Therapist Unplugged
A therapist-led podcast brought to you by The Montfort Group featuring Laurie Poole. Straight talk about life, relationships, and mental health. Each episode will feature the unplugged views of guests and fellow therapists as we navigate hot topics, therapy trends and the world around us.
Therapist Unplugged
What Happens When Men Enter the Therapy Room?
What happens when two therapists get real about men in therapy? This candid conversation delivers profound insights about why men struggle with emotions and how therapy can create transformative spaces for authentic expression.
Therapists Laurie Poole and Rhett Smith explore how boys receive messages as early as age five that emotions aren't safe to express, creating lifelong patterns that emerge in relationships and personal identity. They candidly discuss the challenges men face developing emotional vocabulary and navigating societal expectations that often leave them feeling inadequate or ashamed. Through powerful clinical examples, they reveal how failure and shame become central emotional triggers for many men and reframes vulnerability as strength rather than weakness.
Whether you're a man struggling with emotional expression, someone who loves a man wrestling with these issues, or a therapist working with male clients, this episode offers compassionate understanding and practical wisdom about creating spaces where men can bring their whole selves – emotions included.
Therapist Unplugged is brought to you by The Montfort Group. Each episode will feature the unplugged views of guests and fellow therapists as we navigate hot topics, therapy trends and the world around us.
*The Montfort Group provides a serene, calming setting where you can feel challenged, supported, and motivated. Our skilled therapists bridge specialized backgrounds and varied philosophies together to create one unified strategy. Rather than steer you away from your own natural abilities, we help you maximize your unique strengths. We do not view a broken history as the end of a story, we see it as an opportunity for a new beginning.
All right. So, Rhett, are you ready to have some fun?
Rhett Smith:I am ready, let's do it. Let's do this.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, let's do this, because we're going to have one of my favorite topics, which is about men.
Rhett Smith:Okay, I love it. Let's talk about men.
Laurie Poole:Love to talk about men and listen. Welcome to Therapist Unplugged. I am so happy that we have time to kind of put our thoughts together and talk about men and emotions and anxiety and relationships and all that good stuff, because I think in my practice as a couples therapist I don't want to say that men get a raw deal necessarily, but I will say that there seems to be far less wiggle room for how emotions are expressed and processed and communicated and so on. I'm really thrilled to have this opportunity to dedicate our conversation to all about men.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, no, I appreciate you having me on and I mean I'm a man. But there is that bias, I think, for counseling for guys, especially if they come in as a couple. I think they're looking at me and wondering if I'm going to treat them fairly, you know. Or I'm going to side with their wife. Sometimes their wife is worried that since I'm a guy, I might align with him. So it's complicated, I think, for men historically, because they typically aren't the ones that are going to therapy.
Laurie Poole:No, It's not very often that I've seen men initiate couples therapy, for example. It's usually a wife who will say okay, we've hit critical mass or something's not working. I'm not happy... This doesn't seem to, you know, we need some tools in our box. And so male partners will come in, and sometimes it's reluctantly.
Rhett Smith:Yes, and I feel like my experience, if I can get a guy in the room one time and create an environment where they feel like emotionally safe and I don't think this is just me I think, if other therapists can do it too, that people are surprised. I think guys are willing to come back. They're willing to do the work. They just don't want to feel they're walking into a trap or they're being ganged up on.
Laurie Poole:That's right, exactly, exactly. I think that's a huge piece of it. There's the anticipation of a therapist taking the side of the wife or the female partner, when in fact, I've often found that men can be even more workable. You know, that's the irony, because women can talk a lot but not say very much, and by that I mean, you know, in a couple's situation, there can be a lot of reactivity, and so women are identified as being more emotional than men. Often it's the reaction to the emotion they're experiencing that their partner sees, and not really the deeper emotions that are driving that reaction.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, what do you do in a situation like that then? You personally.
Laurie Poole:What do I do personally?
Rhett Smith:Yeah, if you notice that happening in the room.
Laurie Poole:I slow it right down.
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:And I will say, I will say okay, so I'm going to use my therapy voice, right. I'll say something like "wow, I see a lot of stuff coming up right now. Can we just, can we just slow this down? Because what you're saying is really important and I want to understand this. And so I'll start right with all the reactivity and I'll say "I'm really curious, could it be that in this instance, you're working so hard to connect with your husband and he's not responding in a way that offers up some comfort and reassurance, and I think what I'm seeing is a lot of protest to the way that feels.
