time those in distress have to cope on their own, which has been featured in the media recently in the new to promoting people talking about mental “Time Change” campaign health problems. (Time to Change, 2008). Gaps in the literature which could be further explored have been identified in this review. The author questions, in what way does gender role conflict interact with the intimacy level of the relationship in which a male may disclose? What role may women take in encouraging men to seek help, or what forms of encouragement may they use, such as threats or Using discourse analysis, Seymour-Smith et al. (2002) interviewed “nagging”. medical professionals about men accessing health care, and there appeared to be a theme of female partners the men to attend and being very responsible for their “forcing” partners’ help seeking, whilst positioning the men as childlike, passive and ignorant. This exposes interesting questions regarding how perceptions of their control interplay with their men’s’ partners taking control. It would be interesting if this model also applies to mental health. Although this review focuses on the barriers to men help-seeking and could potentially show a in men as they are less able to verbalise mental health “weakness” problems and seek help; the male gender have many strengths to draw from, and a positive aspect of coping whilst maintaining masculine norms may be done through other, more positive means such as humour to dilute the impact of distress (Mental Health Foundation, 2010).
time those in distress have to cope on their own, which has been featured in the media recently in the new “Time to Change” campaign promoting people talking about mental health problems. (Time to Change, 2008). Gaps in the literature which could be further explored have been identified in this review. The author questions, in what way does gender role conflict interact with the intimacy level of the relationship in which a male may disclose? What role may women take in encouraging men to seek help, or what forms of encouragement may they use, such as threats or “nagging”. Using discourse analysis, Seymour-Smith et al. (2002) interviewed medical professionals about men accessing health care, and there appeared to be a theme of female partners “forcing” the men to attend and being very responsible for their partners’ help seeking, whilst positioning the men as childlike, passive and ignorant. This exposes interesting questions regarding how men’s’ perceptions of their control interplay with their partners taking control. It would be interesting if this model also applies to mental health. Although this review focuses on the barriers to men help-seeking and could potentially show a “weakness” in men as they are less able to verbalise mental health problems and seek help; the male gender have many strengths to draw from, and a positive aspect of coping whilst maintaining masculine norms may be done through other, more positive means such as humour to dilute the impact of distress (Mental Health Foundation, 2010).