Workshop overview

Greg Dubord, MD, writes:

May 1 is Mayday—the universal distress call, from the French m’aidez: “help me.” It is also the day we launch Masculine CBT, a workshop about the patients who may never make that call.

Men are 33% less likely than women to even have a family doctor. Women now earn 58% of university degrees. Men comprise 68% of emergency shelter users and 73% of homicide victims. Men complete 75% of all suicides. Men account for 97% of workplace fatalities.

Most physicians were never taught how to reach their guarded male patients—because most training programs treat reluctance to engage as the patient’s problem, not a clinical skill gap. Meanwhile, the cultural conversation about masculinity has focused almost entirely on what men do wrong, with remarkably little attention to why they are struggling in the first place. This workshop fills that gap.

Twelve of the topics we will cover:

1. Why men underreport symptoms and how to screen around the silence;
2. How “I’m fine” becomes a clinical mask—and the three questions that remove it;
3. Why male loneliness is now a mortality-level risk factor, and what you can do about it in ten minutes;
4. How divorce and fatherhood loss drive men into presentations that mimic other conditions entirely;
5. The specific suicide screening adaptations that work for men—because standard tools often miss them;
6. Why your most difficult male patients may be your most depressed ones;
7. How to talk to teenage boys about mental health without triggering instant shutdown;
8. Why pornography, gaming, and social withdrawal are symptoms worth exploring, not conversations worth avoiding;
9. How to use CBT tools with men who consider therapy a sign of weakness;
10. How fatherlessness shapes the boys in your practice—and what a physician can realistically do about it;
11. Why retirement, layoffs, and disability hit men differently—and what that means for your clinical approach; and
12. Why masculinity needs a positive definition—not just a list of things to apologize for.

Empathy is not a zero-sum game. If the word "masculine" makes you uncomfortable, ask yourself: uncomfortable compared to what? Quiet, isolated collapse, substance use, and suicide are how many men and boys currently express distress. This workshop is about meeting them where they are—and recognizing that the drive to protect, provide, and persevere is not a disorder.