
“Through research, men told us to just give them the information they needed to fix themselves, so we built a website that provides a broad range of information, resources, and tools to do just that. It is extremely rewarding to know that we are accomplishing our goal of positively impacting and changing men’s lives.”
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Nathaan Demers, another member of the Man Therapy clinical team. Dr. Demers is a clinical psychologist with experience in a variety of clinical settings and 10+ years in digital behavioral health as an operator, consultant/advisor, speaker, investor with Hopelab Ventures, and clinician working with Man Therapy.
I asked Dr. Demers to tell me about his involvement with Man Therapy and what he has learned about its male-centered approach to men’s mental health.
“Men account for over two-thirds of completed suicides, he told me. “Sixty percent of men with a mental health condition never get help. Many men have absorbed messages that strength means self-reliance, emotional control, and handling problems alone. When life gets difficult, as it does for everyone, these messages can make help-seeking feel like failure rather than a practical act of strength.”
From my own experiences growing up with a depressed and angry father, I know he believed he should be able to solve his problems himself. Being out of work felt like a personal failure. Man Therapy would have helped my dad and prevented the generational trauma that occurs if men’s mental health issues are not adequately addressed.
One of the other aspects of Man Therapy that stood out to me when I first saw it was the way that humor was used to engage men. I asked Dr. Demers what he thought about the value of humor.
“Man Therapy uses humor and culturally familiar language to make space for serious subjects such as stress, relationship problems, substance abuse, depression, and even suicide,” he told me.
When I first viewed the website and met Dr. Rich Mahogany, the hardest working therapist in the world, the humor grabbed my attention as the good doctor offered his advice about “damn near everything a man needs to know about mental health.” But what really impressed me was how accurate the information was that Dr. Mahogany was sharing.
I asked Dr. Demers about the expertise that went into creating the information that Dr. Mahogany shares with men.
“The strength of Man Therapy is the multidisciplinary collaboration where clinicians ensure that the content is safe, credible, and trauma-informed,” says Dr. Demers. “My role was often to be the ‘clinician behind the clinician,’ helping embed sound mental-health principles into content and user experiences that could move someone from recognition to connection.”
I also asked Dr. Demers about the book, Man Therapy: Therapy the Way a Man Does It, recently published by New Harbinger Publications.
“Digital tools matter,” says Dr. Demers. “The 20 Point Head Inspection that was offered on the website was taken by thousands of men. Digital tools matter, but they are not the only way to reach people. The book give Man Therapy a tangible, shareable form and extends its reach beyond the screen.”
Finally, I wanted to know Dr. Demers’ vision for the future of Man Therapy.
“My hope is that Man Therapy becomes a household name — not for the brand’s sake, but because that would mean we have made meaningful progress in changing the narrative around men’s help-seeking and saving lives,” Dr. Demers told me. “The path forward is to keep strengthening the evidence base, expanding trusted partnerships, and making it easier for men to connect to the support that fits them.”
For more information about Man Therapy, you can visit the website here: https://mantherapy.org/
To watch the interview I did with Dr. Demers, you may do so here.
If you would like to read more articles about men’s health, I invite you to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter here: https://menalive.com/email-newsletter/
