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Speaker 1: Doctor Zach Seigler, Welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Paul. Great to be here.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great to have you on.

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Speaker 3: And now you are a clinical psychologist, you're an associate

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Speaker 3: professor at Melbourne UNI and you're also the global director

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Speaker 3: of research for November. Now, anybody who's in Australia and

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Speaker 3: probably New Zealand knows what November is, but people in

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Speaker 3: the UK and the US may or may not. It's

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Speaker 3: kind of global now, isn't it so. But to talk

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Speaker 3: to our listeners about what November is, why it started,

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Speaker 3: and your involvement.

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Speaker 2: In it for sure, Hence the global in my title.

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Speaker 2: I hope that the you're Irish and UK and US

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Speaker 2: listeners are onto it. But yeah, I'm very lucky to

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Speaker 2: work for the Mustache Factory. We're we're in our twenty

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Speaker 2: first year actually as a mental health organization, which is

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Speaker 2: pretty wild. Yeah. So begun in around two thousand and three,

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Speaker 2: a couple guys in a pub hanging out, going where

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Speaker 2: did mustaches go? What's going on there? They'd been working

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Speaker 2: as admin and creatives doing a lot of breast cancer

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Speaker 2: campaigns in that era, which was very, very big in

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Speaker 2: Australia at the time, and really they started to go,

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Speaker 2: who's talking about our health? Our wellbeing? Some of their

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Speaker 2: mates had suffered with mental health issues, their dads had

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Speaker 2: had prostate cancer, and so they started in earnest with

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Speaker 2: a couple. There was probably twenty of them. The month

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Speaker 2: of November, they said, all right, who can grow the

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Speaker 2: shittiest mustache year, Let's see how we go, and they

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Speaker 2: brought them back. This was before you know, hipsters. Every

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Speaker 2: man and his dog was growing the mustache for fun

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Speaker 2: and I just looked like Bora when I grow one.

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Speaker 2: But the the way in which it kind of moved

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Speaker 2: really organically was it started out, you know, with a

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Speaker 2: couple of guys raising some money. They tried to share

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Speaker 2: it with a couple of prostate cancer organizations who are like,

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Speaker 2: who are you fuck off? This isn't happening. And then

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Speaker 2: they came back the year after and they doubled the

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Speaker 2: amount that they'd raised, and suddenly everyone started to you know,

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Speaker 2: there iss started to prop up, and we went from

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Speaker 2: strength to strength to the point where over the past

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Speaker 2: you know, twenty one years or so, we have raised

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Speaker 2: over a billion dollars. As a ment Health were the

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Speaker 2: largest men's health organization in the world. We operated in

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Speaker 2: over twenty countries. We've got around four hundred staff. We've

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Speaker 2: got offices in London, in la in Toronto, in Melbourne,

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Speaker 2: and we, you know, have now moved beyond purely the

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Speaker 2: practical joke of growing mustaches to to really changing the

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Speaker 2: face of men's health. We are fundamentally investing in thousands

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Speaker 2: of programs in uh, you know, disadvantaged communities, in mental health,

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Speaker 2: in prostate cancer, in men's health more broadly, just trying

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Speaker 2: to actually galvanize the field and put money into research

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Speaker 2: and programs.

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Speaker 3: That is incredible, And I feel rather embarrassed because I'm

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Speaker 3: clearly not up on.

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Speaker 2: High but that's the point. I'm here to just blow

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Speaker 2: people's minds. That's the fun of it. We're sneaky. This

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Speaker 2: is sneaky grassroots stuff, Paul. We don't want to put

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Speaker 2: it in everyone's face, you know. It's it's so important

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Speaker 2: that this is by the people for the people. It's

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Speaker 2: not about being showy, you know.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, because I'd spoken to the November guys pre covid

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Speaker 3: by actually coming into doing a talk for the stuff,

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Speaker 3: and it never actually happened, and I knew then that

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Speaker 3: they were growing but Jesus had no idea. Just high

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Speaker 3: much legs that it's actually got and you know that

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Speaker 3: massive expansion around the globe that is bloody awesome.

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Speaker 2: Pretty cool.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So tell me what drew you as a psychologist

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Speaker 3: to start to focus on man's health.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I did obviously end up post PhD in

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Speaker 2: Masters at November, and I can talk about that journey.

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Speaker 2: But the reason I kind of got into mental health

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Speaker 2: I was I was really really focused on masculinity as

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Speaker 2: a you know, pretty much in like high school. I

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Speaker 2: was really interested in it. I've got two older brothers,

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Speaker 2: We've got a pretty competitive household, and I was like

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Speaker 2: a drama and music nerd, and I also played soccer,

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Speaker 2: and so I constantly was like shifting between hanging out

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Speaker 2: with the girls and hanging out with the guys. And

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Speaker 2: I felt.

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Speaker 1: Myself just just a quick one.

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Speaker 2: It's I'm just trying to read my audience here.

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Speaker 3: Mate.

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Speaker 2: I would normally say football, I say footy, and then

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Speaker 2: people like, you've never played a life, what are you

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Speaker 2: talking about?

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Speaker 1: That's right.

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Speaker 2: So I chamelelyoned my way through high school, really just

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Speaker 2: trying to you know, fit in belong, you know, have

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Speaker 2: mates and not be bullied is pretty much how most

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Speaker 2: most guys you know moved through the world. Don't don't

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Speaker 2: hit me. And as a result, I think I just

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Speaker 2: I started to learn to like be able to read

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Speaker 2: situations and read how people were responding in certain situations.

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Speaker 2: I got really really invested in understanding how people respond,

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Speaker 2: what their stories are, what drives them, what their fears are.

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Speaker 2: I was a pretty weird kid, I guess, and being

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Speaker 2: a third child, I think that that kind of happens.

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Speaker 2: You just you pay attention to dynamics in strange ways

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Speaker 2: and and try to peace make and all of that

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Speaker 2: type of stuff. And so moving through my dad was

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Speaker 2: a medical practitioner. I had a lot of interaction with

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Speaker 2: at risk populations. He worked in Sydney's King's Cross. There

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Speaker 2: was a lot of you know, heroin addicts and homeless people.

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Speaker 2: And I would go in, you know, once a week

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Speaker 2: and work with him as a teenager and just be

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Speaker 2: thrown in the deep end. And so I just had

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Speaker 2: a lot of interaction with a lot of different people

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Speaker 2: and a lot of different stories, and so psychology kind of,

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Speaker 2: you know, I was really drawn to it as a profession.

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Speaker 2: But as I started in my undergrad. I was one

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Speaker 2: of you know, a canful of guys in that degree,

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Speaker 2: and there were like two thousand people there and just

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Speaker 2: lots of girls, and most of the guys who were

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Speaker 2: there were just there to pick up, like that's kind

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Speaker 2: of how it went. So I was like, I can

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Speaker 2: actually if I stick at this, I think something's going

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Speaker 2: to happen here. And so I put in the time

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Speaker 2: and I loved it, and I just I stuck with it.

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Speaker 2: You know, I was at UNI for like nine years,

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Speaker 2: and throughout that journey, I just realized that no one

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Speaker 2: was talking about man, no one was talking about masculinity.

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Speaker 2: I was, you know, the only guy pretty much in

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Speaker 2: my master's call where I was seeing clients, and I

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Speaker 2: just kept seeing these guys come in and drop out.

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Speaker 2: I kept seeing them be misdiagnosed. I kept seeing this

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Speaker 2: glossing over of men's diverse, nuanced, intricate, beautiful lives, and

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Speaker 2: so I just went, this is this is a bit broken.

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Speaker 2: And so my PhD just started to really open up

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Speaker 2: that door and be like, why aren't guys seeking help?

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Speaker 2: What does this look like? And eventually it became pretty

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Speaker 2: clear that lots of men are seeking help heaps of

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Speaker 2: guys are going to therapy, but they're just not talking

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Speaker 2: about it or they're not getting what they actually want.

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Speaker 2: And so I spent quite a bit of time actually

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Speaker 2: then pivoting towards what happens on the other side of

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Speaker 2: the door, you know, what is taking place in therapy

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Speaker 2: that is not hitting the mark. And that's how I

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Speaker 2: kind of ended up in November. I sat down and

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Speaker 2: had a discussion with the executive director there where I

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Speaker 2: was like, you keep, you know, creating a movement that

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Speaker 2: is getting guys to open up, to be more vulnerable,

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Speaker 2: to have these conversations, but you're not checking what happens

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Speaker 2: on the other side. You're not making sure that when

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Speaker 2: they are vulnerable, what they are open, that someone is

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Speaker 2: ready to listen. Because inherently there's just this belief that

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Speaker 2: the system will work and that's just not the truth.

