Thru Shame

“Self-esteem” is a near-ubiquitous idea we millennials have been steeped in ever since taking that awkward middle-school wellness class taught by that teacher who was anything but well (this happened to everyone, right?!). “Other esteem” - our beliefs about the basic characteristics of others - is equally important, yet rarely talked about. Positive, negative, or otherwise, these beliefs both shape and are shaped by our individual social worlds. When overly rigid, our other-esteem beliefs can create self-fulfilling prophecies where we interact with others in ways that only prove our worst expectations and disqualify anything more positive. In this latest episode, Jon and Gabe share their differing other-esteem beliefs, where these come from, and how these have shaped their social lives.

In Part 2 of their three-episode discussion on the APA’s guidelines for psychological practice with boys and men, Gabe and Jon wrap up the remaining definitions. They flesh these out by looping in past discussions of how potent patriarchal conditioning is and how it shapes what gives us the “ick”.

Continuing on the theme of men in therapy, Jon and Gabe begin a multi-part discussion (because ya'll know we can't be brief) on the American Psychological Association's (APA) official guidelines for improving therapy and general psychological practice for boys and men. In this first of three part episode series, they give their take on what's so exciting about these aspirational guidelines and APA's definition of gender, gender role strain, oppression, and more.

Folks from across the social spectrum agree that men need to heal and change. Ironically, those same folks (including us!) often mock men when they take steps to try and do so. “Go to therapy” is just as often genuine advice as it is a pithy dismissal of the long road from undoing patriarchal conditioning to the wholeness that hopefully follows. In this episode of Thru Shame, Gabe and Jon discuss the mockery of men’s successful and not-so-successful attempts to reconnect with themselves and how our cultural biases rightly and wrongly shape what even counts as “therapy”.

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Societal norms dictate that men should be masculine, powerful, and stoic. Ironically, this can make our sense of manhood all too easy to threaten. This can leave us susceptible to the dreaded feeling of not being “man enough” and trying to compensate in absurd, self-defeating ways. While there are plenty of obvious ways this can happen, there are just as many subtle ways that men fall right into this trap. In the latest episode of Thru Shame, Jon and Gabe share stories about times when, even with the best of intentions, they’ve unknowingly done this.

Now a licensed clinical psychologist, Jon discusses a concept he came across in his studies called Nigrescence, a five-stage theory describing how black identity develops across one’s lifetime (which was apparently developed by a WHITE GUY). After describing each stage of the theory, Gabe and Jon embark on the shameful work of exploring Jon’s first moments of racial consciousness and the varied ways he’s grappled with the question of whether he is “black enough” early on in life.

Here’s a download link to the article PDF: https://canvas.umn.edu/courses/125595/files/8036854/download?download_frd=1

Revisiting masculinity and manhood, we discuss how the journey from toxic to positive masculinity may be a dead end. Using concepts introduced in The End of Manhood by John Stoltenberg, we explore how masculinity insists on a performance based in inauthenticity, domination, and a denouncement of what makes us human. We then use opposite action to waltz through the discomfort of dancing the dance and what lies behind the performance.

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Jon and Gabe try a new thing where they actually structure the episode. Today, they begin by discussing hyper-rationality as an insidious form of masculine posturing and the irony of it being anything but rational. Afterward, they discuss the shameful ways they’ve fed into this style in their past and present.

Today, Jon and Gabe explore the foundation of societally-imposed shame through their family dynamics and early life experiences. And racism. Lots of racism. They rediscover how cruel children are, and are somehow surprised by that information. It turns out the echoes of that cruelty directly shape all of our worldviews in adulthood. Whoops.

Socials:

@thru.shame

@g.e.boyle

@jreeves92

Produced by: @_formwave_

In classic tit-for-tat fashion, Gabe returns Jon’s kick to the shame-nads with one of his own. Together, they reflect on Jon’s relational challenges in the dating scene and how fantasy can be both a blessing or a curse.

Socials:

@thru.shame

@g.e.boyle

@jreeves92

Produced by: @_formwave_

Artwork by: @joolzdraws