Join Jeremy and me for another lesson right from the Comprehensive Guide to Men’s Psychology online version for upgraded members as part of their membership.

In the course you have access to when you are an upgraded member, we continue reviewing the major types of psychotherapy that are more useful for men to have better outcomes. These are thought to be more effective for men than traditional "supportive therapy" or merely the encouragement of emotional expression.

Take note of these styles of therapy that specifically help men, look them up on your own, and consider obtaining some training in them as a practitioner or client if you have had any mood or trauma problems as a man. We will cover their principles more extensively in the coursework and discussion community of Men's Psychology:

Positive Psychology/Positive Masculinity

Positive masculinity is when men use their physical and emotional strength to champion healthy behaviors and communities. Positive masculinity is the antithesis of toxic masculinity. The focus of positive masculinity is to help generations of men learn healthy behaviors and then develop more robust communities.

Positive psychology is a branch of psychology focused on the character strengths and behaviors that allow individuals to build a life of meaning and purpose—to move beyond surviving to flourish.

This particular area of psychology focuses on how to help human beings prosper and lead healthy, happy lives. While many other branches of psychology tend to focus on dysfunction and abnormal behavior, positive psychology is centered on helping people become happier.

Extensive research on the efficacy of current male-specific therapies such as FMCT and DAIP reveal underwhelming or poor results for helping men and are based on empirically untested sociology-based constructs such as "Hegemonic Masculinity," “toxic” masculinity, and “hyper-“ masculinity (machismo.) (Powney and Graham-Kevan.)

Emerging research on Positive Masculinity as a new discipline sees both nature and nurture behind masculinity, with more archetypal, biological determinism than stereotypical social determinism and executed with positive results in the healing of male psychological disease in such treatments as PP/PM (Positive Psychology/Positive Masculinity Framework by Kiselica and Englar-Carlson), starting with Maslow and expanded into a new field of psychology by Martin Seligman (2002).

Barry and Seager (2014) posit that some core specifics for male therapeutic work in the Positive Psychology frame driving the masculine instincts include:1. “Fight-win”2. “Provide/protect” and3. “Retain self-mastery/control of emotions” among many others yet to be studied.

Suppose one believes an unconscious (aka instincts) operates in mammals and that these evolved to keep the species alive and thriving.

In that case, they cannot be violated or squelched but must be directed into Anna Freud and George Valliant’s “mature ego defenses,” most notably, “Sublimation” as an ego defense.

Then they don’t impede but instead support the survival of individuals, families, women, children, communities, communities, society, and the species itself.

This underscores that for masculinity to be rescued from impaired mood states, depression, anxiety, and dysfunction in his life, a male must work on a character maturity/character virtue framework as a scaffolding on which to constructively utilize the passion and vitality of masculinity to good ends for society, his family, children, partner, and himself.

The PP/PM Framework has 10 Dimensions of Efficacy in Male Therapy

* Male relational styles

* Male ways of caring

* Generative fatherhood

* Male self-reliance

* The worker/provider's instinctual drive in men

* Male courage, daring, and risk-taking

* The group orientation of boys and men

* The humanitarian service of fraternal organizations

* Men’s use of humor

* Male heroism

As unexpected as it may be for Jungian Psychology to have relevance to today’s complex psychological pathologies, its gift to us is the analysis of human psychological universals that he called archetypes, and which today we have the science models and emerging research to refer to them as biologically determined instincts.

Yet the linguists who predate Jung and saw the mind as “constructed like a language” suggest that the human story and the individual life’s story and its characters can reveal aspects of our universal common traits - the names of the Greek deities and their analogs of today’s cinematic stories: the superheroes both reveal these instinctual circuitries and make them accessible to modern cultures through today's entertainment media.

This is why it is that in two lessons from now and onward, we will rename the categories above to conform to the nomenclature pulled from the combined Jungian/Evolutionary Psychology framework in which we make use of the names of Greek deities to label these various masculine instincts with more distinction and "emotional granularity."

And so, for example, "generative fatherhood" becomes "the Zeus Instinct," and "male self-reliance" becomes "the Odysseus Instinct."

In contrast "worker/provider instinctual drive" becomes "the Hephaestus Instinct" (the "blue-collar work ethic/"a job well-done"), and "male courage, daring and risk-taking" becomes "the Ares Instinct" ("the winning instinct"/"killer instinct") and while "men's use of humor" becomes "the Hermes Instinct," with a host of other resets of nomenclature to make the masculine instincts accessible to the general public.

The usefulness of Positive Psychology as a framework for understanding men's needs in psychotherapy rests on PP's development as an attempt to explain the process of mature character development.

Until the advent of Positive Psychology, the robust set of principles called Freudian Psychoanalysis and its offshoot, Psychodynamic Psychotherapy, was our best explanation of human development, including the process of growing more mature.

They each have practical aspects but are incomplete for a street-level understanding of "how to grow up" as a man.

What is helpful about Positive Psychology for men is that it at least lists and codifies the mature character virtues to strive for and expands what amount to the psychoanalytic "mature ego defenses" (which were initially limited in number) to create a much larger set of human virtues to strive for, and which have a much greater diversity.

For example, in the "mature ego defenses" codified by George Valliant of the psychodynamic school of therapy - Altruism(generosity), Suppression (to table an issue for a better time to address it), Humor, and a few, limited others - then become more varied and modern in terminology in the hands of Positive Psychology's Martin Seligman - Honor, Courage, Generosity, Patience, Humor, Temperance, Assertiveness, Compassion, Wisdom, Modesty and Forgiveness and numerous others that speak to our real nature as striving to be better, more prosperous and happy men.

What Positive Psychology lacks in terms of a dynamics or working parts of the anatomy of those character virtues we will provide in a future lesson on the elements of character maturity.

What's more, if masculinity is located in an area of the mind where the unconscious instincts reside—the reptilian brain—and character maturity resides in a completely area of the mind equally accessible to both men and women—the higher brain—then we need to address both, separate areas if we are to even discuss a "positive masculinity."

We have covered the unscientific terminology "toxic masculinity," in that at the very least, the phrase is a massively illogical misnomer. "Toxic" has nothing to do with masculinity or any other immutable human trait.

The word "toxic" is simply a pop culture synonym for the scientific term "narcissism." The opposite of narcissism and the cure for it rests in the growth of mature character virtues.

Masculinity is just a passionate energy of vitality and can be used as an energy to do good or harm.

Instead of only addressing masculinity on its own terms, or else addressing character virtues through the lens of Positive Psychology on its own separate terms, we will need to combine the two together more in a sense of "mature masculinity" as defining what is being called "positive masculinity" in the research.

The way we will learn to do so in Positive Masculinity as "mature masculinity" also rests in two-word phrases.

For example, from our list above, men are instinctually driven to "fight and win."

This masculine instinct needs to be combined with a virtue to make it a mature masculine form of Positive Masculinity. For example, "fighting with Honor" or "winning with Modesty."

Another known masculine instinct for "risk-taking" must be combined with one or more character virtues to make a mature masculine form of Positive Masculinity, to make "Heroic, Courageous risk-taking."

Again, those who are upgraded members get access to the full course.

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