.Ask a parent what's going on with their Gen Z son, and you'll usually get a shrug, a worry, or both. On this episode of the Men's Therapy Podcast, host Marc Azoulay reconnects with an old friend, Joanna Lilley. She is a therapeutic consultant and host of the podcast Success is Subjective. She spends her days working directly with young adults navigating exactly this territory.

Joanna explains what a therapeutic consultant actually does (spoiler: it's not crisis intervention, and it's not long-term therapy either), then walks through what she's seeing across hundreds of conversations with Gen Z men: rising anxiety, isolation, screen-fueled body dysmorphia, and a wave of self-diagnosed mental health labels borrowed from 30-second TikTok clips. The conversation gets into the real danger of medicating a teenager based on an Instagram diagnosis, why young men are splitting into two extremes (rejecting masculinity entirely or diving headfirst into the manosphere), and why Joanna thinks the fix isn't more labels or more information, it's teaching young people how to actually think through a problem. It closes with concrete, practical advice for any parent wondering how to talk to their son about masculinity, gender, and mental health without shutting the conversation down.

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Connect with JoannaWebsite: https://lilleyconsulting.com/ Resources MentionedSuccess is Subjective Podcast:https://www.successissubjective.org/ Individual Therapy:https://menstherapy.online/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=Service&utm_campaign=Individual_TherapyMen’s grouphttps://menstherapy.online/mens-groups/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=Service&utm_campaign=Mens_GroupsMTO Slackhttps://menstherapy.online/slack/?utm_source=Podcast&utm_medium=Slack_CTA&utm_campaign=MTO_SlackWebsite:https://menstherapy.online/