Laurie Poole:So I might I mean, I'm just kind of role playing here but I might kind of look at, okay, what is the reaction? I might reframe it as a protest. "This is a real protest. You're fighting so hard for that connection and you're not sure that he really understands", you know. So it might be more focused on, or I'll say something like I don't want you to talk about him right now, I just want to hear about you. Tell me everything. But I just want to hear about you." then process it with the wife and say, "an, you know, this is really hard because you want so badly to connect with him and you're longing for that and you're just, you're pulling out all the weapons, firing shots across the bow, protesting because you want so badly to be seen and understood. So I might. You know that's kind of a fast forward, but I slow it right
Rhett Smith:No, I mean, that's the value in couples therapy, too. Sometimes one of the partners gets to let you, gets to watch you work with their spouse and see things and hear things that they don't typically have access to. That can be super helpful.
Laurie Poole:No for sure. And ultimately, my goal is-- "o you think you could turn to your husband now and, in your own words, share what you've just shared with me? Yeah, so that I'm actually-i t's very experiential, you know, in terms of...
Laurie Poole:And with men, can we talk a little bit about your practice, Rhett, because I really wanted you, as a guest on our podcast, to talk specifically about men and your experience with men, how you work with men. So I'm wondering if you could speak to your practice, and you mentioned also about anxiety.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I've been in Private Practice over here in the Plano, Frisco area probably since like since 2009-i sh ish. I came from a ministry background. I was a college pastor out in Los Angeles and just found out that I like this stuff one-on-one more than getting up and talking, and so this is kind of important. Though they're old, I wrote a book on anxiety in 2012. And then the year later, the publisher had me write a book on men in 2013. So it's been years.
Rhett Smith:I think, like, that kind of set the trajectory that people were coming to me for anxiety or coming to see me because they were a man and I was a man and you know I was telling some of their day. At one point I might've been one of the few male counselors up in Frisco area, especially like marriage counselors? Obviously that's changed a lot. We have- there's tons of therapists in this area. So, you know, in any given week you know it's not, I don't know probably about a third of my people who show up in my office are couples, and you know a third are probably men or adolescent boys, and then another third are probably women. So I feel like it's a pretty good mix that Okay that I get to work with and that I get to I don't know, just experience each week. But probably, like you, there are weeks that go by. I look at my calendar and it's like, oh, I have all men this week. How did that happen? I don't know. So it's a privilege. I, like you, I feel like I try to be pretty experiential. I feel like that's a growing edge for me.
Rhett Smith:of a therapist community called restoration therapy Restoration my Therapy. My terry Terry. Hargrave, he out of the contextual family therapy movement back in the seventies and eighties and created this model called restoration therapy and he's very experiential and sometimes that can create some anxiety for me in the room because I'm figuring out boundaries in the room, like what feels safe to a person, whether they're male or female, you know, just in terms of just how we approach people.
Rhett Smith:e so I was like, for example, last week I had a couple I was working with who was- they were younger, and I just got up and I'm like I told the guy I want you to stand up, and then I moved my chair like my big chair over in front of his wife and had him sit down in front of her and I just worked with him as he was looking at her and I was trying to get him to access emotions I don't think he has much experience with, and it really shifted the therapy dynamic, and they communicated to me that they went home and just felt this shift, you know, in their relationship, and so that doesn't happen all the time. Sometimes I feel a prompting and I don't jump on it and then I'm kicking myself after, you know, yeah.
Laurie Poole:But it sounds like you took a risk, right, in other words, something felt like, okay, this could be, and the way you physically directed how sitting and what he was watching and being able to take in, etc.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, and Laurie, you probably know too, like when you're training as a therapist, they, they freak you out in the ethics class and so you live in fear of not screwing up anything, right. But I've noticed over the years just the importance of like getting people up, of shifting, of asking a person is it okay if I put my hand on your arm? Like we do this or we do some like sculpting in the room, yeah. And so you, you know I'm learning too in the room. Still, I, you know I just turned 50 last month and so you know I'm learning in my work, and I think I think clients teach me a lot too.
Rhett Smith:You know, how to be a better person and better therapist. But yeah, guys are. Guys are interesting. I think I'm fond of the work of like Terrence Real.
Rhett Smith:There's a book he wrote many years ago. I don't want to talk about it. It's subtitle is the hidden legacy of, of men and men in depression. And yes, there's something in there. He said that I think about a lot. He looks at the data and the research of boys growing up and says by the age five, probably maybe four, they've been given the message that's not safe to talk about how they feel, and so they start shoving emotions down early. And he says mostly they channel them towards anger or addictions, like in porn or sports or violence. And so you got all these generations of men who've been told verbally or non-verbally you can't really talk about how you feel. And of course, women have their own messages they're getting at young ages. But just speaking about men, yeah, so I feel most of the men that I work with it's just given them freedom and access to not only talk about how you feel, but let's help you figure out how do you feel. Let's have language, because they don't know sometimes.
