The Crisis Facing Our Boys: A Deep Dive Into Netflix’s Adolescence
In this powerful episode of Love Isn’t Enough, Dr. John Schinnerer and Joree Rose unpack the timely and troubling themes presented in Netflix’s Adolescence, a docuseries that explores the hidden struggles of modern teenage boys. From bullying and isolation to the rise of poisonous online influences like the manosphere, incel culture, and the pressure of the “man box,” this conversation sheds light on the emotional and psychological impact of male socialization.
Joree and John explore why so many young boys are falling through the cracks—and what we can do to support them in developing emotional intelligence, empathy, and healthy masculinity. Whether you’re a parent, educator, therapist, or simply someone who cares about the next generation, this episode offers crucial insights into a crisis that’s too often ignored.
Handout on what we can do to support young men: https://loveisntenough.net/manboxculture/
Handout on what depression looks like in men and women: https://loveisntenough.net/depressionexpression/
Image of emojis to describe teen slang: https://loveisntenough.net/sinisteremojis/
The Crisis Facing Our Boys: A Deep Dive Into Netflix’s Adolescence w/ Dr. John Schinnerer & Joree Rose, LMFT – Transcript
Dr. John Schinnerer: Hello everybody, this is Dr. John back with a joint episode of the Evolved Caveman and Love Isn’t Enough and Journey Forward. God, we have a lot of podcasts
Joree Rose: and I’m Joree Rose,
Dr. John Schinnerer: my partner in life and love.
Discussion on Popular Netflix Show, Adolescence
Joree Rose: So we have a really important and potentially heavy conversation to have today that is really timely in what is one of the most popular shows on Netflix right now?
Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah, I think it’s the most viewed show in UK history. I don’t know how it sets up,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: people have watched the show adolescence.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And it’s a, four part series that is each show the show’s really well done.
It’s well written, it’s well acted. The cinematography was mind blowing with one continuous shot. Every one hour show is one continuous shot, which is just crazy to me. [00:01:00] But that’s not why we’re here.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: But what is amazing to witness in that one continuous shot is one hour in real time of life unfolding for this family around a tragedy that they’re trying to solve.
And what is shown is immense emotion and an insight into the culture of what it’s like for young men these days.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. In the manosphere. And it’s interesting the show starts out I won’t, give any spoilers, but it starts out real strong and fast and heavy where they’ve got. Police officers in riot gear, swat gear breaking into a house and going into arrest someone, and you’re like, oh, man, this has gotta be a heavy hit.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Or someone’s done some real damage, and then they go and arrest a 13-year-old boy, and later you find out it’s for a brutal murder of a, I think a 13-year-old girl, but a young girl. And then it [00:02:00] unfolds as the show progresses in terms of why he did what he did and what were, the influences on him.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And it’s, stuff that I’ve dealt with in my professional life for over 30 years in dealing with men.
Exploring the Man Box Culture
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And that on your podcast, the Evolve Caveman, this has been a big focus of what you talk about and it is a large focus in teaching your male clients about the Man Box culture. And we’ve talked a little bit about that.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: On Our Love Isn’t Enough podcast. We talk a good amount about this in our year long masterclass series. Our love isn’t enough. Relationship masterclass series as insight and understanding into how men are socialized and how that affects them in relationship and not just in relationship, but why they are they way they are in their careers and challenges, in friendships and in intimacy and
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: politics and the environment and every [00:03:00] aspect of their lives.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And we’re seeing so much now of this not just played out in our small sphere of our client base and what we work with, but on obviously incredibly large platforms like this, show adolescents and in politics. This is the, scary accumulation of what this looks like magnified in real time, in real life.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah and, I think this show points out worst case scenario in terms of young boys, young men being. Overly influenced by social media influencers with really dark agendas and some really messed up values. And it’s something that’s really personal to me because I’ve, worked with adolescents, adolescent males with adult males, as I said, for over 30 years.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And I’ve dealt with these issues on every level. And it’s funny, I had never set out to become [00:04:00] an expert in masculinity, nor did I really wanna get on podcasts and talk about masculinity in the man box culture. And yet, after working with men for so long, it became readily apparent that it’s one of the major influences on how we develop, why we develop, and how we become, how we show up as men.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And it’s, it, let me say this upfront, that masculinity in and of itself as a concept is not all bad. There’s some good to it. There’s some parts that I think we need to evolve beyond, and I don’t think we do a very good job of really taking a nuanced look at what do I think it means to be a man? What is comprised in my masculinity and how do I break this down at a very detailed way so I can really, honestly look at what do I want to take forward with me and what do I wanna leave behind?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: There’s a thought coming into my mind, I wanna say now, and then we might go back to it, but I just wanna not forget it. [00:05:00]
Impact of Socialization on Young Boys
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: But the results of this socialization creates behaviors as you’ll talk about, creates mindsets, creates belief systems, and a lot of challenges that don’t get addressed directly, that get externalized.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And it makes me think that that Dr. Bruce Perry book that he co-authored with Oprah. Which it’s titled What Happened To You
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Instead of What’s Wrong with You. And I think just that’s a really evolved and beautiful mindset to look at what’s happening in the world, especially with these young boys who are being influenced.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s not what’s wrong with you, it’s what happened.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: What
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: we’re not born this way.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: What was the small lowercase t trauma or the capital T trauma that you experienced that turned you against your emotions, that turned you against feeling that you were bullied, that you were abused, that you were teased, that you were cyber bullied, that you were even just embarrassed [00:06:00] and someone laughed at and no one gave you the room to, to name that or feel that.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And I think that my compassionate heart just wants to give a big hug to all the young boys who’ve been hurt. That there’s been so much that has happened that has gone unnoticed because they were just, oh, boys will be boys. And yet this. We’re seeing is some really significant consequence and implications of what happens when it’s okay for boys to just be boys, which means push down your emotion, tap into anger, don’t feel, don’t communicate.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So maybe this is a good opportunity, John to let you take the reins on explaining what that man box culture is. Those, socialization that starts at a really young age for boys as, a baseline of how do we get how did we get here? How did society
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: get here? How did we get here?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. Thanks for the question.
