A male perspective of psychology from the Rainbow Nation

Why are there so few male cousnellors?

Psychology KitchenYouTubeBenjamin Boyce Interview

From my paper – A Male Perspective

A male perspective of psychology from the
Rainbow Nation

There is a conflict of visions playing out in politics, society, and education, marked by Brexit and the election of Donald Trump, currently being exacerbated by COVID-19. Many are left questioning what is going on in our developed communities. This question has led to an abundance of theory and literature on
the topic, offering us an array of explanations, excuses, and dire warnings. Many liberation movements
have splintered into sub-groups of grievances using hybrids of moral philosophy from feminism, race
equality, and human rights ideals. As a male adult, with my own business and no prior formal education,
concerned about the future, the question gripped me in my early 40s.
I veered into the world of social media to find answers. I quickly realised that in 2016, social media
provided weak, polarising answers to the big questions. I delved into sociology, hoping for the study of
human behaviour to provide solutions. Here again, I would be disappointed; I found progressive ideology
and technocratic elitism that left me feeling manipulated (Henning, 2012). It was after reading Stephen
Pinker’s book The Blank Slate that I finally sensed an intuitive truth behind human group behaviour. I finished the book in January 2019, put it down and picked up my phone to find a way to study psychology
further. I was 46 years old, owned my restaurant and married with no children. I wanted to help others
who may face what I have overcome, but I also wanted to delve deeper into human behaviour to enrich
the second half of my life.
I registered with a private college for a full-time undergraduate psychology degree. The programme aims
to qualify us as honours graduates in counselling with practical counselling experience in a condensed
course of four years. This programme is a result of the Health Professions Council of South Africa
(HPCSA) realising we urgently need more psychologists, especially counsellors in a nation ravaged by
chronic, generational trauma.

I aim to highlight the discrepancy between the lack of male student psychologists and the apparent need for more males in counselling psychology (for more detail see Bedi et al., 2016; Westwood
& Black, 2012). This deficiency seems to be gaining attention lately as male psychology modules are now being proposed in universities, male mental health groups are popular, and we finally have a formidable resource in the Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology (Barry et al., 2019). These developments come as I
began questioning my decision to study psychology after encountering some of the political ideology
while being a male student at the age of 46 in a young, multicultural, sensitive atmosphere.
It may not surprise the reader that integrating into first-year higher education, as a business owner, a capitalist, cisgender, heterosexual male was not easy. My cohort is mostly female between 19 and 23
years old who eyed me suspiciously for the first few weeks. There is a ratio of one male to three females in the students and educators, not unlike most aspects of psychology today (Bedi et al., 2016; Westwood & Black, 2012). I am old enough to be my classmates’ father and the educator’s sibling. However, I proceed
with enthusiasm because I am aware of the privilege of having access to higher education. I respect them
for choosing psychology when other, less personally challenging options exist. When I was my classmates’
age, I had already been thrown out of school at 15 and left alone to fend for myself after my abusive,
emotionally detached father moved out. I had to grow up overnight and get a job or face humiliation by going for help to the misandrist female matriarchs in my Italian family.

For more click the link below:

Angelo Vincenzo De Boni (psychreg.org)

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