Laurie Poole:I have had the experience of even saying to a client in present time what is it that you are experiencing right now, in this moment? What are you experiencing right now? And it's very, very difficult, very difficult to describe. So I might start with where are you feeling it in your body? Where do you notice? Do you have tension somewhere? Does your throat feel tight? As we're talking right now, you know, or do you, you know, like to pay attention to, sort of somatic symptoms of something if it's not feeling comfortable. But you're so right about language.
Laurie Poole:I think actually part of our role as therapists is to offer language to our clients and I will often say things like could I just throw this at you and you tell me if it resonates, because I haven't got a clue, but can I help you out with some? And you know, I think to your point about ethics. Someone could say well, are you feeding someone like how they're, are you influencing the way they actually feel? And I and I would argue that by offering up language, clients will say no, that's not it at all and I'm like okay, good, all right.
Rhett Smith:They will let you know.
Laurie Poole:They will let me know, absolutely.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, like this whiteboard behind me or on my door I have these big like those sticky notes that people hang on walls. I'm trying, within the first sessions, to like help clients kind of try on language. I'll send them home, sometimes with a piece of paper, because sometimes just having the words, they're looking at words and they're like that's how I feel, but I didn't even know that's how I felt until I see the word on paper. And so we're just kind of playing around with options, I feel, for a while while until something really sticks and they're like "this is how I feel and I know when I feel this way, here's how I typically respond and they're trying to connect those patterns and I feel like that's really really helpful for people, especially for men.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, because if you don't know what is happening within in a relationship, how do you communicate that with your partner?
Rhett Smith:Right.
Laurie Poole:You know, because it's, I think, in couples work, particularly for both men and women. There is surprise to learn that actually I want to know about what's happening for you, because right now you're focused on your partner right? In terms of how they're responding to things and what's happening with them and you're looking to them, but it's so important to be curious about yourself.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, no, it helps you understand yourself better, and then I feel like, as you're communicating and using that tool, that language, you're helping the person you're in relationship also understand you better. It works both ways, and sometimes people come into therapy, it's their first time and they've never really thought through this or talked about how they felt, you know, and sometimes they have a lot of experience and guys do show up and I feel like they're pretty adept. They're navigating their emotional life, which is awesome.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, let me ask you this, Rhett, if we're going to talk about anxiety, because anxiety has become the topic du jour, particularly since the pandemic- yeah. And it seems that people are increasingly open to expressing their struggles with anxiety. What do you notice or what have you seen in regards to how men express and manage anxiety and what they're presenting with when they come in to see you?
Rhett Smith:Oh, that's such a good question. Well, I mean, just off the top of my head, I feel like, if I'm going to kind of stereotype that a little bit across the board, my experience, men, when they're anxious, seem to move into a couple different things, a lot of performance or achievement oriented stuff. Like, if I feel anxious, I'm going to channel this into these performance, achievement stuff, um, and that may be labeled some type of control. Maybe I can control this area of my life, be it work or hobby, and I'm going to get really good at that. And if I get good at that I can kind of quell some of the anxiety better. Women, I've noticed now women can do that obviously as well. But with women what I've noticed more is a sense of like safety around. Like I'm anxious, I feel a sense of a lack of safety or security around something, and so I'll notice a woman doing things to control, to make her world feel more safe.
Rhett Smith:And I don't know. You know Basil van der Kolk in his book the Body Keeps the Score. He talks about love and safety. My mentor talks a lot about love and trust and that when there's violations right, in our relationships and our brains create those neural pathways. It seems we're moving towards a violation of love around my identity or violations of safety. This doesn't feel trust trustworthy to me and so I don't know. I look at those things a lot when it comes to anxiety. Where is the violation that they've experienced? Maybe growing up around safety, primarily around love and their sense of who they are. But men, man. Men seem to be really keen on who I am is dependent upon, like what I produce or achieve and anxious about it.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I'm going to dig into that. Y ou know that only lasts so long, cause what happens when you can't be productive in that area? You can't keep the anxiety down.
Laurie Poole:No, exactly, and I think I think the metrics. What I, what I have noticed in my work with men, is that there are two areas that will generate a lot of conversation and often tears is failure and shame. Those two emotions particularly.