Origins and Global Presence of the Man Box
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, so the, concept of man Box was [00:07:00] discovered I suppose by Paul KL in the 1980s in Oakland, California. And he was trying to work with African American students, males in terms of getting them to engage in their own education. And he was not having any success.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And so he tried a different tactic. He started asking these young men, what does it mean to you to be a man? And what he found is that the answers were quite similar. There were certain themes, but they were similar across these ideas. And it is pervasive. I’ve checked in with men on almost every continent on the planet, in many countries.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And in, in every industrialized country, I would argue that the man box exists. The words are different, the languages are different. The concepts behind them are the same.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: You just say that one or two areas, and I know in one that I’m thinking of that I’ve heard you share where it doesn’t exist. [00:08:00]
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I would say it doesn’t exist in any undeveloped tribal community.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I think of the tribe that Paul Ekman went to visit in Papua New Guinea, right? Where they had no contact with the modernized world. They don’t exist there. But even it, it makes me think like we were in Africa and what was it? It wasn’t the Zabi tribe. What was the other tribe that we went and visited?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: The
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Maasai.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: The Maasai tribe. I remember being blown away because there was a, an initiation ritual that they do around the age of 13 with their young men, and they’ve done it for thousands of years. And the ritual is the young boy has to lay naked on a table. Someone performs a circumcision on him. The rest of the male elders in the village are all gathered around and they watch him intently.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And if while he’s having part of his penis [00:09:00] removed without any anesthesia, if he makes an utterance, makes a sound, moves a muscle, grimaces makes a facial expression that Christ, he is ostracized from the tribe. I. Forever. He has to leave his family, his tribe, his village. And it, struck me at that time, I was like, holy shit.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Like that potentially could be the start of the man box, but that’s what it’s all about. It’s suck it up. Don’t show emotions, don’t be a wimp,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: don’t be a person.
Rules and Consequences of the Man Box
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And there’s, rules that we learn and we start, this starts really early, like four to five years old, at least in the United States.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: They’ve done research. As soon as we get in small groups of boys, we start to teach each other what it means to be a man. And so it’s things like be stoic, don’t feel it’s things like [00:10:00] be self-reliant. Don’t ask for help. It’s things like, what are the other one? Show emotion. Yeah, be stoic. It’s. Be heterosexual, compete, be tough, don’t take shit from anybody, dominate others and it be the provider provide for the family.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, there’s some good, and there’s some bad in there, right? Like even if we take let’s say self-reliance, think of self-reliance on a one to 10 scale where one is you’re completely dependent upon other people for everything, and 10 is you Don’t ask for help for anything from anybody you feel you can do it all on your own.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Now, if you consider where do you stand on that scale, I sure as hell don’t wanna be a one, but nor do I wanna be a 10. And so I, that’s what I say about thinking about these ideas in a more nuanced way. Where do you want to be on that scale? And where are you [00:11:00] now and how can you move up or down the scale?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Because I’ve seen men die literally rather than ask for help. Yeah. That to me doesn’t seem very mentally healthy. That seems a little bit of overkill.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: That’s an extreme reaction to an inability to be be human
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And let’s take the be provider, be the provider, provide for the family financially.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Great value, right? I’m all for, I’m in total support of that. What I see, what I’ve seen for over three decades is men that are on a 10 on that scale, and they provide wonderfully financially for their family, for their wife, for their kids. But what happens when you’re on a 10 on that scale, you over identify with work.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: You find your comfort. You get [00:12:00] rewarded, your ego gets stroked. You know what’s expected of you at work, you’re comfortable there. And so over time, you spend more and more of your time, attention, and energy at work, and the very people that you set out to provide for, you’ve left it home and ignored, and they grow increasingly resentful, angry, disconnected, and uncaring.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And then the defense is, but look at all that I’ve given you.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And so it can feel justified.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So, again, where do you wanna be on that one to 10 scale? Where’s a healthy, moderate place for you?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So often when you talk about this, and it starts in young age and bringing back those parallels to the show adolescent.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Talk about what makes the boys at young ages jump back in the man box. When they get cut off from two thirds of their emotional spectrum, I think this is a really important understanding to how they get to be those husbands or fathers who become more extreme. So give some [00:13:00] context around, yeah, that foundation
Emotional Suppression and Anger in Men
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: The, biggest rule that I have a problem with is be stoic or don’t feel, and again, to the men that are listening, please understand this is not your fault.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I’m not blaming you, I’m not shaming you. We did not ask to be socialized like this. It just happens. And I, think it happens honestly because it’s a way, and there, there’s no organized plot behind it or the illuminati or some shit like that. It’s just society’s way of protecting itself, of protecting its natural resources against invaders.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It’s a way to create soldiers.
Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapist: That was one of the answers I was thinking you were gonna say about where it doesn’t exist is where there’s no war, but there’s no Oh
Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men: Yeah. Thank you. What they found in research is that the man box doesn’t exist in island cultures where there is no neighboring country.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Psychologist for Men: That’s a threat to come in and take women, children, and natural resources. So they don’t have a need for a standing army. So the society doesn’t have a need to develop masculinity in the same way. [00:14:00] But going back to your earlier question, the be stoic and don’t feel is the one that really sticks in my craw and I’ve got a problem with.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Partly because yes, we’re men and we’re also human. And so what happens to us is we’re cutting off vast swaths of our humanity in order to fit ourself in this constrictive definition of what it means to be a man. And what happens growing up is and, think of middle school, high school, and this is what I’ve checked with people at a.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Dozens of countries. If you show too much sadness or fear in front of others, inevitably at some point you’re gonna get hammered with something like, dude, stop being such a pussy, Don’t be a little bitch. Don’t be such a little girl. And interestingly, those insults are all the epitome of the feminine.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And the message there is don’t be feminine. And so we get that a few times and you’re like, screw this. I’m never shown that [00:15:00] again. That hurts. And so you jump back in the man box and you begin to systematically shut down those vulnerable emotions, IE your humanity and the way to connect to others. On the other side of the emotional spectrum, on the positive side, if you show too much joy, love, excitement, romanticism, exuberance.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: If you act silly, if you look at your shoes the wrong way, if you look at your fingernails the wrong way, you’ll get things like, dude, don’t be so gay. Don’t be a fag. I apologize for the slurs, but this is important to talk about
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: because it’s what they’re getting.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. It’s, real. And so the message there is don’t be homosexual.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And you get that a few times and you’re like, oh shit, I’m never doing that again. You jump back in the man box.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So either end of those spectrums tend to highlight more feminine qualities. So really the definition you’re saying is don’t express any femininity to be a man.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It’s emotion in and of itself is feminine, I think [00:16:00] by our definition.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And the problem is that, okay,
Joree Rose, Top Couples Therapist: get to the hyper-masculinity because they’re afraid to have any of that
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: emotion. Yeah. And they wanna appear just tough and stoic. They wanna appear like,
Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor: so the motion, like a rock wall left feeling that they can normally and easily and express while still be considered manly are