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Speaker 2: Like many many times men slip through the cracks, women

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Speaker 2: do as well. And so I pretty much you sold

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Speaker 2: to him. We need to make sure that clinicians are ready,

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Speaker 2: that the system is ready, and we need to actually

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Speaker 2: adapt to men's needs. And so that's what November, you know,

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Speaker 2: embraced me, and I became part of the team like

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Speaker 2: six years ago, and from strength to strength, I've been

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Speaker 2: able to take over our research team which is now

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Speaker 2: in a number of different countries and looks at not

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Speaker 2: only systems, it looks at masculinities, it looks at social media,

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Speaker 2: It looks at all of these different things that are

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Speaker 2: going on in men's lives and goes, how can we

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Speaker 2: talk to them about what's happening and how can we

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Speaker 2: actually offer them something that they want, not what you

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Speaker 2: think that they need.

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Speaker 3: Mm hm, that's really interesting. There's there's a couple of

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Speaker 3: things I want to jump into there. I want to

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Speaker 3: talk about the whole masculinity piece. And you know that

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Speaker 3: word is almost becoming synonymous with toxic today, and especially

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Speaker 3: because I got a fourteen year old boy, it's like,

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Speaker 3: you know, what do we tell these guys about?

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Speaker 1: Because I'm hearing.

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Speaker 3: A lot of I'm having an oscar coming home from school.

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Speaker 3: You know there is in school, there's respectful relationships, which

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Speaker 3: you're probably aware of. For our listeners, this is a

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Speaker 3: program throughout schools and it just seems to be at

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Speaker 3: least through through what we're hearing from him, it's this

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Speaker 3: is how men are bad.

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Speaker 1: This is what not to do.

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Speaker 3: This is how not to behave and nothing around talking

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Speaker 3: about values and virtues and how you should behave and

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Speaker 3: what good masculinity actually looks like.

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Speaker 1: And and it's it's driving lots of men away. You'll

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Speaker 1: be aware of that's more than me.

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Speaker 3: And they're going into the monosphere and listening to wankers

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Speaker 3: like Andrew Tiitt and stuff like that. Right, So, so

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Speaker 3: what what can we do, particularly with those emerging young

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Speaker 3: men who are going through their teens, they're trying to

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Speaker 3: find out they're clace in the world, and they're just

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Speaker 3: getting bombarded with all this negativity on one side and

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Speaker 3: all these deckheads on the other side saying, hey, come

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Speaker 3: in here, I'll show you something.

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Speaker 2: So wanker is like, Andrew, that's a great quote. We're

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Speaker 2: gonna we'll take that one out. But I think that

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Speaker 2: something that is so important is, as you said, they

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Speaker 2: are trying to work out who they are. They're going

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Speaker 2: through and we all remember that that that identity molding,

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Speaker 2: that extreme discomfort of like trying to work out who

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Speaker 2: I am and where I belong. You need not only role,

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Speaker 2: you need messaging, you need structuring and scaffolding. You need

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Speaker 2: a process that provides you with growth opportunities and provides

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Speaker 2: you with a sense of aspiration and future orientation. And

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Speaker 2: the messaging at the moment is devoid of that. It

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Speaker 2: is filled with this mentality of what not to do,

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Speaker 2: what not to be, and it's a deficit focused view,

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Speaker 2: which for all intents and purposes, despite the fact that

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Speaker 2: there is a lot of harm that goes on, we

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Speaker 2: cannot excuse the fact that, you know, men and boys

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Speaker 2: are doing some bad shit across the globe, but we

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Speaker 2: need to find a way to lean into the good,

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Speaker 2: to exemplify the good, to talk about the fact that

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Speaker 2: there are silent heroes all over the place. You know,

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Speaker 2: this idea that there are incredible role models in dads

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Speaker 2: and teachers and grandfathers who are never on the front pages.

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Speaker 2: It's just the dickheads who are on the front pages

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Speaker 2: of the paper who take up all of our time.

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Speaker 2: And that's where toxicity comes from. So I have a

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Speaker 2: fundamental issue with that term. As you would expect, it's

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Speaker 2: very harmful. It's not useful. It does not provide any

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Speaker 2: structure for young men to adapt their behavior. All it

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Speaker 2: does is says, here is a blanket ban on this thing.

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Speaker 2: That you have inherited and you now have no ability

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Speaker 2: to change that at all. Like if it's said there

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Speaker 2: are toxic elements to the way in which masculinity is

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Speaker 2: socialized and you should try and consider this, that's a

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Speaker 2: different ballgame. But the media will never purport that the

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Speaker 2: narrative is just like this is broken, You're all fucked.

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Speaker 2: That's kind of how it looks at the moment. And

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Speaker 2: that type of problem orientation without any solutions is exhausting,

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Speaker 2: it's degrading to young men, and fundamentally, my main concern

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Speaker 2: with the topic is that it does not make anything

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Speaker 2: better if we are afraid of violence against women. Calling

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Speaker 2: men toxic will not fix that. That's my issue, and

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Speaker 2: so I'm really focused on building up young men and

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Speaker 2: showing them what is possible, in providing them with a

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Speaker 2: manifesto of health and well being, rather than letting them

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Speaker 2: be driven into the arms of these guys who have

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Speaker 2: a really clear doctrine of life that is do this,

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Speaker 2: do this, do this, date this woman, make this money,

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Speaker 2: buy this car, get this job, And it's all about

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Speaker 2: power and domination, and it is fueled by men's insecurity

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Speaker 2: and this feeling that they are constantly pressured to achieve

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Speaker 2: something when in fact, really what we should be doing

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Speaker 2: is going, hey, guys, life is very scary, it's tough,

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Speaker 2: it's uncertain, but here is a path that we can

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Speaker 2: all work walk together. Mah.

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Speaker 3: I love that, and we need a lot more of that.

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Speaker 3: It's one of those things and we see it so much. Right,

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Speaker 3: is that there's well intentioned programs that then are just

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Speaker 3: misguided and have lots of an intended consequences. And as

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Speaker 3: you rightly pointed out, the unintended consequences is pushing.

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Speaker 1: Man towards all the wanker spear wanker spit.

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Speaker 2: But I think the thing is is that they're well intentioned,

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Speaker 2: and the one way that you can ensure that they

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Speaker 2: are going to actually hit the mark is by co

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Speaker 2: creating them with the audience. Sit down with the fourteen

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Speaker 2: year old boy and go does this pass the sniff test?

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Speaker 2: And they're going to be like, no, that sucks, that's boring,

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Speaker 2: that's stupid. Why are you talking to me like that?

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Speaker 2: I'm out? And then you go, all right, maybe this

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Speaker 2: won't work.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And you know what, it's really interesting because my

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Speaker 3: wife sent an email and to the school that Oscar's

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Speaker 3: in exactly around that, saying.

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Speaker 1: Where are the workshops?

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Speaker 3: Where are you talking to because Oscar's coming home and going,

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Speaker 3: you know, they're they're talking about guys thinking this. I've

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Speaker 3: never thought about that in my life, and it's almost like.

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Speaker 2: A self fulfilling prophecis yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 3: And suggestibility right, and Oscar's going, gee, that's so weird,

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Speaker 3: and he's coming home, going this shit's weird.

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Speaker 2: Why don't why don't we assume that these young guys,

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Speaker 2: and I always say this about the manosphere, which I

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Speaker 2: think is really important that young guys, and We've got

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Speaker 2: so much research on this, they don't go in with misogyny,

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Speaker 2: they leave with it. They leave with it. They don't

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Speaker 2: go into these classes with misogyny. They sit there, they

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Speaker 2: hear all of this stuff. Then they end up in

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Speaker 2: this you know, shitty banter with their friends because they're

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Speaker 2: now being force fed content that seems at odds with

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Speaker 2: their values, and they leave with these ideas you know,

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Speaker 2: that are pretty pretty dark. And so I think that

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Speaker 2: what we should be doing is going, here is an

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Speaker 2: offering for us to say to you, we believe that

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Speaker 2: you have inherent goodness. We believe that this is what's

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Speaker 2: possible for you. Let's help you get there. Let's provide

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Speaker 2: you with the path, rather than here is the badness,

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Speaker 2: and we're going to assume that this is who you are.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, you need to rewrite the curriculum on respectful relationships.

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Speaker 3: That would be a big step forward. I'm absolutely serious.

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Speaker 3: I think one of the things I've been thinking about

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Speaker 3: this a lot, right, particularly with a fourteen year old boy,

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Speaker 3: is the lack of in the West a ride of passage.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I think that's pretty huge. Ide interview that

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Speaker 3: doctor his name escapes me just because my head is

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Speaker 3: full of PhD and book at a minute, but he

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Speaker 3: actually was a medical doctor. He saw a lot of

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Speaker 3: problems with boys and went into the whole heap of

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Speaker 3: research and so all round the world and many many

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Speaker 3: traditions a ride of passage for teenage boys to bring

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Speaker 3: them into to manhood. And and he's saying, you know,

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Speaker 3: that is missing in our lives in the Western world,

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Speaker 3: and and actually has started this movement on ride passage,

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Speaker 3: which is I think brilliant.

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Speaker 1: Have you any.

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Speaker 2: Experience is that? Anna Rubs? Anna Rubins, Yeah, I apologize,

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Speaker 2: we got there.