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:As it applies to a relationship, I'm failing. I can't make her happy, I can't. Right, am I really enough? I don't know. Does she need me? But I'm failing. When we get into this negative cycle and things start to escalate, I just feel like I'm failing and then I feel, maybe a degree of shame about the fact that my performance as a husband, as a partner, because I'm hearing a lot of criticism. I don't know, it really depends on the scenario, but it seems to me that those are two, two emotions, shame and fear that are big for men.
Rhett Smith:To your point about performance and achievement I like how you said that, because I have a handout just has like a list of like 40 kind of feeling words on it just to kind of help people like think about stuff, and I'll send them out during the week. I don't always give homework, but I want them just to kind of be aware and notice if anything resonates with them. And I'm fairly confident that 99% of the guys I'll work with they'll come back and they will circle a cluster of words and that word they're different words but they kind of get to the same point that you're saying.
Rhett Smith:They'll talk about feeling a sense of inadequacy a sense of not measuring up, a sense of not being good enough and like failure, like those four words, and and you're right, when I see that cluster of words there's a lot of shame to them that they are not enough in some way.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, yeah. And then you know that that can often to open the door to childhood experiences or family of origin experiences where there were similar emotions that came up about inadequacy, shame not being enough, family dynamics and relationships, the role they played in family and, and, of course, often those experiences come into the intimate partnership right In terms of, because they shape view of yourself, where you, where you understand your value, and so on.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I mean, if we're talking about things like the partner relationship and like sexual intimacy, I mean you don't have to go very far to guys start talking about a sense of failure or inadequacy or not measuring up in that part of their relationship. You know, and it shows up in a lot of areas and I don't know. I was gonna ask you if you think that failure and shame... is that you think that's just historical? Like you think that's only been a certain period of time for men and we're also in the United States and it's cultural. Or do you think, yeah, a broader, global thing, that if you had men in your room across the board, they would all say the same thing?
Laurie Poole:You know, it's really interesting because that's a, first of all, that's a fabulous question, because I think all of those things play a part, as does race. You know your cultural and racial experiences around the role of a man and what meeting expectations, because there are so many different kinds of expectations. I think all of those things are an influence, and it's not something I have studied closely, but it's fascinating. I don't know, maybe we need to do a research project because, yeah, I think you're right.
Rhett Smith:I do think we could probably pull up ancient literature too and like go through it thousands of years ago and probably be some of the same language. Yeah, but last week I drove with one of my friends, he's a therapist in Amarillo, and he would just describe himself as a black guy, as a black therapist. He gets labeled even. You know, he said when he did a, deep dive into what people were googling in terms of psychology today, it was black therapist for him, and so we were We were driving Amarillo the amarillo together he because it lives Austin in austin, and he was just telling me like there are things that he has to pay attention to the room that don't have to because of issues around what it means to be a man and his culture and and like masculinity, and he runs into dynamics differently with a couple in the room than than than ., And and and so it was just interesting, we were just kind of unpacking that fascinating yeah, so I think different cultures probably have to think differently about how they do marriage counseling and what that looks like.
Laurie Poole:have had Black clients, I will ask right off the top what are your thoughts about coming to a white therapist?
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:A white middle-aged therapist? Yeah, because I want to be aware, like I want us to be able to have that dialogue, because if I'm missing something I want to know and I'm just curious about why and what. So, to your colleague's point, you know I would be curious about what he, as a therapist, needs to be, needs to pay attention to and to be mindful of you know the dynamics in the room, because there are expectations and experiences that are going to be different between cultures. I mean there just are.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I think him and I, and after kind of being with our colleagues all weekend, I think we kind of came up to the idea of just, you know, we have to show up as ourselves and it's important to name some of those things in the room so that there's just an awareness and people have the opportunity to talk through that, because any type of therapist can do a really great amount of work with any type of client. But we have to be aware of how are we showing up in the room and how does that impact our clients and that's right yeah.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, it makes for very interesting work. Show up as ourselves. You know we're not always going to get it right, and I love what you said earlier in our conversation about what we learn from clients, because it's so true. Every single day sitting in my office I learned something that I didn't know the day before. Either, about myself as a therapist and what I bring into the room, what my clients teach me, what shows up in our collaboration, because I never sit as the expert on their relationship. You know, I accompany, but I don't, I don't take on the role of expert. But I'm really, really curious about men because I I have had I'm going to call just raw, almost sacred experiences with men in my office who you know will think about something that happened to them in a relationship with themselves and dad, for example and the sobbing, the sobbing that will come up, that surprises them.