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I would, argue there’s three, things that we can consider without being mocked and humiliated.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: One is lust. Because if I say to my guy friends, my male friends, oh my God, look at that ass. She’s so hot. I do her. That’s safe.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It shows you’re heterosexual.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I’m straight.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And they’ll go with that second one, stress. Oh my God, I’m so stressed, which has an implication that I matter. I’m busy, I’m important.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I’m providing that kind of thing. That’s safe. The third one, the big one that this is massive and I cannot overstate this, is anger. Some degree [00:17:00] of anger, anywhere from mild annoyance to frustration, to irritation, to anger, all the way up to rage and indignation, disgust, contempt. But most of our emotions get channeled or funneled through that anger lens.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And this fucks us up. I cannot put too fine a point on this because what happens when we’re angry? When we’re angry. We externalize blame, we refuse to take responsibility for our own issues, our own shit, and we put it on anyone else. You know what, honey? If you just stopped being such a bitch, I wouldn’t be so angry.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I’ve seen it and, what I’m seeing right now is I’m seeing men put all this anger onto protected groups. Why the f*ck are trans people so threatening? I have no clue.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah. Why, is DEI being attacked?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Any protected group, [00:18:00] blacks, Jews, women, L-G-B-T-Q, immigrants, like anyone that they can put shit off on, they’re gonna do it.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: With no basis of factor reality.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And it’s without awareness that’s what they’re doing. That they’re taking their own emotions that they’ve divorced themselves from and foisting them onto other people. And it’s super convenient. Because if I’m stuck in anger with you. I’m externalizing all blame on you, and it’s all your fault in my mind, then guess what?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I don’t have to look at myself. I don’t have to look at what am I doing that’s really messing this situation up? What could I do better? What do I need to learn to improve? Where do I need to grow? Where are the edges of my growth?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And if I may jump in there for a second, as we know, not always, but often, anger is a secondary emotion and it’s helpful when you’re looking at your anger to get curious of what’s underneath it.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And often what is [00:19:00] underneath it are the emotions. They can’t feel or express or know what to do. No. They practice
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: divorcing themselves from
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: sadness, shame, fear,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: guilt,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: embarrassment,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: anxiety,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: right? So
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: depression. Depression typically in men comes out as irritability and anger, impatience.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Maybe we’ll put in the show notes.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: There is a great handout that you compiled based on Jed D’s work, I believe, and I think this would be really helpful in this context to understand what these patterns look like. So
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: yeah, that’s depression men versus depression in women. Correct. And how it shows up the symptoms.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Real-Life Implications and Personal Stories
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So I think when we see that there’s other stuff going on inside of these patterns that are not being addressed and in the show adolescence, let’s bring it back there for a second.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So we’ve got this basic basis of, the man box culture. And here’s this 13-year-old kid who acts out in the most extreme way possible, any human can act out, an anger [00:20:00] around.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And why does he act out? He acts out initially because he was bullied and bullied by the girl that I think he kinda liked.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I dunno, he says he does. He didn’t. But and so he’s bullied well, and he was also bullied by other students. So that’s going to this gradual accumulation of hurt and anger underneath the surface.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Embarrassment, shame,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: uhhuh. And then he gets into the manosphere and starts listening to social media influencers that have some pretty horrific messages.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And it’s it frustrates me because on the surface there’s some good messages work out, exercise, take care of your body, self-discipline, self-mastery. But then for many of them underneath them, is this. And I really refuse. I don’t like using the word toxic, but there’s some toxic shit underneath there.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Dominate women, are objects, manipulate women.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And you saw that part in the relation of women, not just in the crime, he was being accused of committing. But in episode three of [00:21:00] adolescents, it is one long conversation between a, therapist who is assessing him to give her observation to the courts, I believe on her opinion.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And there’s moments where at 13 years old with this adult woman, he is just standing up, looking down on her with a face full of contempt and disgust and
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: when, whenever he gets angry and loses his temper, that misogyny leaks out.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Therapist: It becomes readily apparent.
Joree Rose, Best Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And watch what’s going on in that small little head of yours.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. That kind of thing.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And he compares it to another therapist who was male.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And you could tell there was a different energy in talking about, wow, this is how he’s looking at this adult woman. Yeah.
Generational Patterns and Societal Impact
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And in that episode, that therapist is also trying to gain insight into transgenerational anger from his grandfather and his father of what are the patterns being learned, embodied, observed, witnessed, or the [00:22:00] brunt of
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: In which perpetuates not just what he may be getting from social media, from influencers from school, but also from the home.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And, so let me go into a little bit I, wrote a bunch of pages on this today.
Consequences of Adhering to Man Box Rules
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I don’t know if we’ll cover it all, but what are the effects of our belief in these man box rules? I. To the extent that we subscribe to these rules and try to live in accordance with them, how does it impact us? What does it matter? Here’s what some of the research shows. So the more that we subscribe to these man box rules, the more our hurt and anger gradually accumulate and shocker, rarely get addressed or healed.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Because we’re externalizing blame onto everyone else. We become increasingly isolated and lonely. Our depression and anxiety increase. We learn to externalize our anger and hurt, which means we blame other people for our suffering. And this puts us into a victim mentality. And you see this in politics quite a bit lately, as well as other places where [00:23:00] a lot of these bullying men attack from the victim position.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So they say they’re the victim and then they will attack from that position. And I see it all the time in politics. It’s that idea of my pain is everyone else’s fault. There’s no need for me to take any responsibility or look at healing it. It’s just in, it’s easier to rage at others. So we also have little to no personal accountability for our own thoughts, words, and actions.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And we mentioned one of those lines earlier, if you’d stop being such a bitch, I wouldn’t be so angry. It cuts us off from the possibility of introspection. So we fail to look at what part is ours. And in any disagreement, there’s always two parts. It’s always a co-creation. And the other thing that’s interesting is we have a really hard time with change.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: We resist personal change because we’ve got a low level of emotional awareness because we’ve got this increasing anxiety and fear because we’re afraid of being embarrassed or looking stupid. [00:24:00] We really resist change. And yet the only thing constant in life is change. And, one of the things I’ve been sharing lately is that the surest path to misery is resisting your life as it is.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Therapist: Yeah, we talked about that in last week’s episode around how to get through all the adversity we dealt with was to accept. That’s where we are. We’ve talked about that on previous episodes. Yeah. With your son’s death the more you resist when you can lean into the change that’s happening, you have the power to get through it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Emotion Expert: Yeah. And
Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor: I, and I just wanna say I I just wanna interject a little bit. These are the things that we’re seeing showing up as really big patterns in relationships.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Counselor for Men: Oh yeah. I was gonna bring that up at the end of this. Okay. Yeah. Oh, okay. But so the last one is that,
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Therapist: bring that back to
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: relationships. So as a result of all this, our lives get increasingly painful, disconnected, and our anger intensifies. And as a result, our circumstances in our lives worsen because. We fail to recognize and we don’t take responsibility for how [00:25:00] angry we are, how much negative emotion we’re infused with, and how that negative emotion is leaking out onto other people, and ultimately pushing them away because we’re making them feel unsafe and fueling this disconnection.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And I’ve worked with men for, as I said, 30 years. And one of the things that I see over and over again is men that have done life successfully. They’ve played by the rules. They’ve won life, they’ve made a shit ton of money. They’re very well off, they’re very famous. They’re very successful in their, occupation of choice.
