Social expectations, limited emotional vocabulary and barriers to support can inhibit young men from recognising, discussing and seeking help for anxiety.
Investigating this for her professional doctorate research was Dr Audrey Orage, a therapist by profession. During therapy sessions, she noticed similar patterns in young men who came to see her feeling anxious.
Anxiety is a type of fear usually associated with the thought of a threat or something going wrong in the future, but it can also arise from something happening in the here and now.
For her research, Dr Orage interviewed young men aged 19-24 in the UK through an online focus group.
She found that anxiety was hidden behind silence, self-management strategies and concerns about being judged. Participants also described feeling that anxiety was incompatible with traditional ideas of masculinity, leading many to suppress or conceal their distress.
Her analysis identified three connected themes:
- The silencing of men’s anxiety, gaps in emotional literacy, and stigma-related barriers to seeking help.
- Participants reported struggling to find the language to describe their experiences, often relying on informal terms that were not always recognised or understood by adults, educators or healthcare professionals.
- They also described uncertainty about available support services and concerns that their difficulties would not be taken seriously.
Dr Audrey Orage said: “Anxiety is one of those final taboo subjects for the modern man, as I know about from a personal perspective, because my own father suffered from terrible anxiety at times.
“My findings suggest that anxiety may remain hidden not simply because young men are unwilling to talk – many times, they are more than open to this – but because they lack the shared language, confidence and supportive environments needed to express what they are experiencing.
“There needs to be a greater focus on emotional literacy, earlier identification of anxiety, and improved awareness of support services could help young men access help sooner.
“While my findings are based on a small, exploratory sample and should be interpreted with caution, the research highlights the need for further study into how young men understand, communicate and seek support for anxiety across a wider range of cultural and social backgrounds.”
Read Dr Orage’s full research paper here.
Find out more about the University’s Doctor of Professional Practice in Health and Social Care qualification.