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:Because we're hitting a wound that hasn't been rubbed against for a long, long time, and you know, it's just it's. It's really fascinating to me and I think there's so much wonderful work we can do as therapists and I feel as though men are becoming increasingly open to more therapy and being curious about themselves and exploring themselves in a way that maybe they weren't before.
Rhett Smith:Gosh, yeah, I mean, as you were talking, I was thinking this is years ago, maybe 2009, 2010. I had a client in my room he was 77. Not the type of guy goes to therapy and he started crying and he was remembering a story of when he was seven, being a boy, and his dad told him, um, as, as he was crying as a seven year old boy, his dad told him put those tears away. And I'm like thinking this guy's 77 now and that is such a raw moment at seven that taught him what it means to be a guy in terms of emotions or safety around that, and that's like that. When you said sacred moments, I was thinking about that and that actually kind of shifted my work a lot about how I think about guys who show up in my office, you know, and this may be the only safe place that they have to talk about some stuff.
Laurie Poole:That's right, where they don't have to put their tears away.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I had a guy this morning, you know. I told him I said you know it's a, it's a privilege to work with you and some of the stuff you've shared with me the last you know, several sessions, like I want you to know, like it's a, it's a privilege. I take that very seriously, that I may be one of the few people you share that with and I don't know, it's pretty. It is, like you said, pretty sacred.
Laurie Poole:It really is. It really is. Do you think, Rhett, that I get the sense that roles are shifting? There's some confusion about the roles and I'm going to talk about heterosexual context right now.
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:But I get the sense that there is confusion about the roles that men and women play in their relationships.
Laurie Poole:Esther Perel, who I just love, talks about oh my God, now we want someone who's going to be our lover, our best friend, our mentor, our family preacher, I mean like all these things that we expect in our partner. And then we go oh you see, you're not my soulmate. So there's this expectation of in roles that communities used to. We had other people in our community that we could talk to, extended family, lived closer, you know, and it seems like now we're putting all this pressure on a partner to be a quote unquote soulmate, whatever the heck that means. Yeah, and it's it. I think I wonder if it has created particular pressure on men.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, I mean, I talk about this a lot with couples in my office that they're just both really confused about who they're supposed to be in the relationship. You know, and so, and you know, to be fair, obviously things have shifted for women a lot in the last 50 because they've been handed, like you said, in maybe the Anglo heterosexual tradition. This is the role that you do. You are the provider, you are supposed to lead the family, and then let's complicate that, in a faith tradition, you're supposed to be the spiritual leader, and what does that even mean? And so I think men, they are confused about what is my role. And then they're asked to be which I think is a good thing, by the way they're asked to participate in the child rearing more than they've ever had historically.
Rhett Smith:I think they're confused about okay, I got to provide because I might be the only person working outside the home. I'm supposed to also like make time to be at every activity and game and school event, and then I'm supposed to, you know, spiritually, lead the family, and then I'm supposed to do these things. And so I do think men are confused and you know I can have empathy for that, at the same time saying there's a lot of good shifts happening culturally that I think are healthy for men to move out of that kind of narrow role of what I think what it meant to be a provider. But I think it creates a lot of confusion for a young couple, for example, who they go into the marriage and they thought this is what the guy's role was, this is what the women's role was, and it's not turning out that way, and so I just try to come alongside them and talk about what. What do they want their marriage to look like?
Laurie Poole:That's right, because often they haven't had that kind of conversation to create this vision of what they expect, and they don't necessarily have role models of dads who were heavily involved in child rearing and so on. I think often. I think this is a more recent development. I mean, I think of where I am in my 60s, for example, and my children's father did not spend any time being actively involved in childbearing at all and.
Rhett Smith:I'm unique in that regard and I'm, you know, I got married a little bit later, I guess I mean I was 30, you know, like 30, 32. My daughter was born, I have a son and I mean I went to every event, I was at every school event. My wife and I rotated evening feedings, because she wasn't breastfeeding, we were doing bottles. And so I remember thinking, oh, this is not how it's supposed to be, but I loved it, I loved being able to be there and see the things and stuff. But that's different from, like, my dad, you know, who was super involved in my life, but my mom was the primary nurturer.
Rhett Smith:So it is confusing and I think, just trying to normalize, I guess, for guys in the room and, like you said, to talk about what do you want for your relationship, what do you want for your life, what does that look like? And let's have that conversation and instead of thinking it has or should be a certain way, let's talk about it. And I do love Esther Perel, she's right. I mean it is impossible for our partner to be everything to us. Just impossible.