And they’re miserable because they can’t connect. They don’t have emotional awareness, they don’t have good communication skills. They can’t manage their anger well.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Can I ask you a question?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Men’s Work Expert: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Counselor: To what degree do they recognize they’re miserable?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I think. Many of them do because at the point I see them there’s things like drug and alcohol issues, [00:26:00] there’s depression, there’s suicidality, there’s a wife threatening to leave.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: What percentage of the guys who come to you is because their wife said, if you don’t go talk to somebody, I am gonna leave. Honestly, it’s a pretty high percent
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: 99.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So this is an interesting point. This is, I wanna get back to the implication of this. It’s not just the problem, but where is, how is it manifesting?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So it’s a 13-year-old being bullied in school and, being accused of killing a girl all the way to men driving themselves into the ground, near death.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. Dying early.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Stress, anxiety, addiction and, they’re broken
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: marriages.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And the, wives are like I can’t connect with my husband.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I don’t know why. I thought he had a wake up call and then boom right back into the grind. And I have to say women do it to some extent. Also. I know women who stay busy to not allow themselves to feel how unhappy they are. So women do this to an extent, [00:27:00] but that idea of do they even know that they’re miserable?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And the other thing that enters into this, which we’ve talked about before, is that statistic from Tasha Uric that shows that 95% of us report being highly self-aware. And in fact, it’s only about 12 to 15% of us, which is a huge problem. And I like the other part I was gonna address is this dynamic of men going into the workplace.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: The workplace is hierarchical, so the boss kinda shits on them or criticizes them or whatever, belittles them. They can’t bark back up the hierarchy ’cause it potentially could affect their job. So they bury it and they bring it home. Then without awareness, usually we take it out on the most vulnerable people that we say we love the most in our lives.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Assuming heterosexuality, our wives and our children, and then our [00:28:00] kids get this emotional dumping on, if not trauma, and it just perpetuates an ongoing generational cycle of emotional unawareness, trauma, shitty communication, and people feeling lousy about themselves and externalizing blame onto others
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: disconnection.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s an up, it’s tragic. Let me ask you this. So if do you really think it’s 99% of guys come to you? Because some wife said, honestly, it’s, it, is it that high?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: 95 above 95. I, don’t have exact stats on it. This is just anecdotal, but
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: it’s the point being
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: it’s either a mother or a partner.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: A mother of a late adolescent boy.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Or a partner saying, I need you to go look at this of those guys who are there because they were told they had to be, otherwise they were gonna be left or kicked out of the home. Or some [00:29:00] consequence of not taking accountability. How long would you say? Lemme ask you first question. To what extent of the guys who come to you when you explain the man are like, oh my God, that’s it.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: That’s what I’ve been feeling. Because I know a couple of times that we’ve worked with couples and you’ve explained it and there’s, when we don’t see men connect to this is how I’ve been socialized, we’re always curious.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Because most men do. So when they connect, does that give them an opening?
The Role of Masculinity in Therapy
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: To be able to have the safety with you. And I think you are the perfect men male psychologist and therapist for guys to go to. ’cause you look very masculine and you embody masculinity while also embodying all the tools that they’ve been socialized against. Oh, thank you. So you’re a good role model to see I can be masculine and feel, communicate, express, say I love you, cry [00:30:00] or ultimately be
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: happy.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: That’s the result. You and connected all these emotions ’cause you’re not cut off from them. I think it’s hard sometimes, and this is observational and by no means a put down to any other male therapists out there who don’t embody masculinity physically. It might be harder for some men to feel that I can embody that if it’s coming from someone who doesn’t appear very masculine.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s, a challenge of where are we getting, the safety from.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.
Understanding the Man Box
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, I think to answer your question, I think it’s the vast majority, and I think most men do exhale after they, after I explain man box to them and explain that it’s not your fault. You didn’t ask to be socialized like this.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: However, in my opinion, it is your responsibility to evolve beyond it. And I think a lot of them are like, oh, wow, that, yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense. No, I’ve never had anyone say, yeah, that’s really not my, that wasn’t my experience.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: We had one, one couple that did not at all [00:31:00] connect with that, and I don’t think Yeah, true.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I think one, I
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: think he was so disconnected from himself, and.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: But that was gonna be my point. I don’t think it’s that he didn’t feel affected by the man box to any degree. It’s,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: it was so threatening to him. Yeah. He couldn’t deal
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: that, that, that was the point I was trying to make.
The Importance of Connection and Love
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And I, one of the things, like one of my favorite researchers is George Viant, who headed up the adult development study at Harvard, which is the longest running psychological study on the planet.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It’s over, over 80, 80 years now. And at first they followed Harvard men for a lifetime and checked in with them every few years and did measurements. And then they brought other groups in, like women and, followed them. But after crunching all the data from 80 years and looking at what makes for a, an exceptional life, which is the question we’re all trying to answer in my mind, is how do I really squeeze the most out of this one shot that I have on this planet?[00:32:00]
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: His answer to what makes an exceptional life is love. Full stop. It’s about connection and the thing that pisses me off about the man box the most is we are socialized in the exact opposite direction of connection. We are mocked and humiliated when we even put a toe in the water of relationality, of emotional connection, of communication, of wanting to learn to be better at connecting with others.
Attachment Styles and the Man Box
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: You know what this dovetails on really well and is a lens through which we do a lot of our couples work, which is looking at our attachment wounds and how that results in our attachment styles in partnership and a lot of what the man box traits and how men are socialized. It’s no surprise that 75% of avoidant attachment is leaned towards men.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Because if you are unable to. [00:33:00] Stay present in communication when things get heated. ’cause you get flooded by your emotions and you want to withdraw, isolate, externalize the blame, not be able to self-reflect. Those are typical avoidant behaviors and it’s largely typical of this man box.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah. It it, makes perfect sense why the avoidant attachment style is trend towards more men than women.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And I think if it to the listener, I think you can probably sense I’m a little bit frustrated with this whole dynamic and this this man box culture because it’s, my firm belief and I’ve seen enough to believe that if we don’t address this, if we don’t change course, then we’re gonna destroy ourselves and we’re gonna destroy the planet because that’s what we do.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: We destroy relationships, we destroy connection. [00:34:00] It’s, all about power over others or the environment and what we’re shooting for in, my, my opinion is power with, and the vast majority of us men have no understanding of that. So it’s okay to rape the environment. It’s if my marriage doesn’t work out I’ll just find another one and take no responsibility for my own part in that play.