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Speaker 1: It was a brilliant podcast.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so no, I know, I know Ana's worked really

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Speaker 2: well and I think it's important. You know, I don't

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Speaker 2: know if you've heard of the Man Cave, which is

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Speaker 2: an organization that goes into schools and does you know

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Speaker 2: young men's programming. We fund them at November. We consider

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Speaker 2: ourselves like the big brother of the men's sector. There's

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Speaker 2: also Top Blokes, and there's tomorrow Man, and there's you know,

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Speaker 2: the Positive Masculinity movement. There's there's a lot of different

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Speaker 2: school based programs that are trying to do this type

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Speaker 2: of rights of passage in different ways because some of

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Speaker 2: them are shorter, some of them are actually camps that

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Speaker 2: are that are longer. It's it has taken off, and

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Speaker 2: I think that we should also point out that the

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Speaker 2: right of passage movement is a beautiful in many ways

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Speaker 2: indigenous tradition and you know, going back to country, for instance,

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Speaker 2: is something that you hear about so often. Adam Good

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Speaker 2: spoke about it when he was going, you know, through

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Speaker 2: the horrible experiences that he was, you know, copying all

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Speaker 2: of that racism in the AFL, he went back to

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Speaker 2: country to try and you know, reconnect and that's something

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Speaker 2: where you start to access your identity, access who you

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Speaker 2: want to be and what you want, you know, your

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Speaker 2: life to look like. We've lost sight of that. And

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Speaker 2: do I think that we need a really structured societal

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Speaker 2: process for young men to move between boyhood and masculinity

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Speaker 2: and manhood. Maybe not. Do I think that there needs

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Speaker 2: to be a clearer discussion about how that period looks,

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Speaker 2: who needs to show up, and what success looks like. Yesnally.

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Speaker 2: And the right of passage as a concept I think

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Speaker 2: is essential in many ways because you know, women go

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Speaker 2: through it biologically. You know, they have a literal turning

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Speaker 2: point where they go to womanhood pretty quickly, and that

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Speaker 2: happens mind and body for them, and there's a lot

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Speaker 2: of conversation around it, thankfully now used to be. We

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Speaker 2: have gone from a point where there probably used to

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Speaker 2: be far more discussion for young men as they moved

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Speaker 2: into that in manhood towards this let's not let's not

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Speaker 2: in a way wake up the beast. Let's not have

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Speaker 2: that conversation. We don't want to point at that. We're

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Speaker 2: just going to hope that it works out. And I

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Speaker 2: think that that pluralistic ignorance in some ways that idea

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Speaker 2: that if we just shy away from this thing and

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Speaker 2: don't look at it, it'll just work out has really

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Speaker 2: fundamentally failed. Rather than going we need to structure this.

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Speaker 2: We need to make sure the boys have a sense

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Speaker 2: of belonging, they have a sense of community values, they

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Speaker 2: have a sense of service and altruism. And when I

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Speaker 2: talk about masculinity, people always go, you can't define healthy masculinity.

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Speaker 2: All we can do is define toxic. And I was like,

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Speaker 2: I can define healthy masculinity. It's focused on leveraging masculine

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Speaker 2: traits flexibly, which is that things like service, altruism, you know, fatherhood,

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Speaker 2: generative fatherhood. There are lots of different things that exist.

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Speaker 2: Stoicism and self reliance in the right dose are extremely useful.

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Speaker 2: I know you think you know long and hard about

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Speaker 2: hardiness and grit and toughness. All of this stuff, when

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Speaker 2: applied effectively in the right time, at the right place,

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Speaker 2: that is healthy, positive masculinityrit large and we should not

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Speaker 2: shy away from having those conversations.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent. Let's not jump over and talk

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Speaker 1: about therapy.

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Speaker 3: So you have done a lot of reading and the

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Speaker 3: research into the area of gender sensitive therapy, and why

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Speaker 3: some traditional therapeutic modes.

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Speaker 1: Might not work as well for men. So just talk

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Speaker 1: to us about that.

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Speaker 3: And is there an element because you mentioned right at

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Speaker 3: the start that in your masters you know you'll be

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Speaker 3: the only guy. And I remember at university psychology was

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Speaker 3: the vast majority were females. Has that influenced the way

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Speaker 3: that therapy is done and therefore is not the best

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Speaker 3: approach for men? Or is there many other things that

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Speaker 3: play I'm sure there's quite a few things to play

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Speaker 3: into it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there are so many different things to play. I

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Speaker 2: think the fact that the vast majority of people who

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Speaker 2: come to therapy are women is probably more of a

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Speaker 2: factor than who is offering it. But you know, psychologists,

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Speaker 2: you know it's about eighty percent are women in the profession.

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Speaker 2: And I actually don't think that that is anything other

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Speaker 2: than a marketing failure. Like it's a damn good job,

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Speaker 2: like you know you've got, especially in this day and

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Speaker 2: age where everyone is being replaced with AI, I think

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Speaker 2: I have pretty good future aspirations to exist as a therapist.

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Speaker 2: I'm not being replaced anytime soon. And you know, you

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Speaker 2: have stability, you get paid pretty well. There's just this

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Speaker 2: belief that it's women's work. And I think that that's

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Speaker 2: a serious issue within our society that that type of

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Speaker 2: sitting in someone's distress, in someone's life, you know, for

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Speaker 2: a moment, is not considered to be men's work. I

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Speaker 2: hope that we're going to see a shift and that

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Speaker 2: more men are going to get into it. It's not

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Speaker 2: because women cannot treat men. Let me be really clear.

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Speaker 2: Women are just as good at offering therapy to men

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Speaker 2: as men are. It's just that more choice is always better.

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Speaker 2: You know, you want more gay therapists, more indigenous therapists.

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Speaker 2: You just want you know, greater Yeah, you know, diversity

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Speaker 2: so that someone can always see someone who they want to.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's really important. But when it comes

404
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Speaker 2: to the therapeutic model, you know, you'd understand that it is.

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Speaker 2: It's very much focused on emotional communication and vulnerability, two

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Speaker 2: things that are like fundamentally at odds with the way

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Speaker 2: that we're brought up as men. In many ways, also,

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Speaker 2: it's like, sit down and let's have an hour long

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Speaker 2: face to face conversation about your deepest, darkest thoughts. Talk

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Speaker 2: to me about your mother and your sex life, and

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Speaker 2: every guy is like, damn that that is not where

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Speaker 2: I want to be right now. And there are some, thankfully,

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Speaker 2: who are into it, and there are many who are

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Speaker 2: not socialized to that experience, and it's it's very uncomfortable

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Speaker 2: and foreign and unaccommodating in many ways for them. And

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Speaker 2: so what I try to do and what this training

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Speaker 2: that I've created through November with my team is called

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Speaker 2: Men in Mind, which is like, how do we actually

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Speaker 2: get therapists to upskill to realize that when men come

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Speaker 2: into therapy, they have a lot of beliefs and expectations

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Speaker 2: and attitudes and biases that are going to stop good

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Speaker 2: therapy from happening. Also, you as a therapist have a

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Speaker 2: lot of beliefs and attitudes about men. You might be

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Speaker 2: reading god knows what, and you've got toxicity running through

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Speaker 2: your brain and then a guy all tattered up comes

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Speaker 2: in and you've decided that he's a ship bloke. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: And the issue is, as we said before, you end

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Speaker 2: up with a self fulfilling prophecy where he's only going

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Speaker 2: to show you what you're looking for. And so the

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Speaker 2: aim is to open this up. That's what the aim

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Speaker 2: of this training is, which is to be like, let's

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Speaker 2: actually make masculinity not just some commentary bullshit that we're

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Speaker 2: reading constantly in our opinion pieces, but rather, let's go

434
00:24:56,240 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 2: beyond adolescence, the show that everyone wants to talk about,

435
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:02,359
Speaker 2: and actually look at what is at the core here

436
00:25:02,800 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 2: of this guy's distress, which is often the way he

437
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:09,399
Speaker 2: was brought up, the pressures that he has, the stress

438
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:12,200
Speaker 2: that exists in his everyday life. And when I talk

439
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:16,960
Speaker 2: about the fact that therapy is in many ways a

440
00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:21,280
Speaker 2: contradiction with masculinity, it's because many of these guys don't

441
00:25:21,320 --> 00:25:25,240
Speaker 2: have mental health issues in the stereotypical sense. What they

442
00:25:25,280 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 2: do have is situational stresses. They have financial distress and uncertainty.

443
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 2: They have, you know, stress around unemployment, they have financial

444
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,359
Speaker 2: relationship difficulties. You know. The number one risk factor for

445
00:25:40,400 --> 00:25:43,720
Speaker 2: suicide in this country is not a history of depression.

446
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,000
Speaker 2: It's past six months separation.

447
00:25:48,440 --> 00:25:50,040
Speaker 1: Really, it's breakup.

