Category Archives: Men

The Elders have left the Village…

Ancient Wisdom, Elder or Old?, Men, Mens Work, Parenting, Societal Values, Spirituality, Teenagers

..and we hardly noticed their departure.

This exodus wasn’t marked by ceremony or collective grief—it happened gradually, invisibly, as the perfect century-long storm of wars and progress transformed the landscape of ageing in the West into some kind of an endless summer for the soul. The result? We’ve inherited a cultural wound so profound that many of us approaching our autumn years can scarcely recognise it, let alone name it.

Disrupted Lineage

Stephen Jenkinson names this wound precisely: we’re facing not just a crisis of elderhood, but its near-complete annexation by a culture of age without ageing, retirement without ripening. The post-war generation, our Baby Boomers, inherited a fractured lineage. Their own elders, shaped by depression and war trauma, often carried a stoic silence that masked deeper developmental arrests. These were men and women who survived by compartmentalising, by pushing forward, by refusing to look back—a psychological strategy that served them in crisis but failed to nurture the soul-making necessary for true elderhood.

Difficulty in Accepting Transitions of Aging

James Hollis reminds us that this developmental crisis stems from our culture’s profound misunderstanding of life’s second half. We’ve created a society that promises endless youth, endless consumption, endless distraction—anything to avoid the necessary descent into what Richard Rohr calls the “second simplicity.” Sharon Blackie suggests this avoidance manifests differently yet devastatingly across genders—while men flee from the confrontation with mortality, women are often denied even the cultural space to age authentically, pressured instead to maintain a perpetual spring in defiance of their autumn wisdom. This has produced what might be history’s first elderless generation: the Boomers, caught between their traumatised parents and their own unmetabolised youth, never witnessed genuine elderhood in action. Instead, they saw retirement—that peculiar modern invention that transforms the autumn and winter season of life into an extended adolescence, complete with its focus on leisure, consumption, and self-referential pleasures.

Lost Connection to our Earth

The consequences of this developmental vacuum are far-reaching. Bill Plotkin’s work reveals how this absence of authentic elderhood has ruptured our relationship with the very planet which our souls are soul of, creating generations of developmentally arrested adults who mistake financial security and environmental dominance for psychological maturity and progress. We’ve lost the ecological consciousness that traditionally emerged through the ripening process of genuine elderhood, replacing it with what Jenkinson calls “elderly idealism”—a state of perpetual youth-mindedness that refuses the gravitational pull toward genuine maturity.

A Wound and an Invitation

For those of us now crossing the threshold into life’s autumn season, this inheritance is both a wound and an invitation. We stand at a crucial developmental crossroads: we can either perpetuate the pattern of arrested development that has characterised recent generations, or we can choose a more challenging path—one that requires us to rebuild and reimagine elderhood and the very practice of eldering. This is no small task, because like most of those born in the 20th century, we must learn to elder without elders.

Courtesy of David Tensen from his book “Decentre Everything….The Unconvential Approach to Eldering in an Age of Immaturity”

Learn about yourself with other Men

Men, Mens Work, Societal Values

Mens Counselling/Help/Sharing/Therapeutic Group starting September 2022 Mondays Headington PM. Lasting for 90 minutes this is a chance to listen, talk, observe, share, feel, be, express. Let’s see what subjects emerge between us. Facilitated by Guy Turton. Interaction between us will be encouraged. It will NOT be 1 to 1 counselling with a lot of people watching you. Please contact HERE for further information and HERE to contact me

The Work (2017) Film

Men, Mens Work, Spirituality

“Nearly 20 years ago, an unconventional program started inside Folsom Prison: Some of Californias most hardened convicts invite members of the public to join them (in the prison) in intensive group therapy sessions” 

Haunting music accompanies the start of this documentary.  Outside the gates of the prison we see the pensive uncertain public volunteers arriving to go inside the prison being told “you are being watched right now”.  Interspersed with prison yard images of inmates in light blue prison uniform and white vests:  razor wire fences and closing steel gates, set against the bright blue Californian sky and the  prison security towers, vulnerability has no place here.  Gang and racial divisions still exist, to be emotional is weakness, and long since forgotten father wounds abound. 

We follow the 4 day  personal journey of each member of the public and several of the black, white, Hispanic, native american, bearded, bandana wearing inmates.  Several small therapy groups go on at the same time within the grey breeze block walls of a large undecorated prison room.   Heavy on seamlessly blended leader facilitation (these are prisoners who may sometimes be unpredictable), as well as peer facilitation,  we follow one group as one by one each man succumbs to his emotions and shows his vulnerability.  We see men who are brave enough to get in touch with their feelings, their emotional wounds, sometimes easily, sometimes through gritted teeth.  Daring to descend inwards and down to their most painful least visited places whilst being facilitated and held by the circle of fellow men, this is  deeply moving and thought provoking throughout.

“Right where your wound, your hurt is…..right alongside that you can find your gold”.   This isn’t a trained white middle class educated listener, but an incarcerated murderer uttering these words.