The Impact of Man Box Culture on Young Men
Joree Rose, Marriage Therapist: And to, add on to that, we also see in our client base a trend of late adolescent males failure to launch. And oftentimes is you’ve seen it, I’ve seen it, that there’s a fear of rejection and inability to. Put themselves out there in, whether it’s a job or dating fear of being turned down by a girl, why bother when I can have online sex or [00:35:00] just watch porn, unable to get a hold a job because they haven’t been able to put themselves out there in competition.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So it’s just easier to shut down.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And then those are often ones who might be more susceptible to some of these online influencers that are blaming everyone else for their problems.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. Yeah. And I dunno, it’s frustrating ’cause each of those examples you just gave are examples that threaten our masculinity.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I can’t get a date, I’m less of a man. I can’t keep a job. I’m less of a man.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I can’t make money. I gotta live at home.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I can’t make money. Yeah. And, then what comes up for us, but shame, which makes us believe that we are unworthy of love, connection and belonging.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And which
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: further isolates us.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And so what can we do? Let’s get mad at those other groups that you mentioned earlier. That’s how it’s getting perpetuated. Yeah. And that’s what we’re seeing playing out. And I am so passionate about the work that you and I get to do together to bring couples together in greater awareness.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: But I’m really proud of the work that you’re doing [00:36:00] with men and you lead a men’s group and to be able to role model in real time what vulnerability, what communication, what self insight and self-reflection and accountability. I might’ve said that already, but you get to embody that, role model it and to show them it’s okay to do. And the challenge is they might be able to do that with you and your men’s group or on a couple session with the two of us. But that was still really fucking scary to do out in the world because they’re not in a container that says, we agree upon these rules where this is okay. So they might be able to stay in that men’s group or in that couple session or in that relationship, but they might not be able to translate that to their fathers, their brothers, their other male friends. It’s hard not to feel hopeless and yet Yeah we can’t stay hopeless. We’ve got to continue to be [00:37:00] warriors in doing this work.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah. Can’t to spread, can’t give up this message. Give no what’s the option?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: You gotta keep teaching. We gotta keep teaching. We gotta keep resisting the, cultural milieu. Yeah. I, just don’t see any other way. Even if, and I we were talking about how much to, to share in this podcast because even talking about this, at this point in our political climate, has the potential to put a target on our backs.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And why is that? I remember I, I sent a newsletter out before the the election. And in it, I was supporting my choice for political candidate for president. And it’s a newsletter list of about 5,500. And I got several responses back from men who were furious with me [00:38:00] and started calling me all sorts of names.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Now, granted, most of these people did get into the list because they needed help with anger management. But that aside,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: here’s my free course again
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Course again for free. I,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: after I caught my breath, I wrote ’em all back and I said look, I’m really disappointed in your response and lemme tell you why.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: This is my newsletter. I put my opinion in my newsletter. What exactly did I do to you? How exactly did I wrong you? This is my newsletter. You can read it or not read it. You can subscribe or unsubscribe, but I’ve done nothing to you and you’re finding insult in this newsletter and that’s what the Man Box does to us.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I was reading an article by Todd Cashton today, [00:39:00] who’s a researcher hero of mine, and he was talking about this idea of honor and how honor exists most readily in the southern states and in some South American countries. And it’s this old holdover of a time when we had to survive on our own when there were no police around, when we had to fight people off of our land ourselves and honor.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Basically leads us to look for insult, and if we are insulted our honor demands that we have to defend ourselves and throw down or fight or draw weapons. Why is that? We’re not living in the 18 hundreds anymore. So I want to encourage you also to look at this concept of honor, because I would argue that [00:40:00] honor is inherently misguided.
Strategies for Emotional Self-Awareness
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: How are you feeling right now? You feeling, oh, I’m charged up. Yeah, I know. So in an effort to teach in real time, when you’re feeling charged up what do you do about that? To what? What can you role model to, or give some takeaway tools that. To the listener right now to say, okay, I’m fired up to now listening, but what do I do with this?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So I, I think the first step is self-awareness. Always. And oh my gosh, my heart rate’s gone up. I’m sweating a little bit. I was
Joree Rose, Best Marriage Therapist: gonna ask, let’s be more specific. What does someone need to be self-aware of?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Their physiology. The bodily cues that are taking place in the moment. What’s going on in my body?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: What’s my, what are my jaw muscles doing? How much am I sweating? What are my hands doing? What are my, the muscles in my chest doing? What’s my throat [00:41:00] doing? What’s my heart rate doing? What’s my blood flowing so that what’s going on in my GI tract?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So that physiology is a representation of an activated nervous system.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I always like to explain self-awareness in looking at our thoughts, our emotions, and our sensations. So if we’ve got some trigger, okay. Talking about the man box culture, right? We’re gonna have an almost immediate response of thoughts, emotion, sensations. And if we get curious about those patterns, we’ll begin to see what do we really get stuck in?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And so that physiology is gonna be the, best observational indicator without judgment, because this was a fact. My heart rate’s increased.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah,
Joree Rose, Top 10 Marriage Therapist: That tension has gone up. But the thought pattern I think is really helpful to start getting curious about what are the thoughts in my head right now?
And we can, I’ve always said, you can’t change what you’re not aware of. In fact, when I used to teach mindfulness to kids in schools, I would have them draw a train with a couple, like three [00:42:00] little cars and a little caboose, and I would guide ’em through a short meditation and tell them to write down on the little cars of the train, the thoughts that were in their head, just to simply bring awareness of what are my thought patterns?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Because we can jump on that train of thought without even realizing it. Yeah. And that train of thought, those thoughts are not our truth. They’re not fact, they’re just merely thoughts. And the more we could observe them as thought versus take them in as fact or truth, our better ability to be more discerning in how we show up and then our emotions.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: What am I feeling right now? What’s my emotional state? And we know in, in research that simply just asking the question of what am I feeling right now brings you greater self-awareness. It doesn’t matter what the answer is,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: you don’t even have to answer the question.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s just, it’s that pause of where am I at right now?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So self-awareness, you said is your first answer.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And then the second one is breathe deeply. And I love the I, think if you’re trying to calm down your physiology, it’s breathe [00:43:00] out longer than you breathe in. But the other, there’s recent research showing that simply doing a deep sigh can help relax our physiology.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Oh. That was an example.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I, our job doing it all the time. I’m my, what is he need to let go of? He’s had a,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: he’s had no stress. But I think there’s other ways too. Dip your head in or your face in the, some ice water go outside in nature, go for a walk. There, there’s different ways to calm that physiology down.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: But I think, can I show
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: you my favorites? Sure. I, love in the self-compassion research that the brain doesn’t know the difference between somebody giving you a hug or you giving yourself a hug. Yeah. And I love that because a, we are a touch deprived deci society and we are wired for physical touch.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Touch is part of our survival. And to be able to whether it’s hand over your [00:44:00] heart, you can even do like a fist bump to the heart is a warrior, more of a stance. But to literally wrap yourself around your, arms around yourself and give yourself a hug, releases the same chemicals in the brain as someone else giving you a hug.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah. So you can be the source of your own healing. Get that little oxytocin dump.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Which you can also get by petting the dog,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: John.