448
00:25:50,320 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 2: Breakup is the greatest risk factor for suicide. So if

449
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,440
Speaker 2: anyone has a mate who has just gone through a divorce,

450
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:02,640
Speaker 2: those six months are like crucial for jumping on and

451
00:26:02,840 --> 00:26:06,719
Speaker 2: offering support and services for guys. But we don't see that.

452
00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:09,680
Speaker 2: We go, oh, he's not depressed, This all happened out

453
00:26:09,680 --> 00:26:11,879
Speaker 2: of the blue. It didn't happen out of the blue.

454
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 2: You know, this stuff is so important that we realize

455
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,000
Speaker 2: that things look and feel different amongst many guys when

456
00:26:18,040 --> 00:26:21,520
Speaker 2: they get depressed. For instance, there's a subgroup of men

457
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:25,760
Speaker 2: who don't go into this like sad, crying, worthlessness whole.

458
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:30,200
Speaker 2: They go into anger, irritability, and drug and alcohol use.

459
00:26:31,040 --> 00:26:34,320
Speaker 2: They go into externalizing. They send all of their distress

460
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:38,960
Speaker 2: out onto the world, and it looks like men behaving badly,

461
00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:43,480
Speaker 2: it looks like shit behavior. But in many instances it

462
00:26:43,600 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 2: is a cry for help, and we just need to

463
00:26:47,320 --> 00:26:50,920
Speaker 2: get more attuned and sensitive. That's what gender sensitive treatment

464
00:26:51,119 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: is being attuned to the fact that if this guy

465
00:26:53,960 --> 00:26:56,439
Speaker 2: was brought up in this way with these parents, in

466
00:26:56,480 --> 00:26:59,639
Speaker 2: this world, he is going to respond to his internal

467
00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 2: experience in this way.

468
00:27:02,680 --> 00:27:05,280
Speaker 3: It's a really interesting point, and it's actually made me

469
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,800
Speaker 3: think about stuff. I actually have three minutes in that

470
00:27:08,920 --> 00:27:14,120
Speaker 3: category in in my sort of large social group, and

471
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:16,200
Speaker 3: and and and you know, there's a there's a bunch

472
00:27:16,200 --> 00:27:20,680
Speaker 3: of us, you know, making a concerted effort to get

473
00:27:20,720 --> 00:27:22,159
Speaker 3: around them.

474
00:27:22,320 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 1: But it does this play into.

475
00:27:25,400 --> 00:27:27,880
Speaker 3: Just had of thought that that you know, the biggest

476
00:27:28,040 --> 00:27:32,320
Speaker 3: risk for suicide is my age group middle aged and

477
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 3: is a chunk of that because of that tends to

478
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:42,199
Speaker 3: be the age where there are separations and divorces and

479
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 3: then men are not dealing with it when big factor.

480
00:27:46,720 --> 00:27:49,360
Speaker 2: So the divorce, the divorces tend to happen. Yeah, at

481
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,359
Speaker 2: forty to fifty, like, that's where most divorces take place,

482
00:27:52,600 --> 00:27:55,560
Speaker 2: and that's where the suicide rate is that its highest. Yeah,

483
00:27:55,600 --> 00:27:58,200
Speaker 2: that's forty four to fifty five year old age bracket.

484
00:27:58,760 --> 00:28:03,040
Speaker 2: It's it's for that group. And no one actually gives

485
00:28:03,080 --> 00:28:05,840
Speaker 2: a shit about men in the middle years, Like, it's

486
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,440
Speaker 2: just not it's not a concern. Everyone is very focused

487
00:28:09,440 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 2: on young men, as they should be in many ways

488
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,320
Speaker 2: because they are the future of our society. But when

489
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,399
Speaker 2: you look at base statistics, we need to pivot to

490
00:28:17,400 --> 00:28:20,879
Speaker 2: start to focus on these guys because what happens is

491
00:28:20,920 --> 00:28:25,720
Speaker 2: that there is a long term suppression of emotion, There

492
00:28:25,760 --> 00:28:30,479
Speaker 2: is a long term breakdown in social connectivity. You know,

493
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:34,080
Speaker 2: the number of friends that those guys have drops off

494
00:28:34,080 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 2: a cliff. Yeah, And so very lucky that you've got

495
00:28:38,200 --> 00:28:41,080
Speaker 2: at the vast majority of guys who are in that

496
00:28:41,200 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 2: age bracket who have kids have very few people to

497
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,719
Speaker 2: call on when they're in a time of need, And

498
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:52,120
Speaker 2: so they get to divorce and their whole social scaffolding

499
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,280
Speaker 2: is gone. They literally don't have anything to stand on.

500
00:28:55,760 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: No one is there to wrap around them. Their wife

501
00:28:58,120 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 2: created all of the social events for them.

502
00:29:00,480 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 3: That's a massive thing, isn't it is that most of

503
00:29:04,360 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 3: the social stuff is.

504
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: Driven by the wife and their friends.

505
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:11,280
Speaker 3: And then when the divorce happens, vacuum choose and the

506
00:29:11,320 --> 00:29:12,240
Speaker 3: guys left on them of.

507
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:15,479
Speaker 2: Course, because it's done. No fucking work do the work?

508
00:29:15,600 --> 00:29:19,240
Speaker 2: Like what like why is it that this is women's work?

509
00:29:19,280 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 2: And this is the thing women don't want to do that.

510
00:29:20,960 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 2: They don't want to arrange everything. You don't need to

511
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 2: be hopeless at this stuff like it is. And they

512
00:29:26,120 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 2: say this to guys all the time. This is fundamentally

513
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 2: life saving for you. You can go and have as many

514
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 2: ice baths as you want, but if you don't have

515
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:38,120
Speaker 2: any mates, you're done. Like, it is essential that in

516
00:29:38,280 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 2: you when you're eighteen, when you're twenty five, when you're thirty,

517
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,640
Speaker 2: no matter how important your job is, if you do

518
00:29:45,720 --> 00:29:49,680
Speaker 2: not spend time on your social connections, your life expectancy

519
00:29:50,280 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 2: will drop like that is the thing that keeps guys alive.

520
00:29:53,960 --> 00:29:57,360
Speaker 2: You look at the Harvard Longitudinal Study. Consistently, the only

521
00:29:57,400 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 2: guys who are alive in their nineties, regardless of whether

522
00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 2: they smoked, what their diet was, what their exercise was,

523
00:30:03,800 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 2: the ones who had quality relationships are still alive. That

524
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:10,760
Speaker 2: is essential, and that is why when you get to

525
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:14,520
Speaker 2: your mid forties and you have a separation, you don't

526
00:30:14,520 --> 00:30:16,880
Speaker 2: have any friends around to call on when you're in

527
00:30:16,880 --> 00:30:21,480
Speaker 2: a time of need. You have extreme shame around all

528
00:30:21,520 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: of this that you have no vocabulary to describe, and

529
00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 2: you have stigma around gunotherapy or the therapist doesn't connect

530
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:31,960
Speaker 2: with you. It's a pretty bad situation. So we just

531
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 2: need to do a lot better at not only empathizing

532
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,840
Speaker 2: with those guys and providing them with structures, we need

533
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 2: to make sure that they know that there are so

534
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 2: many like them out there and that they can connect

535
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:50,640
Speaker 2: with one another. Because all they want, all of us want,

536
00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:55,560
Speaker 2: all the time, is this sense of connection and belonging.

537
00:30:55,560 --> 00:30:57,600
Speaker 2: And so when guys go, oh, I don't want to

538
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:01,760
Speaker 2: pick up the phone, and guy seem nady, you know

539
00:31:01,880 --> 00:31:03,480
Speaker 2: that's always I don't want to, I don't want to

540
00:31:03,480 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 2: be vulnerable. I see nadiy blah blah blah. I'm like, mate,

541
00:31:06,840 --> 00:31:08,840
Speaker 2: I know that all you want is to hang out

542
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:11,720
Speaker 2: with him, So like, we need to move past that

543
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:16,320
Speaker 2: shame response that I might look weak for asking for

544
00:31:16,400 --> 00:31:21,160
Speaker 2: something when in fact your values are telling you I

545
00:31:21,240 --> 00:31:22,920
Speaker 2: need this, This is important to me.

546
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,160
Speaker 3: Do you know one thing I often talk about in

547
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:32,840
Speaker 3: my talks is the Hanoi Hilton prison camp in Vietnam

548
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,720
Speaker 3: where they had something called the tap code. And I

549
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:39,800
Speaker 3: interviewed Lee Ellis, who spent five and a half years

550
00:31:39,800 --> 00:31:42,320
Speaker 3: in that prison camp, and the tap code was away

551
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:45,560
Speaker 3: when they were in solitary confinement, they could tap on

552
00:31:45,640 --> 00:31:48,760
Speaker 3: the walls and the pipes and communicate with each other.

553
00:31:49,480 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 3: And the research shows that that is the single biggest

554
00:31:53,960 --> 00:31:58,280
Speaker 3: predictor of PTSD and suicide and combat veterans is whether

555
00:31:58,400 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 3: or not they have social networks that they use.