This is intense,  demanding viewing…….as I watch I realise the wider world is waking up to the possibility that unprocessed feelings may be behind much of the acting out behaviour of men that can be so damaging to societies, to their relationships with others and to themselves.

Ok, a confession, this type of work is close to  my heart……..but 90 minutes later I feel like I’ve been on retreat myself, my outer world receding as I too am put firmly in my own moment of aliveness, in touch with my body,  my emotions, my own “Work”, and the richness, beauty and power of men helping each other to get in touch with their true selves.

Iron John:Men and Masculinity (1990) by Robert Bly

Ancient Wisdom, Men, Mens Work, Outdoors, Spirituality

“At a gathering of men in a  huge hall in London in  the 1980’s (Robert Bly was there too).    A man climbed upon stage suddenly and shouted ‘I don’t know how to be a man!’ “.    A few years later this book arrived

Running through this book  is an ancient Brothers Grimm fable about a boy who goes into the forest.  (This tale was selected by Bly as one of only 6 out of 236 Grimm brothers stories that relates specifically to male dangers and triumphs)

The boy wants to do something dangerous. The king tells him about a lake in the forest where men keep disappearing.  The boy investigates and ends up having  to drain the lake, where at the bottom he finds a Wild Man.  The Wild Man has a Golden Ball that the boy has lost.   So begins a relationship between the boy and the Wild Man. 

Picture Source: Wikipedia

Later the Wild Man ends up locked in a cage.  The key to unlock the Wild Man and get back the boys Golden Ball is held under the boys mothers pillow….. the Wild Man tells the boy he needs to steal the key…..(Bly talks openly in the intro about the dilemma of having it under the mothers pillow)

Each of these events is pulled apart in great detail, discussed, and dissected, imagined and pondered  by Bly.  The symbolism of each stage of the tale is related to how men find themselves in modern Western society (ie generally not in touch with their true nature and true selves, perhaps looking for the answer in the wrong places).      It’s a series of gentle thoughtful duly considered wonderings, considered from many contexts and points of view. Bly is a poet and there is Jungian influence in this book. Its part poetry, part discussion, part mythology, part interspersed with modern examples to illustrate and keep it relevant

During my training the general interpretation  of “Wild” from fellow students was ‘out of control’.   Bly uses ‘Wild’ to mean connected to nature, free spirited, aware of his wound, hairy and not bound by convention, more like a Woodman or Shaman than a savage.      

This book is an acquired taste, not an easy read, despite being a bestseller and pretty well known amongst mens work literature.  It’s a book to dip into for a few pages, then ponder. Then come back to it some time later. Each time I’ve looked at it still feels like starting again each time.  Reading the same parts again can harvest a different fragment of the story.  It can be frustrating, and requires patience.   What is he trying to say?    How does he link it to what we actually need to do?   I’ve only made it to the end once, but then maybe that’s me (I’m not a good book finisher but a better starter)

Not one I’d suggest to give to clients in general unless you’ve formed your own view of it first, or they are particularly keen.  Bly is clear that this is about male initiation. And also that it does not exclude gay men.    It is however a remarkably ageless book that does not date like some books based on ideas/times/movements and you don’t have to be into poetry to get something out of it.

6 people in your Couples Counselling Session?

Concepts & PsychoEducation, Couples, First Session, Men, Women

What? There will only be 2 adults in the session right?

Wrong. Alongside/Inside each of the two presenting adults is an internalised inner child and an internalised parental figure.

Suddenly things are a little bit more complicated

Person 1 Person 2

Couples sometimes get stuck in the dotted lines positions, where one is having a go at the other one. (Diagram courtesy of The Context of Things)

Couples Counselling aims to get both parties relating along the solid line ie from Adult to Adult. This happens by many methods but the first stage is to realise the unhelpful patterns and why they come about

To book a session

Being vs Doing

Ancient Wisdom, Concepts & PsychoEducation, Men, Societal Values, Women

Western society values Doing much more than Being.

Article from ‘The Ascent’ goes into this in more detail

Doing can be measured, can be seen by others, and can often me monetised

Being is hard to measure, is less visible and often doesn’t generate money

Doing can have a function of blocking out or avoiding or making it harder to tune into our deeper wisdom, intuition, perception and feelings.

This is an example of something that can be explored in Counselling for some people

‘I thought I was a lost cause’: how therapy is failing people of colour

Culture & Diversity, Men, Societal Values, Training, Women

Black and minority ethnic people are more likely to develop mental health conditions but less likely to access counselling – or find it fit for purpose. Are more BME therapists the answer?

I think the interventions and views taken by the therapists in this article are flawed. They were not being led by the clients experience but were trying to impose their own views, which is a mistake.

Long Term Offenders have different brain structure

Attachment, Children, Early Experiences, Men, Neuroscience, Societal Values, Teenagers, Women

Guardian Article explains ” Parents should not worry about their teenagers’ delinquent behaviour provided they were well behaved in their earlier childhood”

“……. adults who had a long history of offending showed a smaller surface area in many regions of the brain compared with those with a clean track record. They also had thinner grey matter in regions linked to regulation of emotions, motivation and control of behaviour – aspects of behaviour they are known to have struggled with….”