Humor in Therapy
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Share what you have told some suicidal male clients sometimes, like you do. What’s levity of this?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Oh, okay.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: All,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: oh shit. Yeah, it’s been pretty serious.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So something else, some lecture and levity.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So many years ago I had a client who had harm OCD, which translated means that he had obsessive thoughts about harming himself all day long. And it was, a bit problematic because he would try and throw himself in front of buses and it was a bit of a problem.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Not [00:45:00] laughing. I’m just laughing with the story. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And I loved this. He was high school student and I loved him. And we’d worked together for some time. And, I I always tell my clients, look, if you’re suicidal, if you’re a danger to yourself or others, hit me up. Anytime I’ll do my best to get back to you.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Counselor for Men: ASAP. I was at a, an Oakland A game and I think I was two beers in and I was with some male friends and he starts texting me and saying I’m suicidal. I’m thinking of killing myself. And I’m like, uhoh. And so I moved a few seats over ’cause it’s the Oakland A. There wasn’t wasn’t that crowded.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And so I just was like, yeah I gotta, deal with this to my friends. And so I’m, sitting there texting him for a half an hour and I’m giving him everything I can, every suggestion I can to get him out of this dark self-harm mood. And every it was just, Nope, nope. Tried that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Nope. Won’t work. And I’m just like, oh man. [00:46:00] Sometimes I think some of my best work comes when I start to get a little frustrated. And I, was starting to get a little frustrated and so I texted him and I said masturbate. And he was like, WTF. And I was like, yeah, masturbate. And that kind of ended the conversation and he was like, I can’t believe he just said that, and minutes, like text and no, So he, so I, so he comes in that the next Monday and he was like, dude, what the fuck? Masturbation, masturbate, what do you do? And I was like you’re here, aren’t you? Now I, that wasn’t all tongue in cheek actually. There is a great physiological release. There’s a positive emotional boost, there’s an attitude change that comes with orgasm and there’s an oxytocin dump.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So there is. There was some [00:47:00] reasoning behind what I was suggesting, but self, it just took him quite by surprise, I think. Self
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: hug.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Self hug. Self touch, yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: A mug that I bought in Israel that has a Hebrew saying, and I forget masturbate. I forget what, because I don’t, I can read Hebrew, but I don’t know what it means.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And so I’ve had to a couple of times look on Google Translate and take a photo of the mug so I can know what the saying is as I’m having my morning cup of coffee and Google Translate got confused because at one time it said a moment to myself, I’m like, okay, that makes sense with my cup of coffee.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And another time I did it, it said I touched myself.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: That’s a bestselling mug right there
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Okay. I thought we brought some levity to it because it wouldn’t be as if we didn’t bring laughter in somewhere. And especially with this heavy subject. It is important to find humor, but not in a way where we’re dismissing what’s really [00:48:00] going on.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Addressing Man Box Culture in Society
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So I, think in wrapping this up our intention for doing this, the timing was with the show adolescents and the importance of understanding what’s happening in our culture around the world with young boys, with social media influences cutting off from their emotions, no role models, to be able to help guide them to access it.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Even if they do, there’s a lot of fear and inability to go there, and it’s, one of the most important things I think we can do right now.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. I don’t know that there’s a whole lot more important one of the things I was thinking of is going over briefly, what can we do about it?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Okay.
Practical Steps for Parents and Society
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I think one thing, if you are a parent of an adolescent boy, one of the things is you gotta know what they’re looking at online. You gotta know where their influences were coming from. You gotta know who their friends are. I think that’s an obvious but not always easy [00:49:00] beginning point.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And I, think you gotta know who the social media influencers are that you wanna steer your boys away from.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Or at least know what they’re talking about so that if the names come up, you got an idea where your son might be headed. Because some people might, maybe they agree with Andrew Tate or Logan Paul or some of these other guys. I don’t know.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: We also, he, John recently found I don’t know where you found it, but it looks like the
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: oh yeah, the emojis related to, it looks like the kids used to communicate surreptitiously, looks like
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: the chart, the periodic chart.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It looks at the periodic chart and was different categories of self harm and sex and drugs and there was like six different categories of the emojis that kids are using to get messages across. And they brought this up in the show adolescents. Of what we adults might look at emojis being innocuous and neutral in its meaning actually have sometimes some pretty grave serious meanings behind [00:50:00] it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Therapist for Men: Yeah. So maybe we can include that in the show notes.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: That would be good. I think so some of the other things I was doing some research and just thinking about this and I think healing man box cultures, it’s a huge task and it requires shifting both individual mindsets and societal expectations.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, to me this is generational work. I don’t know that it’s gonna get taken care of in my lifetime, but I’m sure it’s all gonna speak out against it and try and educate people to do one of the things I need, I think we need to do is redefine masculinity, as I mentioned at the beginning, and challenge the idea that strength means dominance or emotional suppression.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Man Box Expert: I really like flipping it from power over to power with, I. As an example, I think we need to promote emotional intelligence and awareness as a key masculine trait. That takes courage, and courage is inherently masculine. I would love to encourage men to embrace vulnerability, empathy, and self-reflection, [00:51:00] which unfortunately flies in the face of what Elon Musk is talking about, saying that one of the problems with the world right now is that there’s too much empathy.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I don’t even like
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: my head around that. I remember during before the election seeing t-shirts and bumper stickers that said, fuck emotions.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: No, it wasn’t. It was
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Fuck your feelings,
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Jesus, fuck your feelings. That’s the message that is, is being portrayed out there. Fuck your feelings.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I, we gotta fight against that belief system.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah and I think part of that is I think there’s a lot of people out there that like to incite anger and hurt and other people and, to me. Those are unwell people at some level that’s just not healthy or kind behavior. And it’s, problem to me when kindness is looked down upon as weakness.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s just said to be able [00:52:00] to feel more comfortable than the vulnerability and the courage. One of the ways to do that is when you see a man doing that, validate it. Thank you so much.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And thank you for bringing that up, because women are raised in the man box culture too. And I’ve heard many stories of women man boxing men and the story I’ll tell was a, high school student that was being vulnerable in front of his girlfriend and he started to cry because he was talking about something really difficult and his girlfriend was like, dude, stop being such a pussy.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So understand it’s not just from men that we get this shit, it’s also from women
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And, we gotta