556
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,520
Speaker 2: I'll tell you something, you know. I gave evidence to

557
00:32:03,560 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 2: the Royal Commission into Veterans Suicide and everyone was kind

558
00:32:07,760 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 2: of perplexed about the fact that the suicide rate is

559
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:13,600
Speaker 2: so high in veterans. But I tell you, when it's

560
00:32:13,600 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 2: so high, it's not when they are active servicemen. It

561
00:32:17,320 --> 00:32:19,600
Speaker 2: is when they return. It's always when they return, and

562
00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:22,480
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why, because they have a sense of purpose,

563
00:32:22,800 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 2: meaning and belonging. And then the carpet is ripped out

564
00:32:25,840 --> 00:32:28,800
Speaker 2: from underneath them and they go, who am I? And

565
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 2: where is everybody? And that's literally what happens when men

566
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:35,480
Speaker 2: just get into their forties, they go, wait a second,

567
00:32:35,520 --> 00:32:38,080
Speaker 2: I was having fun, all my mates are around, and

568
00:32:38,120 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 2: I actually didn't water the seeds. I did not help

569
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:45,280
Speaker 2: my social life grow because it wasn't a priority. You

570
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,720
Speaker 2: need to make it a priority. I sound like I'm

571
00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:52,720
Speaker 2: preaching here, but it's something that is so fundamentally simple

572
00:32:53,320 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 2: and is so disregarded. And I think that this notion

573
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 2: that like masculinity going your own way, being your own man,

574
00:33:00,840 --> 00:33:04,680
Speaker 2: is absolute bullshit. We are human beings and the way

575
00:33:04,720 --> 00:33:09,200
Speaker 2: in which masculinity flourishes is when we are in tandem

576
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 2: with other people.

577
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 3: You're preaching the correct palm. And actually, my wife so

578
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:19,800
Speaker 3: because I'm ex military, right, I spent eight years in

579
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,040
Speaker 3: the British military and they moved over to Australia. I

580
00:33:22,040 --> 00:33:23,560
Speaker 3: didn't know anybody.

581
00:33:23,200 --> 00:33:25,520
Speaker 1: And just you know, dove into work.

582
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:28,680
Speaker 3: And building my career and my wife one day said

583
00:33:28,680 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 3: to me, you need to go back and start playing football.

584
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 4: And she was, actually, I always know, they always and yeah, exactly,

585
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 4: she she knew, she absolutely knew, and it was definitely

586
00:33:41,080 --> 00:33:44,000
Speaker 4: the best thing I'd ever did, right, because it's Deny,

587
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 4: this whole group that are around soccer and even though

588
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:52,600
Speaker 4: we're not playing anymore, we're still hanging out and talking

589
00:33:52,640 --> 00:33:53,840
Speaker 4: and supporting each other.

590
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:56,960
Speaker 3: How much of the just to come back to the

591
00:33:56,960 --> 00:34:03,000
Speaker 3: therapy thing, how much of this is that men normally,

592
00:34:03,720 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 3: You know, if you're going to generalize, lots of females

593
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:10,680
Speaker 3: have fierce to fierce conversations.

594
00:34:10,680 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 1: They catch up over coffee and they sit in the

595
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:15,960
Speaker 1: talk fierce to fierce. But with me and a lot.

596
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:19,760
Speaker 3: Of it's shoulder to shoulder right in the pub, watching sport,

597
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,280
Speaker 3: chatting and stuff like that. How much of that plays

598
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:26,640
Speaker 3: into therapy because therapy is that fierce to fierce, which

599
00:34:26,840 --> 00:34:30,280
Speaker 3: as men are not as accustomed to in general.

600
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:32,480
Speaker 2: Exactly. So there are two things here. The first is

601
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:36,080
Speaker 2: that men are not beyond face to face conversation, So

602
00:34:36,920 --> 00:34:39,279
Speaker 2: we should never do this thing where we're like, we

603
00:34:39,440 --> 00:34:43,280
Speaker 2: have to completely adapt everything because they can't do it.

604
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:46,400
Speaker 2: It might take longer, and so you build in systems

605
00:34:46,440 --> 00:34:48,360
Speaker 2: that are going to get you to that endpoint. But

606
00:34:48,440 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 2: let's not throw out the baby with the bath wat

607
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,160
Speaker 2: and be like, men can't sit down and have our

608
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,720
Speaker 2: long conversations because we're right here doing that. Yeah so yeah,

609
00:34:55,800 --> 00:34:59,319
Speaker 2: not true. But it does take longer, it is more uncomfortable,

610
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 2: it is more ful in many instances, and it's extremely foreign.

611
00:35:03,080 --> 00:35:06,000
Speaker 2: And so for those guys who do more of that

612
00:35:06,040 --> 00:35:10,040
Speaker 2: shoulder to shoulder, I think what's really important is that

613
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:13,879
Speaker 2: that doesn't need to go away. That can exist within

614
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:16,520
Speaker 2: the therapeutic setting. And this is what I try and

615
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,719
Speaker 2: teach in this program, which is that just because you

616
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 2: decided as a clinician, yeah, or you were taught. Actually

617
00:35:24,080 --> 00:35:26,319
Speaker 2: I was always taught, and I was reprimanded if I

618
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 2: did anything different during my Masters that you must sit

619
00:35:31,040 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 2: in these two chairs. They must look the same. You

620
00:35:33,800 --> 00:35:36,719
Speaker 2: must be at this angle, you must ask these questions.

621
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:38,480
Speaker 2: When I'm doing an assessment, I have to you know,

622
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:41,440
Speaker 2: have my clipboard, blah blah blah. Very quickly I was

623
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:44,319
Speaker 2: like fuck this, like this is not happening. I went

624
00:35:44,360 --> 00:35:47,120
Speaker 2: to Darwin from one of my placements, and I was

625
00:35:47,239 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 2: working with young indigenous kids, and it's like, if you

626
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:53,239
Speaker 2: attempt to do any of that with them, you're done. Yeah,

627
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 2: And it's a baptism of fire to really learn that

628
00:35:56,239 --> 00:36:00,120
Speaker 2: very early, which was great. But what I do is

629
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 2: is I do what is necessary to get to the

630
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 2: same endpoint, which is to say, I've had ping pong

631
00:36:08,760 --> 00:36:11,480
Speaker 2: tables in my therapy room, I've had pool tables. I've

632
00:36:11,480 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 2: played Call of Duty with young guys, like when their

633
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:18,920
Speaker 2: hands are busy, the ability for them to open up

634
00:36:19,040 --> 00:36:21,840
Speaker 2: is profound. And so this is what I mean. The

635
00:36:21,920 --> 00:36:26,080
Speaker 2: endpoint of interest is around openness and vulnerability and whatever

636
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:29,600
Speaker 2: way it looks, how you get there. They do not

637
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 2: decide that it has to look like this. And so

638
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,440
Speaker 2: I think that our therapy, you know, I've done running therapy,

639
00:36:38,480 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 2: there's adventure therapy, there's equine therapy. There are so many

640
00:36:41,239 --> 00:36:45,200
Speaker 2: different modes that are opening up. They're considered like crazy offshoots,

641
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,480
Speaker 2: you know, but really what should be considered crazy is

642
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,840
Speaker 2: the fact that we've decided that these four walls, this

643
00:36:52,000 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 2: is how you're going to talk about your trauma, like

644
00:36:55,120 --> 00:36:57,840
Speaker 2: wild And so I threw out the clipboard because I

645
00:36:57,920 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 2: was like, if I can't look at him or if

646
00:37:00,000 --> 00:37:02,719
Speaker 2: if I can't be there with him, he thinks I'm

647
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:06,879
Speaker 2: a robot and my first two sessions or so, I'm

648
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,480
Speaker 2: not going through his entire family history chronologically because he

649
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,439
Speaker 2: doesn't talk like that normally. I talked to him about

650
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:15,960
Speaker 2: surfing for twenty five minutes and how the waves were

651
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 2: this morning, and then in the last ten minutes he

652
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 2: dumps because he's calm, he's relaxed, he's been able to

653
00:37:22,600 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 2: be a human being. So just do what works and

654
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:29,440
Speaker 2: ask him what he wants, and if he doesn't know,

655
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:31,279
Speaker 2: co create it with him.

656
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I love that.

657
00:37:32,960 --> 00:37:35,680
Speaker 3: I actually know somebody who went to see who was struggling,

658
00:37:35,680 --> 00:37:39,359
Speaker 3: really struggling, and went to see a psychiatrist who sat

659
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,200
Speaker 3: behind a desk and quite far away from them with

660
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:48,280
Speaker 3: a clipboard, just firing questions Adam and then just give him.

661
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:50,800
Speaker 2: A something for eleven minutes and asked for five hundred dollars.

662
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,480
Speaker 2: But this is the thing, It's like the system is broken.