Laurie Poole:I mean that's a tall order and who wants to? Who wants to be all those things? I mean I, you know, I wouldn't want to be all those things to somebody. That's a lot of pressure and and we can't. It's unrealistic to think that one person can fulfill all our needs. That's why we need community, we need a tribe, we need what I call framily friends who become family, because it adds so much richness to the tapestry of the way we live our lives. And we, you know, we learn from, from this, and it's great for kids too. So I don't know. I think those are really important conversations about how do you envision this relationship and what are your roles going to be.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, what do you think when you think about working with men, whether individually or in the context of marriage or just dating or partnership? Where do you think we need to be going, like as therapists, like what's important, like what's not happening, you think that needs to happen? Or where do we need to meet men at that? Maybe we're not in the mental health field, I don't know. I'm just curious what you think.
Laurie Poole:First thing that comes to mind is that we normalize that yes, you do have emotions and yes you do have feelings and that's all part of the human experience. And when you share that with your partner, when you allow that that experience to be expressed, it actually creates greater connection and and a stronger connection, I think. Think in your relationship, but be curious about yourself, because it takes tremendous courage to be vulnerable, and I think men in particular view vulnerability as weakness. That's just bs. It takes a huge amount of courage to be vulnerable with your partner and to show your underbelly, which goes against the grain of everything that men are socialized yeah to express.
Laurie Poole:I think you know, and and let's just put an extra layer of that on retired military, on men who have served on the police force, first responders et cetera, who've experienced and seen things that nobody should have to, but it's part of their profession or the role that they've played. But if there's anything I guess and I'm kind of listening to myself talk, Rhett, as I'm thinking out loud with you, I really do I think it is if I could preach anything and work with it, it would be to reframe vulnerability. Now, I will say to retired military that vulnerability and getting into your feelings when you're in war, protecting people is not going to serve you.
Laurie Poole:It's so counterintuitive. You have to be able to compartmentalize and push down et cetera to get it to be able to get through and to function. And so you know, in post military service, that's a real hard one, particularly in couples work. But I think it can also be a huge relief to be able to share some of that. Yeah, if they're willing, if they're willing and that's and that's a really hard one. That's sort of a maybe an extra set of categories, but I think it's all shades of the same color to me, yeah.
Rhett Smith:Yeah.
Laurie Poole:I don't know. What do you think?
Rhett Smith:Yeah, it's. I was thinking too, and this is probably why we need each other in terms of a community. We need different backgrounds, different gender, everything, because as a male right, I'm clearly speaking from, like, a privileged position. I'm a white, heterosexual, christian background.
Rhett Smith:Like, so I have a certain right.
Rhett Smith:So that's important because what I also see that over the last couple of decades I think it's shifting is that, and again, women have experienced their own oppression for for sure over the years, but like there was this trend for a while that if you were a guy or a certain flavor of a guy, like something was wrong with you, and so I saw a lot of boys kind of shame themselves because something must be wrong with them because they're a guy.
Rhett Smith:You know, I would see it come up with kids I'd work with in the schools, the school, um, I'd have boys talk about they felt like they were being picked on in class sometimes by teachers for being a guy, you know, for being a boy, and so think over the years that's led to some of this dangerous culture we see online of men and anger and moving towards a lot of, I would say, very unhealthy types of masculinity and the expression of that. And so I don't know I feel like it's important as a community whether that comes from the mental health community you know to obviously embrace both embrace, embrace everybody you know for who they are and their and their own sense of uniqueness. And and I don't know, I mean I'm rambling here, but I think that's kept a lot of guys out of therapy, you know, and I just think a lot of guys need help and it's okay for them to be a guy, you know, just because they were born a man. You obviously know what I'm talking about.
Rhett Smith:There's yeah there was a trajectory for a long time I think of like boys felt like maybe they were being picked on for a little bit and then I think that turned them into some dangerous paths. That I don't like, that I see, and and I want to help those guys like connect to their vulnerability and find healthy role models and healthy forms of masculinity and well, and I think also the concept that you can be, that things can coexist.
Laurie Poole:It doesn't have to be either, or, you know, being masculine doesn't have to be defined by the extent to which you express emotion and vulnerability. Masculinity can be, can, can also include vulnerability, self-awareness. We talk about emotional intelligence a lot these days and you'll hear women say, like, if you look at dating profiles, I want a man who's emotionally intelligent. What the hell does that mean? Okay, does that related to how well they listen to you? Is it about how they express themselves? Like, what does emotional intelligence mean? I think a lot of people don't understand and that term gets thrown around and what's a guy supposed to do with that? Am I an emotionally intelligent male? Listen, I think. I think that kind of adds to the confusion and and you know, self doubt and and I don't want to be emotionally intelligent, I want to be a guy, I want to do the things I like to. Intelligent. I want to be a guy, I want to do the things I like to do. I want to be accepted for who I am.