Dr. John Schinnerer, Man Box Expert: be aware of it.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And, one of the ways is it. That in men to really just honor and acknowledge, wow, that must have been really hard. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing that emotion.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I really appreciate that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And so number two on this list is model healthy a male relationship. So show men or model forming deep supportive friendships without the need for competition or toughness with showing what we’re [00:53:00] actually feeling with accepting what the other guy’s feeling. We also, I think, need to normalize men expressing love and appreciation for each other without being called names.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I would love to encourage fatherhood, mentorship, and nurturing roles as strength, not weaknesses.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So as a dad to be able to go, especially to your son especially your daughters as well, to show that men can do this. I think it would be a great example to express to your child where you have been hurt.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: What emotions you have felt to normalize that.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah I remember when my son died I wanted to make a point of crying and actually it was sobbing in front of my daughter to give her permission to grieve also. And I, it’s funny I just got a question recently from a man about is it okay for me to cry in front of my wife to which my response was, [00:54:00] of course, it’s that’s vulnerability.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: That’s what she’s actually been asking for.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: She might not know what to do with it. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I, don’t know what her response would be, but Great. Number three is educate early and often. So teach boys that emotions are human, they’re natural, and that expressing them doesn’t make them weak or wrong.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So we want to practice accepting other people’s emotions, particularly other than anger. We want to introduce diverse role models who embody masculinity in non-traditional ways. We wanna address this constrictive masculinity in schools, workplaces, and sports. Number four, we wanna hold cultural influencers accountable.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: We gotta call out the harmful rhetoric from figures like Andrew Tate while offering alternative, healthier male role models. We gotta let our sons know what’s going on. [00:55:00] This isn’t a game. This is serious, and it’s having massive negative consequences. We need to support content creators, authors and leaders who challenge destructive gender norms.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Number five, we wanna work on creating safe spaces for men to grow support. Men’s groups focused on mental health, emotional expression, positive masculinity, forming friendships among men. That’s a big deal. Jed Diamond, who’s been doing this work for 50 years, his number one suggestion in his book, 12 Steps to Be a Good Man is Join a Men’s group.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: We wanna provide mentorship programs where older men model emotional intelligence and vulnerability and communication. We wanna encourage therapy as a tool for personal growth, not just crisis management. Six, we wanna shift relational expectations. Teach men that emotional, availability, [00:56:00] respect, and partnership are strengths.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Move away from gender roles that pressure men to be sole providers or emotionally distant. Celebrate men who show up as equal partners and caregivers. And then finally, number seven, encourage societal and workplace changes. Advocate for paternity leave and family friendly work policies. Address workplace cultures that reward aggression and dominance over collaboration and empathy and challenge industries that glorify hyper-masculinity from sports to business to entertainment.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Because to me, healing the man box culture is about expanding masculinity rather than rejecting it. When men are free to be their full selves, emotional, kind, resilient, and strong, we all benefit.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I, love that list so much. And as I know you did research into creating this episode and expanding what you [00:57:00] always talk about, but putting it into this context.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I’d love to create a handout of that list and we’ll have that in the show notes because I think those reminders need to be reminded frequently and often and shared and revisited and just one time listening is not enough. Yeah. And so we will have, so I, I’ve said three things that are gonna be links in the show notes.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: One, we’ll have that list of depression for male and men and women. So I think it’s important to understand what is underneath some of the behaviors that we see
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: and what does male depression look like? How does it appear?
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And I think it’s not typically what you would think of as depression.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: We’re hint
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: it’s mostly anger and irritability and impatience.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Yeah. What we think of depression is usually what women present more of, sad, crying, unmotivated more quiet shut quietly un involved. And the second one is we’re gonna have that list of the emojis that kids are using in the different meanings.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: And then third, we’ll have this handout in there [00:58:00] of what, can you do about this? Because.
Concluding Thoughts and Resources
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: This has got to go beyond this hour long conversation. Absolutely. And so to have those resources and to share it and to share this episode and to let the men in your life know you see them, you love them, it’s not their fault.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: They are safe to express and feel with you and look for someone who can support them in that work. If John has availability in his practice, reach out to John. If you’re a couple and you need to support in your relationship because these dynamics are breaking down your family, check into see if we have availability.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: We’d love to work with you. There’s nothing more fulfilling for us than to work with couples when we break through these patterns. Yeah, absolutely. And we’ve done it. And we’ve seen it, and the results are the most rewarding thing that I could ever experience. When we see a shift in how couples relate to each other because they’re going against how they’ve been socialized, how they were raised, and what’s expected of them, and they get to that place.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: Safety and [00:59:00] trust and vulnerability, and then they get to role model that. There’s no better gift we could give.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It’s generational healing.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: It’s, it is.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, I just wanna say, pardon me for interrupting to the listener. Thank you for your time and attention. I know this isn’t a necessarily easy topic.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Expert Therapist for Men: I know I was getting a little bit charged up at times and thank you for your willingness to go with us into these into these parts of our culture.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: So again to follow up on what you said, thank you for John also putting this this content is the wheelhouse of your work, but in the structure that you made it really clear today.
Joree Rose, Couples Therapist: I appreciate that. And if this episode resonated like I said, please, a rating, a review, or resha or a share to someone who might also feel its impact is important to get this message out there. And. I think that wraps up for today. I think so. All right, [01:00:00] everyone, thank you so much and we will see you next week.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Therapist for Men: Bye y’all.
Dr. John Schinnerer: It’s after a couple months hiatus.
Joree Rose: So it was not quite our intention to take this long of a hiatus, but as they say, make plans and God will laugh.
Dr. John Schinnerer: Yeah.
Joree Rose: Better late than never.
Introduction and Relationship Overview
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So if this is your first time listening to Love Isn’t Enough, or if you are back joining us, we will reintroduce ourselves. I am Joy Rose,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and I am Dr. John Schinnerer.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and we are in relationship with one another.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Been together over nine years, engaged for five of those. Living together finally, after our teenage daughters went off to college.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And boy do we have a story to share with you.
Challenges and Resilience
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And yeah, life has been
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It’s been challenging.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It has been challenging, and walking across the parking lot to one of the many doctor’s office visits that we’ve had.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: As I guided you in your near blindness, you asked me, do you think [00:01:00] all its challenges have made us closer? Do you think it’s brought us closer together?
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Absolutely.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Absolutely. Yeah. Resounding yes. The moral of the story is you can choose how challenge affects you,
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: or we can quote Nietzsche and say that which doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: All of it’s true.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So why have we been gone for so very long?
John’s Blindness and Coping Mechanisms
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Because John went blind in his left eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: went blind. So we’re gonna share the story of John’s blindness and the potential theories of said blindness, but more importantly, the tools we’ve put into practice, both individually and as a couple, which are consistent with what we teach our clients and how we choose to live our lives.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Maybe we call this episode how to deal when the shit hits the fan.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: It was weird. They think things just got wonky in terms of these, I didn’t see this coming.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I keep thinking of all these vision jokes. You didn’t see it happening when it was actually happening. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so let’s back up and [00:02:00] begin with the.
Vacation Troubles in Madrid
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Vacation, right where we went to Madrid and Lisbon and the intention was to go and see Kami, your daughter, who was studying in Madrid, and then my daughter Molly, and your other daughter Ari, were joining us and Ari was turning 21 and we were all gonna be together and we had five ER visits in a little over a week.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Let’s even back up before the first ER visit, this trip was met with challenge from day one. Before we even had the first ER visit. Yeah. We arrived in Madrid and at that point your daughter wasn’t there yet, so you and me and my girls had our first day there and our plan was to go to a food tour.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: The next day. And our apartment, as many apartments are in Europe with no side access to light because you’re just in a building with only one window facing the street. We slept apparently really well.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: it was [00:03:00] nice and dark in there
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and we overslept
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: and John wakes up and goes out to look out the window to determine it was actually daylight and realize it’s 1215 and our food tour starts at 1230.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: How do we deal with curve balls? How do you emotionally recover quickly? How do you be resilient?