663
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 2: It's not any one individual who's going to be able

664
00:37:56,840 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 2: to change this. I can only see however many people

665
00:37:59,719 --> 00:38:02,880
Speaker 2: I can. That's why I'm trying to create system change,

666
00:38:02,960 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 2: because we need our training programs at our universities. We

667
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 2: need our you know, practitioner regulation, stuff like it's not

668
00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 2: unethical to do treatment in a way that's going to

669
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:17,759
Speaker 2: be beneficial. But they've created such strict bounds that we've

670
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:19,840
Speaker 2: ended up actually shooting ourselves in the foot.

671
00:38:20,440 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 3: Yeah. Agree, My wife's going through a master's in counseling,

672
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 3: and it's so bloody rigid some of this stuff.

673
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:29,480
Speaker 1: But I think you you become the artist.

674
00:38:29,360 --> 00:38:30,920
Speaker 2: You find your way doing exactly.

675
00:38:31,680 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 3: Yeah, So let's let's let's come back to this suicide thing.

676
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:36,960
Speaker 1: I remember my dad telling me. So he lives in

677
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:39,920
Speaker 1: Ireland in an area whe there's a lot of farmers.

678
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:42,880
Speaker 3: And and he said, when Ireland, which is one of

679
00:38:42,880 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 3: the last countries in Europe to bring in the drink

680
00:38:47,080 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 3: driving laws with full force, he said, meal suicides in

681
00:38:52,080 --> 00:38:55,520
Speaker 3: farmers went through the roof and and and he saw

682
00:38:55,600 --> 00:38:58,279
Speaker 3: it in his area because these guys, a lot of

683
00:38:58,280 --> 00:39:01,479
Speaker 3: them were single. They work really, really hard, and then

684
00:39:01,840 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 3: a couple of times a week they'd drive into the

685
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:08,560
Speaker 3: pub and have a few paints with their mates, sending

686
00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 3: shoulder to shoulder, and as my dad has described it,

687
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,120
Speaker 3: that was their church. And then when they brought in

688
00:39:15,160 --> 00:39:17,279
Speaker 3: the drink driving lots. If they had like more in

689
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:19,040
Speaker 3: a paint, that was it. They were, they were done.

690
00:39:19,080 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 3: They'd lose their whole livelihoods. And he said they just

691
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:29,560
Speaker 3: stopped coming, and suicides massively spiked. So and that comes

692
00:39:29,600 --> 00:39:33,160
Speaker 3: back to your early point about that that men need

693
00:39:33,200 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 3: those social networks, and we all need the social networks, but.

694
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:38,640
Speaker 1: But we're not as good at them as females.

695
00:39:39,120 --> 00:39:42,399
Speaker 3: What other So you talked about the importance of that

696
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 3: in suicide prevention. What other approaches are promising in the

697
00:39:48,400 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 3: suicide prevention space for sure.

698
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:52,959
Speaker 2: So we've been working at this for a long time,

699
00:39:53,000 --> 00:39:58,239
Speaker 2: and it's it's really central in some ways because I

700
00:39:58,280 --> 00:40:00,320
Speaker 2: you know, my my theasis was really folks is on

701
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:03,359
Speaker 2: depression whenever I did that when I was a wee boy.

702
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:08,640
Speaker 2: And it's funny how when you talk about men's mental

703
00:40:08,640 --> 00:40:13,000
Speaker 2: health you get dragged always into the pointy end of suicide.

704
00:40:13,000 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 2: It always goes there because it seems that that journey

705
00:40:17,200 --> 00:40:19,280
Speaker 2: and all of the other distress that kind of sits

706
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 2: in the middle, it's only the crisis that people are

707
00:40:23,040 --> 00:40:25,719
Speaker 2: willing to kind of deal with, that's where they want

708
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 2: to focus much of their attention when it comes to prevention.

709
00:40:30,960 --> 00:40:35,000
Speaker 2: It is about those early times. It's about getting on

710
00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:40,680
Speaker 2: this stuff around social connection, around relationship health, fundamentally, around

711
00:40:40,719 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 2: making sure that they understand what rejection looks and feels like.

712
00:40:45,840 --> 00:40:48,640
Speaker 2: You know, this idea that we can't be in control

713
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 2: and powerful and dominant of our relationships and in fact

714
00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:56,240
Speaker 2: it's a push pull always and it will not always

715
00:40:56,280 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 2: go your way. And learning how to regulate our emotions.

716
00:41:01,440 --> 00:41:03,040
Speaker 2: I would say that that is the one thing that

717
00:41:03,080 --> 00:41:07,400
Speaker 2: we are really struggling with as men, is our emotion regulation.

718
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 2: Everything kind of comes back to a sense of shame

719
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:12,840
Speaker 2: and failure, I think for many guys, Yeah, which is

720
00:41:12,840 --> 00:41:15,960
Speaker 2: that I couldn't do this, I couldn't be this, I

721
00:41:16,000 --> 00:41:18,799
Speaker 2: couldn't achieve what I thought was necessary, and there's all

722
00:41:18,840 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: of these wood I should have could at things, and

723
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 2: this ability to go in your own mind. Actually, this

724
00:41:28,520 --> 00:41:31,080
Speaker 2: is what's happening right now. This is what I need

725
00:41:31,120 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 2: to do. This is how I need to calm myself down.

726
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:35,279
Speaker 2: This is how I'm going to talk to myself in

727
00:41:35,360 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 2: a way that's going to soothe me and help me

728
00:41:38,719 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 2: move past whatever this feeling is. Instead, what happens is

729
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:46,760
Speaker 2: that that feeling comes up and it is fundamentally intolerable

730
00:41:47,200 --> 00:41:49,399
Speaker 2: for many of these guys because they have not been

731
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:53,880
Speaker 2: given the code to be able to actually respond to it.

732
00:41:54,160 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 2: And so you go from a twelve year old who

733
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 2: is you know, pre suspended for showing emotion in class

734
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,319
Speaker 2: rather than sat down and spoken to about what he's

735
00:42:04,360 --> 00:42:07,359
Speaker 2: feeling and thinking. And then he's an eighteen year old

736
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 2: and he's drinking and drug taking and a girlfriend's just

737
00:42:11,680 --> 00:42:15,120
Speaker 2: broken up with him, and there's just seemingly no way

738
00:42:15,160 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 2: for him to overcome this feeling because it's just too

739
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:20,600
Speaker 2: much for him. To the thirty year old who's just

740
00:42:20,640 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 2: had a kid and now he is suddenly in this

741
00:42:24,200 --> 00:42:26,960
Speaker 2: new world and he has no ability to understand the

742
00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:29,719
Speaker 2: extreme stress that he's feeling about being a protector and

743
00:42:29,719 --> 00:42:32,680
Speaker 2: a provider. It goes on and on and on, and

744
00:42:32,760 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 2: at some point it just becomes too much for some people.

745
00:42:36,680 --> 00:42:39,120
Speaker 2: And so what we need to do is get on

746
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,920
Speaker 2: it early. But it's also never too late, Like there

747
00:42:41,920 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 2: are ways I've worked with sixty seventy year old men

748
00:42:44,360 --> 00:42:47,879
Speaker 2: who have so much trauma about things that happened to them,

749
00:42:48,400 --> 00:42:50,800
Speaker 2: you know, early on. And the thing about the Irish,

750
00:42:51,040 --> 00:42:55,120
Speaker 2: which was so lucky to learn from is this poetry,

751
00:42:55,160 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 2: this storytelling, this ability to make light of pretty dark situation.

752
00:43:00,760 --> 00:43:03,080
Speaker 2: And I think us men need to find a way

753
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,120
Speaker 2: to realize that is deeply masculine, to make meaning of

754
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 2: what has happened to you, to describe it, to corral

755
00:43:11,120 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 2: those internal pieces and actually regulate those feelings rather than

756
00:43:17,719 --> 00:43:20,400
Speaker 2: try and push them further and further down with more drink.

757
00:43:20,840 --> 00:43:24,439
Speaker 2: You know, because like alcohol is a huge thing. It's

758
00:43:24,520 --> 00:43:27,719
Speaker 2: extremely social for many guys. It's the thing that gets

759
00:43:27,719 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 2: them out of the house, but they don't seem to

760
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,800
Speaker 2: have any flexibility and like I can do other things

761
00:43:32,840 --> 00:43:35,280
Speaker 2: with my mates, you know, yeah, yeah.

762
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:40,200
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think that's where that's where sport, golf, soccer, whatever,

763
00:43:40,560 --> 00:43:43,920
Speaker 3: you know, really comes to the forward. But I wanted

764
00:43:43,960 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 3: to just come back to something you kind of started

765
00:43:46,800 --> 00:43:50,760
Speaker 3: talking about this, and I think it's kind of endemic

766
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 3: of our whole health care system is that we have

767
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,799
Speaker 3: a set curse system, not a healthcare system. You know,

768
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,799
Speaker 3: we weird until people are screwed and then we try

769
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:03,800
Speaker 3: to treat them. And in the medical model, there's a

770
00:44:03,840 --> 00:44:06,040
Speaker 3: lot of drugs, as in psychology, a lot of drugs

771
00:44:06,040 --> 00:44:09,480
Speaker 3: that that that that you know, have limited effectiveness. So

772
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:14,919
Speaker 3: if you were czar of the universe, right, what what

773
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:15,560
Speaker 3: would you do?