Rhett Smith:Well, and sometimes I have a wife in here or a dating partner and the guy is doing what I would maybe think as emotionally intelligent, talking about how he's feeling and he's really into it, and she's realizing I don't want any of that, like, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't want that in a relationship. So maybe we have to be careful what we ask for. I'm not sure.
Laurie Poole:Yes, that's a very good point, Rhett, because women will say like this is what I hear. And to all my clients out there, my apologies if you think that I am painting with a broad brush, but I will say that often I've heard. But talk to me, talk to me. I want to know what's going on. I feel like you're experiencing all these things and you're putting it together in your head, but I'm not included in any of that. And I have seen where you know a man will be very vulnerable with their partner and, like the partner then just doesn't really know what to do with it. But it's the thing. Like you said, be careful for what you wish for, because if I come to you and I'm vulnerable and I'm sharing, you know, some pretty raw stuff, I need to know that I've got a safe place to do that, and if it gets rejected or dismissed or I feel in some way criticized, then it's going to be a very long time before I'll take that risk again.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, and I guess that's why I like I don't know the work that we do. I mean, being in the room with somebody boots on the ground, is really powerful, you know, and I think too you know this is we don't have to go down this path. But you know, we live in a very pop psychology culture too, online, and so everyone's either diagnosing themselves or labeling people that they know, and so it's stuff like emotional intelligence. We have an idea what that looks like. But to be in the room with people in a certain context and then to kind of unpack stuff with them in their, in their relationship or in their life, is what I'm trying to remind myself that that's the work I got to be doing and not worry what everybody else is doing or where things are going.
Laurie Poole:And that's right. No, that's very, very true. Rhett, I'm really curious about your experience as a male therapist, because, especially in marriage and family, because there aren't a ton of male therapists. So can you speak a little bit about your experience and what that's been like for you?
Rhett Smith:Yeah, it's actually always been kind of favorable for me because when I went to grad school, I was one of five probably about five males in a class of like. We were in like a two year cohort, Okay, For about 79 of us, and I think I was one of five males. So so it actually worked in my favor because they wanted you know, I got to get picked for things and when they're looking for males, you know it was, it was really helpful and important and I did that work in California. So I'm an LMFT, so trained as a marriage therapist, and when I moved to Dallas, I moved to Dallas in 2008. So I've been here for like 15 years.
Rhett Smith:People would come to me and say, oh, we're looking for a male therapist and that's how we found you, and looking for a marriage and male therapist. So I think it's worked out really well. I actually enjoy it. I will say that the two things I probably hear the most are either a woman saying we chose you as a male because I wanted my husband to feel safe in the room, that you could identify, and if I was already going to therapy and I knew it'd be a hard bargain to get him in, we intentionally chose a male. Or I will hear the opposite.
Rhett Smith:Sometimes A woman will say, especially if there's been like an affair, let's say, and the husband was the one violating the trust in the relationship, can you, as a male, understand my experience as a female who is betrayed? Can you do that? And so I have to kind of walk through that and I try to, you know, answer those questions for them. But I say you know, really you got to come out. You should know in the first session, I think, if I'm going to be the right therapist for you, if not the first, the first couple, and if I can be an advocate for the for you guys as a couple, and so I think that's really worked out. And then, yeah, I mean, I I work with lots of guys and I feel like when a guy comes in a room, it's like hey, they start talking and they start talking, and I'm like it's still so opposite what people think will happen with a man. You know.
Laurie Poole:No, I was just gonna like as a man and dealing with men and their emotions and anxiety, so on. I'm curious about what your experience is like as a man in the therapy room as a male therapist, you know like your own sort of manhood experience, et cetera, because we bring ourselves into the therapy room. Right, it's not just a bunch of theories that are going around our heads and then we're going to you know like work with it, we bring ourselves into the therapy room.
Laurie Poole:So I was just curious about
Rhett Smith:Yeah, and I didn't answer that question. So so about my own experience, I think I'm learning to be more vulnerable over time.
Rhett Smith:And I think that's been a growing process for me. Like, I want guys to show up and have emotions, but then I'll notice sometimes if a guy starts getting angry like because I didn't grow up in a home with like anger and stuff, I don't know how to process that, sometimes in the room, you know or if a guy starts crying, which I feel comfortable with, I will notice certain things happening to me. But honestly, at 50 I feel more confident as a man in the work I do now. But when I do training with colleagues and stuff, I realize how much more work there is to do for me personally. I know it's so humbling.