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And we were out the door in 10 minutes. Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: and then Molly flew by herself and went to Frankfurt, Germany, and somehow the connecting flight got screwed up. She missed her connecting flight and had to spend the night in Frankfurt. And that was a little bit unsettling. And we got through that and then she got to Madrid.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But that even affected some other things. Missing her flight and having to stay overnight. Detoured the plans for the next day, which was Ari’s 21st birthday. And we had a day trip planned to all go take a train, ride out to the coast of Spain and spend a beautiful day at the coast. Molly then was gonna be arriving midday. We decided me and my girls would still go, and we get out early, get our [00:04:00] Uber. Little did we know that there was actually every Sunday, a marathon that goes through Madrid that shuts down streets. Long story short, we get to the train station with one minute to spare.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We run up to the platform as we watch our train pull away. So here we were met with yet another curve ball.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: So the day trip got scrapped.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: That got scrapped and we ended up getting tattoos. Yeah. So you know there was that. And we had actually a really fun day and that was a blast. And I think that was the beginning of us all recognizing, wow, we’re all pretty darn resilient right now because all these things could have been hard to overcome.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Or the thought of how much money we might have lost on those train tickets. Or what Molly had to spend to stay overnight in Germany. But none of that really surfaced because we’ve been teaching these girls for years, stay present, breathe, don’t over personalize.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: How to recover quickly.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And then shortly after that, Molly got an injury to her left eye. [00:05:00] And I think it was the day after she couldn’t leave her room. she just wanted to stay in a dark room ’cause she couldn’t open her eye. And I was like, oh man, like I gotta take her to the er. And so we go to the ER in Madrid and turns out she has a scratch on her cornea.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: They got infected. They were great. They gave her a ton of antibiotics to put into her eyes every two hours, including throughout the night and. That was the Continuation of the debacle of vacation,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: which then in turn prevented her from joining us on another day trip.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Again, more resiliency on her part to stay back and for us to still go ahead and we did, we made the best of it.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: recovered every step,
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: every single step.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Best Couples Therapist: And then we had, so I had to take. Molly back to the hospital two days later to check up on the eye and that seemed to be healing.
Unexpected Events in Lisbon
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And then you and I went to Lisbon, Portugal by ourselves.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah. We had Thanksgiving there and we were supposed to be there for a few days.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Which we were only there for three days. [00:06:00] And one of my absolute favorite things to do when we travel is food tours. I love eating around the world. I love learning about cultures through food around the world.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: We had a food tour scheduled for the day after we got there and we had the whole morning open. And we thought, oh, let’s get a little tour of the city. Let’s look at these cute little tuk tuks that can drive us around and teach us about the history. And that was actually fantastic.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And then we went to the food tour and we were about two thirds of the way through the food tour. It’s now evening, and I’m sitting there at a table with, I don’t know, 10. Other people. And I realize, holy shit, like I can’t see anything outta my left eye.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you come up to me at the end of this particular food stop and you say, Hey, he I think something’s wrong. I realized I turned to look at the guy next to me and I couldn’t see him. And pretty quickly we made the decision to leave the food tour. And go right to the ER because you have a history Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Of a retinal issue. So you had some [00:07:00] intuition of, aside from not being able to see that we need to get help immediately.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And people, some people were like, oh, it’s a stroke. And I’m like, nah, it’s not a stroke. It’s retinal.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top Couples Therapist: in nature. And so we went to the ER the first night and spent, I don’t know, three hours there.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Best Couples Counselor: Three, three and a half hours. And. They didn’t speak much English there.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: But we left there about 10 o’clock with really no help
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: with nothing because they had no ophthalmologist there on staff at the time.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: than come back tomorrow.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Despite the fact that John couldn’t see anything, and if you’ve never been to Lisbon, it’s akin to San Francisco. Very hilly. Narrow streets, narrow sidewalks, lots of stairs, cobblestone. difficult to navigate if you have two working eyes.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: So I was leading him around half line.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Difficult to maneuver without depth perception.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And we decided we haven’t had dinner yet ’cause it, we left the food tour and that would’ve been really during the day and ended up going to a neighborhood restaurant right near our Airbnb. And this was another point of resiliency because despite the fact that John went blind in [00:08:00] Portugal, we actually had a great visit.
Joree Rose, Top Couples Counselor: It’s a really interesting experience because I’m working pretty hard to stay calm. Over this, three day period that we’re in Portugal, because really easy to go down the rabbit hole of I’m going blind, I’m losing my vision, like what’s going on? Like really easy to panic.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And you did amazingly well. Yeah, thanks amazingly well, and I think that’s a result of years worth of you practicing these tools. The tools of mindfulness, of acceptance, of presence of. How to get out of a spiral when you start going in one. Yeah, and I wanna highlight this restaurant experience because it’s also.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Counselor: Shows one of our top values, which I think we’ve talked about in previous podcast episodes, which is the power of connection. And there were two waiters at this restaurant that we connected with so deeply, and partly for two reasons. One, when I said, how you doing? John’s I’m blind in this side.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: This just happened. We just came from the hospital and now we’re here. And the first waiter, [00:09:00] Ricardo, just had the most. Beautiful compassion I’ve ever seen, I think ever from a stranger. Yeah. He softened and he put his arm around you and he looked pained for your experience. And that right there just felt safe.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor:
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Therapist: was a vulnerable share.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: He did.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: And so immediately in that moment there’s deep connection and there’s trust and so it felt, very warm and comforting.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Yeah.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Top 10 Couples Counselor: was scared.
Joree Rose, Top 10 Couples Therapist: Absolutely.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And it’s a scary situation, And he did a great job of not having any anxiety over your fear or discomfort. If more people could respond that genuinely to someone’s vulnerability or fear, my God, we would feel so much safer in this world.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And we know that you can collapse, creating new friendships down from 200 hours to 45 minutes by doing a vulnerable share and having that vulnerability met safely.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: It was beautiful. So despite the fact that, this was going on, all in all, it [00:10:00] was still a good day, Uhhuh.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: And I don’t think, that was just my perception of, looking for the good. Yeah. We had a three and a half hour detour where you were really scared and we got through it. So we get up the next morning, go back to the hospital and
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: that’s where we met dr. Philip.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Dr. Philip.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: Dr. Philip had our heart.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Dr. Philip was very handsome.
Joree Rose, Couples Counselor: he must have been a really good doctor and good at what he does. So the fact that he chose to be an ophthalmologist and come in on a Saturday to help us in emergency just really showed how much he cared.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist: Yeah. And he examined me and there wasn’t much he could do. He said, you’ve got a likely, you’ve got a retinal tear. We can’t see past the blood, The tear probably bled your eye filled with blood and that’s why you can’t see and you’re safe to fly home, which is so there’s no detached retina at that point.
Dr. John Schinnerer, Couples Therapist:
Jore