774
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 1: What sort of things would you implement? And and what

775
00:44:19,160 --> 00:44:19,360
Speaker 1: it is?

776
00:44:19,400 --> 00:44:20,919
Speaker 3: And I think we've talked about some of them along

777
00:44:20,960 --> 00:44:23,840
Speaker 3: the way, but just just you've got that magic wand

778
00:44:24,200 --> 00:44:25,680
Speaker 3: nigh what.

779
00:44:25,680 --> 00:44:27,799
Speaker 1: Would where would you start? And where would you go?

780
00:44:28,200 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 2: I don't want this trumpy and power. But the what

781
00:44:31,680 --> 00:44:35,600
Speaker 2: I what I would do, I think is I would

782
00:44:35,760 --> 00:44:38,920
Speaker 2: I would totally agree that I would focus heavily on

783
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 2: health and well being. I would focus on like you

784
00:44:42,000 --> 00:44:44,480
Speaker 2: don't remember any of the arithmetic that you did at

785
00:44:44,520 --> 00:44:46,840
Speaker 2: fucking school, Like none of that holds. You need a

786
00:44:46,840 --> 00:44:49,480
Speaker 2: certain amount, you need the building blocks. And then we

787
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 2: need to focus on life skills. We need to focus

788
00:44:52,960 --> 00:44:56,279
Speaker 2: on our emotional inner world in a way that is

789
00:44:56,360 --> 00:44:59,680
Speaker 2: not feminized, that is not at odds with the way

790
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 2: and we're we're brought up, but is actually directly tied

791
00:45:02,600 --> 00:45:05,759
Speaker 2: to our sense of self and so doing values work,

792
00:45:05,840 --> 00:45:10,480
Speaker 2: doing rights of passage, doing ideas of you know, spending

793
00:45:10,880 --> 00:45:14,520
Speaker 2: a period a month you know at school, going who

794
00:45:14,520 --> 00:45:16,080
Speaker 2: do you want to be? Not? What do you want

795
00:45:16,120 --> 00:45:18,320
Speaker 2: to be? Not I want to be a five? This

796
00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 2: is always a thing that everyone is asking kids, what

797
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:22,520
Speaker 2: do you want to be? It's who do you want

798
00:45:22,560 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 2: to be? It's it's and how are you going to

799
00:45:24,960 --> 00:45:28,120
Speaker 2: get there? And it's not about this aspiration of I

800
00:45:28,239 --> 00:45:31,200
Speaker 2: need to be a CEO, I want to be an entrepreneur.

801
00:45:31,280 --> 00:45:35,720
Speaker 2: That's what's killing us. It's this idea of achievement rather

802
00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:40,279
Speaker 2: than that hard work of self determination and growth, you know.

803
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:44,200
Speaker 2: And so what I would focus on is building up

804
00:45:44,280 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 2: those course skills around making sure that our communities are

805
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: actually interlinked and tightly bound in ways that they used

806
00:45:52,040 --> 00:45:54,840
Speaker 2: to be for our grandparents, where people would have neighbors

807
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,640
Speaker 2: that they would talk to, God forbid, Like I don't

808
00:45:57,680 --> 00:46:01,080
Speaker 2: know where that went, you know, absolutely. You know, we

809
00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:03,680
Speaker 2: can talk about tech and social media, like there's a

810
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:06,719
Speaker 2: whole thing going on there which is harming everybody and

811
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:09,600
Speaker 2: is leading to serious brain rot and an inability to

812
00:46:09,680 --> 00:46:12,760
Speaker 2: actually be in the present moment. And anxiety is going

813
00:46:12,800 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: through the roof with that as well. Let alone pornography

814
00:46:16,600 --> 00:46:22,480
Speaker 2: and all of these other situations which are really harming men. Pornography, gambling, alcohol,

815
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,759
Speaker 2: seriously undermining men's ability to show up for themselves and

816
00:46:26,800 --> 00:46:31,320
Speaker 2: their families and so and that leads to this spiral,

817
00:46:31,640 --> 00:46:34,200
Speaker 2: you know. And so if I am the Cizar, I

818
00:46:34,239 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 2: am focused really heavily on connection, on understanding your emotional

819
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:42,719
Speaker 2: experience and being able to discuss and describe it, and

820
00:46:42,760 --> 00:46:45,040
Speaker 2: making sure there are some schools that you know that

821
00:46:45,080 --> 00:46:48,399
Speaker 2: I've worked with where every boy sees a psychologist once

822
00:46:48,440 --> 00:46:51,520
Speaker 2: a month. You know, we should have a public school

823
00:46:51,520 --> 00:46:54,520
Speaker 2: system where I don't want to see you when you're sick.

824
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,360
Speaker 2: I have no interest in that be because when you're depressed,

825
00:46:57,680 --> 00:46:59,760
Speaker 2: I need to actually like get you out of bed.

826
00:47:00,120 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 2: I need to get you going to work. That's not therapy.

827
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:10,320
Speaker 2: Therapy is building you up. It's creating that resilient scaffolding

828
00:47:10,440 --> 00:47:13,560
Speaker 2: so that you can continue on when you're down in

829
00:47:13,600 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: the dumps. That's that's not where the work happens. And

830
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:21,560
Speaker 2: so it's really important that we actually see psychology as

831
00:47:22,400 --> 00:47:26,400
Speaker 2: dental care preventative. Once every six months, give me a

832
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:28,680
Speaker 2: give me a check up, check my gums. You know.

833
00:47:29,960 --> 00:47:32,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know that that is very powerful. Is there

834
00:47:32,719 --> 00:47:36,160
Speaker 1: anything that November are doing in this space?

835
00:47:36,680 --> 00:47:39,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, because because because this is this is the stuff

836
00:47:39,120 --> 00:47:41,680
Speaker 3: that I'm really pastiate at about is like how do

837
00:47:41,760 --> 00:47:44,600
Speaker 3: you how do you head this off at the past,

838
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,080
Speaker 3: and how do you give people a guide a scuffold

839
00:47:48,120 --> 00:47:51,480
Speaker 3: as you say, to live the good life? And and

840
00:47:51,280 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 3: and actually, just before I finished the question, I think

841
00:47:54,880 --> 00:47:57,440
Speaker 3: you know I'm not religious. I'm a recovering Catholic from

842
00:47:57,480 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 3: Northern I don't have been in recovery for forty years.

843
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:04,680
Speaker 1: But I think part of the overall problem.

844
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,960
Speaker 3: Is the breakdown of religion, although I'm not a massive

845
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,719
Speaker 3: fan of it, because it gives people a set of

846
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 3: values and a guide from how to for how to live,

847
00:48:13,520 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 3: but also a community.

848
00:48:15,760 --> 00:48:18,879
Speaker 1: And then you're taken you're taking that away, and people.

849
00:48:18,640 --> 00:48:21,280
Speaker 3: Need to then go and do the work, particularly about

850
00:48:21,600 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 3: what sort of a person do I want to be?

851
00:48:23,320 --> 00:48:24,840
Speaker 1: What sort of values do I have?

852
00:48:24,960 --> 00:48:29,080
Speaker 3: And if you don't have anybody steering them, then often

853
00:48:29,480 --> 00:48:34,680
Speaker 3: that is outsourced to social media and these tribes and

854
00:48:34,800 --> 00:48:38,239
Speaker 3: social media that that can become really destructive.

855
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:42,719
Speaker 1: So sorry, but that that that turned into a rantom.

856
00:48:43,280 --> 00:48:47,600
Speaker 2: The moral fabric. When you when you had really clear

857
00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:53,600
Speaker 2: institutions that provided community, there were scouts, there's rotary churches,

858
00:48:54,120 --> 00:48:56,520
Speaker 2: and they all fell apart because they were all corrupt.

859
00:48:56,760 --> 00:48:59,200
Speaker 2: And that this is the issue. How do we create

860
00:48:59,400 --> 00:49:03,040
Speaker 2: safe male only spaces as well, you know, how do

861
00:49:03,080 --> 00:49:05,840
Speaker 2: we create places that are actually going to not be

862
00:49:06,360 --> 00:49:09,280
Speaker 2: abuses of power, that are not going to be corrupt,

863
00:49:09,320 --> 00:49:11,359
Speaker 2: and that are actually going because there was a lot

864
00:49:11,360 --> 00:49:13,439
Speaker 2: of health that came with that, there was a lot

865
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 2: of benefit. It just so happens that we actually unraveled

866
00:49:17,000 --> 00:49:19,279
Speaker 2: all of it rather than some of it, which I

867
00:49:19,280 --> 00:49:23,680
Speaker 2: think is problematic. But what my Vember is doing, We've

868
00:49:23,680 --> 00:49:28,200
Speaker 2: got programs all over the globe and we fund you know,

869
00:49:28,200 --> 00:49:30,520
Speaker 2: some of the school based stuff. We fund a program

870
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,240
Speaker 2: and we created it called Ahead of the Game, which

871
00:49:33,320 --> 00:49:38,279
Speaker 2: is a sport mental health and resilience training and so

872
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 2: we go in. We're partnering with the AFL on this

873
00:49:41,040 --> 00:49:44,880
Speaker 2: at the moment, and we're actually partnering with Gaelic Football

874
00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:48,239
Speaker 2: as well in Ireland. And what we do is we

875
00:49:48,320 --> 00:49:50,480
Speaker 2: go into a club, into a community club. This is

876
00:49:50,520 --> 00:49:53,759
Speaker 2: not elite, it's at the grassroots and you go in

877
00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:58,440
Speaker 2: and you give a program on understanding and responding to

878
00:49:58,520 --> 00:50:01,399
Speaker 2: your own mental health issues, building up resilience in these

879
00:50:01,440 --> 00:50:03,799
Speaker 2: young guys. But something that we do that is so

880
00:50:03,880 --> 00:50:06,239
Speaker 2: important is that we also train the coaches and the

881
00:50:06,320 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 2: parents because you have to have the ecosystem because what happens.