Laurie Poole:Yeah, and that's what I love.
Rhett Smith:But you know, I guess, to answer you like bluntly, like, yeah, I get triggered in the room and as a man, I'm faced with my own sense of what does it mean to me be like a man or to be masculine in this room? And some days I walk out of session. I feel like that went really well and I handled it well and it was good. And there's some days I'm like, oh, I missed it there, I missed an opportunity, um to show up, I think in a better way for for this client or for this couple, um. But yeah, I think it is challenging as a man, like when emotions come up, I gotta learn to to um, I don't know grow in my grow, in my capacity of what that experience is like, and I think it's.
Laurie Poole:I still have growth to do, obviously, and so you know that's what I love about this work, Rhett, is that the growth just goes on and on and on and on and in my late 60s, I continue to evolve as a person.
Laurie Poole:Certainly, my experiences continue to happen. I bring different parts of myself into the therapy room and I am increasingly comfortable with my own vulnerability with clients, which could be something like you know, I'm happy. So let's use the example of a very escalated male client who's very angry and is, you know, maybe heading towards the red zone.
Laurie Poole:Cause that can happen. Yeah, taking the risk to say you know what I, as I'm listening to this, I want to hold space, but I have to tell it, like I'm also having, like I am having a response to this anger, you know, and I'm wondering if we can just, can we slow down, or can we? You know? I just want to share this, or can I share an observation with you, because I think that can also be a very powerful moment as we model our own vulnerability.
Laurie Poole:And you can do that while still maintaining authenticity and all the things that you want in the therapy room. But it's a former supervisor of mine who said you know, laurie, you have to also be willing to go there yourself. Yeah, expecting if you, if you, and of course, I practice emotionally focused therapy, so it's all about what drives the dance and what's going on, but I I thought yeah, you know that's a little counterintuitive that we should be, as therapists, vulnerable with our clients.
Rhett Smith:Well, if you watch Sue Johnson work right with a couple of people in the room, I mean she is, I mean it's a masterclass and being attuned to your clients and very much so, and sometimes we get really moved. Yeah, get really I'll cry in session with clients.
Rhett Smith:I'll just find myself crying and yeah me too, and you know, this is when you realize I think therapy is more of an art in a lot of ways, like we have theories and we have models and but there's an art and there's a context. And, yeah, psychoeducation is important. Stuff online in, like talk, helping people, is important, but nothing replaces what happens in a room, in the context, with people you know and and how lives can be transformed that you can't get anywhere else, and so I'm biased towards the work that we do and I think my goal is that I can be healthy for a long, long time and do this work really until I just can't do it anymore, you know you know what, you know what I say.
Laurie Poole:Right, I say, until I can't remember my client's names anymore, I'm going to be sitting in my chair. I'm going to be sitting in my chair in the therapy room because I, I love, I love what I do and it's so humbling and I, I just learned something every day. And, like you were saying, there are days I I'll finish a session I'll think, ah, shit, I really missed it. I missed that. I, I did not, I did not do that. That was not my best work, you know. So it's very humbling and you know, I mean I use the word sacred, but I really feel that way. It's just, it's very privileged work.
Rhett Smith:Yeah, and it's one of the professions you can as, I think as you age, hopefully, and we become more wise in our work, we become more valuable as a therapist it's. There are many professions right At a certain age like they kind of, yeah, put you off the pasture, that's right, yeah, but I feel like I'm excited about it and you know, speaking of men, like I have a lot of older men and men looking they just I think, I think I think some may even see me like as a like as a father figure, like as I get older, and just being able to show up in the room and and and not tell them what to do, but impart some wisdom to them that they don't have in their own life.
Laurie Poole:Well, Rhett, I have so enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you very, very much for carving time out. So much we can say about men, about their experience. I love that you're doing this work and, you know, let's keep the conversation going, yeah.
Rhett Smith:Thank you, I appreciate it. These are the best kind and you know, I started to ramble at some points, so feel free to edit me out where you need to, Laurie.
Laurie Poole:Hey, listen, this is Therapist Unplugged, Rhett.
Laurie Poole:You know, we're just going to roll with it. It's about conversation. It's about sharing what happens in the therapy room, not only from a client's perspective, but from our perspective, because I think a lot of our clients wonder what the heck is going on in our head as we're sitting in the room listening to them, wonder what the heck is going on in our head as we're sitting in the room listening to them. So this has been wonderful. Thank you very, very much and have a great weekend.
Rhett Smith:Yeah thank you, you too.
Laurie Poole:Okay, take care, bye, bye.