882
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:12,560
Speaker 2: And this is, you know, something that I'm learning a

883
00:50:12,600 --> 00:50:15,040
Speaker 2: lot of in the violence prevention space is I do

884
00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:17,759
Speaker 2: more of it. When you go and you tell a

885
00:50:17,760 --> 00:50:21,319
Speaker 2: boy at thirteen, this is what you need to do

886
00:50:21,400 --> 00:50:23,680
Speaker 2: to be a respectful man, and how to you know,

887
00:50:24,120 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 2: not be misogynistic and violent and whatever. If he goes

888
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 2: home and his dad is beating his mum, none of

889
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:35,279
Speaker 2: that matters. Build an ecosystem of health and well being

890
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,920
Speaker 2: and safety for a young kid, and he will feel

891
00:50:38,960 --> 00:50:43,440
Speaker 2: like he exists within a place that makes sense. He

892
00:50:43,520 --> 00:50:46,600
Speaker 2: exists with rules that he can follow. He exists with

893
00:50:46,760 --> 00:50:50,080
Speaker 2: an aspiration that he can achieve because his coach and

894
00:50:50,120 --> 00:50:53,200
Speaker 2: his dad is playing the game with him, you know.

895
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:56,759
Speaker 2: So that's you know, one really key program that we're

896
00:50:56,840 --> 00:51:02,080
Speaker 2: rolling out across the globe. And I continue to spend

897
00:51:02,160 --> 00:51:05,160
Speaker 2: most of my time with my team researching how we

898
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:09,920
Speaker 2: can get this no do gap being a bit shorter,

899
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:12,879
Speaker 2: so knowing and actually implementing, because at the moment, it's

900
00:51:12,920 --> 00:51:14,920
Speaker 2: just like Ivory Tower. Let's all sit up here and

901
00:51:15,400 --> 00:51:18,200
Speaker 2: churn out PhDs and they don't go anywhere. My team,

902
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:22,960
Speaker 2: who all have PhDs, are fundamentally obsessed with translation, and

903
00:51:23,080 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 2: I need to make sure that when we find something,

904
00:51:27,200 --> 00:51:31,120
Speaker 2: it gets into the hands of guys quickly. Yeah.

905
00:51:31,400 --> 00:51:35,160
Speaker 3: I love that. That translation and closing the knowing doing gap.

906
00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:37,200
Speaker 3: I talk about that all the time and health behavior

907
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:39,200
Speaker 3: change right, because a lot of people know what they

908
00:51:39,239 --> 00:51:43,160
Speaker 3: need to do, but they're not. I want to want

909
00:51:43,200 --> 00:51:46,960
Speaker 3: to talk a little bit about adverse childhood experiences. I

910
00:51:47,000 --> 00:51:49,400
Speaker 3: know we've got a limited time here, but I remember

911
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:52,239
Speaker 3: talking to Professor John Reid, who's done a lot of

912
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:55,520
Speaker 3: research in this sorry, and said that psychologists and therapists

913
00:51:55,560 --> 00:51:59,080
Speaker 3: and survey said he did only twenty five percent of

914
00:51:59,120 --> 00:52:03,680
Speaker 3: them ever ask somebody about whether they had adverse childhood experiences,

915
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:08,240
Speaker 3: and he's like, they are their biggest driver of mental

916
00:52:08,280 --> 00:52:14,080
Speaker 3: health issues. What's your thoughts on that and high and

917
00:52:14,120 --> 00:52:18,279
Speaker 3: when do we intervene and how is that different from

918
00:52:18,320 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 3: somebody who hasn't had those adverse childod experiences that are

919
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:22,600
Speaker 3: setting up their view.

920
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:22,879
Speaker 1: Of the world.

921
00:52:23,280 --> 00:52:26,040
Speaker 2: Well, when we talk about upstream and downstream, you know,

922
00:52:26,040 --> 00:52:28,279
Speaker 2: we've spoken about prevention and how we're going to get

923
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:31,839
Speaker 2: ahead of this stuff. Nothing that we do is going

924
00:52:31,880 --> 00:52:34,960
Speaker 2: to be more important than dealing with aces with adverse

925
00:52:35,040 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 2: childhood experiences. It is the bedrock of mental health issues,

926
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:44,239
Speaker 2: of violence in our society, of basic trauma that is

927
00:52:44,320 --> 00:52:47,120
Speaker 2: leading to personality difficulties, that is leading to alcohol and

928
00:52:47,200 --> 00:52:51,240
Speaker 2: substance misuse, and we have it rife within our society

929
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 2: and no one is willing to look at it. So

930
00:52:54,600 --> 00:52:58,120
Speaker 2: whether it is violence in the home, whether it's sexual

931
00:52:58,200 --> 00:53:02,480
Speaker 2: child sexual abuse which is amongst young men, and nobody,

932
00:53:02,680 --> 00:53:06,880
Speaker 2: nobody is willing to call this out. It is so

933
00:53:06,880 --> 00:53:12,080
Speaker 2: so common and it is having such untold effects across

934
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:16,319
Speaker 2: the lifespan. If we get onto this stuff early, if

935
00:53:16,360 --> 00:53:18,880
Speaker 2: we are willing to say we need to focus on

936
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:22,279
Speaker 2: our young people, we need to focus on children fundamentally

937
00:53:22,719 --> 00:53:25,880
Speaker 2: and safeguard them from this stuff and build services for

938
00:53:25,960 --> 00:53:27,640
Speaker 2: them so that we can actually nip it in the

939
00:53:27,680 --> 00:53:29,760
Speaker 2: bud so that they're not the forty year old man

940
00:53:29,880 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 2: who is now perpetuating violence because he knew nothing else.

941
00:53:33,280 --> 00:53:37,200
Speaker 2: He knew nothing else. There are so many ways that

942
00:53:37,239 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 2: if we get onto this stuff early and we actually

943
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 2: say this matters, This matters to us as a society

944
00:53:44,080 --> 00:53:48,120
Speaker 2: to expunge this behavior and to make sure that children

945
00:53:48,200 --> 00:53:52,920
Speaker 2: can live safely and happily as they should as children,

946
00:53:53,040 --> 00:53:57,279
Speaker 2: and to not stigmatize them when they enter into a

947
00:53:57,360 --> 00:54:00,359
Speaker 2: service with stuff like this, because that's what happened. They

948
00:54:00,360 --> 00:54:03,200
Speaker 2: come in and they're just too complex, the behavior is

949
00:54:03,239 --> 00:54:08,759
Speaker 2: too disordered, et cetera. I really think that that is

950
00:54:10,040 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 2: at the core of our future success here is going

951
00:54:13,480 --> 00:54:15,880
Speaker 2: to be how we actually respond to child maltreatment.

952
00:54:17,600 --> 00:54:21,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's a big, soorny wiki problem, I think,

953
00:54:21,920 --> 00:54:24,960
Speaker 3: as is the whole mental health stuff. But mate, you

954
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:30,640
Speaker 3: and November November are are our trading and awesome bloody path.

955
00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:33,439
Speaker 3: So I tip my hat to you, and I tip

956
00:54:33,480 --> 00:54:36,960
Speaker 3: my hat to the organization and the massive growth of

957
00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 3: the organization because God is this needed. It is just

958
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:44,919
Speaker 3: so needed. So so thanks for everything you do, Thanks

959
00:54:44,960 --> 00:54:48,759
Speaker 3: for everything your organization does, and thanks for sharing your

960
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:49,560
Speaker 3: knowledge on the podcast.

961
00:54:49,600 --> 00:54:52,279
Speaker 1: I could speak about this stuff for days.

962
00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:53,120
Speaker 3: But I know you've got to go.

963
00:54:53,160 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: But may that was bloody awesome. Thank you.

964
00:54:54,960 --> 00:54:56,319
Speaker 2: I'll be back. Thanks a lot more.

965
00:55:00,680 --> 00:55:04,440
Speaker 1: The long way