The unspoken rule

Another broad theme which emerged in my project*** was the theme of Self-Sufficiency & Stigma, in which participants expressed their hesitations to open up about their experiences as a man within American culture. Broadly, all the participants reported never being sat down and told what a man “should or should not be”, save for messages of chivalry and that men don’t hit women. Instead, the messages of what it meant to be a man were learned from watching others and absorbed through values instilled in them on the field. However, most participants identified the value of self-sufficiency as something that was tied to their concept of masculinity. In discussing the need to be self-reliant, there was a sense, across most participants, that their ability to be self-sufficient was intertwined with their perceived success as a man.

Hunter:  If you answered the – if you phrase the question as do you feel comfortable asking for help, asking for help, um, I would have said strongly disagree I think on almost all of them [Laughs]. Um, I don’t know where that comes from.  Maybe that’s, maybe that’s one of like the, what does it mean to you to be a man.  

Matt:  Um, I think that a lot of people, and this again might be, you know, is one of the     qualities that I think some men are taught growing up is like, you know, you figured out on your own you can do – the direction.  You don’t need to ask directions, everything can be done by your own.

Connor:  I remember my mom asking me in high school – I crashed my car, I wasn’t playing well on the football field and my girlfriend dumped me and I was depressed probably.  I was like really upset for like a month and she said, ‘Do you want me to take  you to a psychologist?’ And I was like, “What?  No, I don’t want to do that.” She was like, ‘I think you need to talk to someone.’ And I just remember being like no, I’m too manly for that to be honest.  To be honest I think it’s hard for the stereotypical man, football player to say, “Hey, I want to sit down and talk about my feelings.”...So like I never really did that with my dad.  That’s weird. 

Given the overall goal of my project was to unearth barriers to mental health services, I explored the ways in which the need for self-sufficiency may impact a man’s decision to seek help. Many participants discussed an unspoken agreement among men to only offer advice or recommend seeking help when they specifically asked—otherwise, the assumption should be that the other man could take care of himself. Even amongst teammates who spend a majority of their time together and are bonded through time and competition, all of the men shared they would be extremely hesitant to approach a teammate (or other male friend) with their struggles or ask about theirs. Importantly, this traditional masculine ideal of self-sufficiency and the internalized image of the invincible football warrior reinforce one another as young football players negotiate the stressors of their lives, and decrease the likelihood of these young men seeking help.

Hunter: ...college football players are probably less likely to seek that sort of thing out –for the same reason, versus an NFL player, for the same reason that any college student is less likely to seek that sort of thing out, versus someone who’s you know older, has a sense of invincibility.  Ah, I’ll get through this and whatever else.

Connor:  I do think as a football player and especially as a man you get in this place where it’s like you can’t – you don’t really want to – you can’t be sensitive.

As a clinician, it is imperative to work to reduce the stigma of seeking and offering help within full athletic system. The “see something—say something” mantra has begun to be instilled on high school and college campuses, but it will require a more concerted effort within Athletic Departments and individual teams.

***Based on results from my dissertation: "No pain, no gain: American football players' attitudes towards help-seeking and barriers to mental health service utilization" (2015).

"No pain, no gain" and other mantras

***During graduate school, my dissertation focused on unearthing the barriers to seeking mental health services in a small group of male collegiate football players. Over the next few blogs, I'll share snippets of the research and results from my study, as well as entries that are inspired by the participants.***

 

As a clinician, I am always interested in intersectionality--how an individual's various identities intersect and influence one another. Athletic identity tends to be particularly salient for many folks for many reasons, a few of which include: early engagement in sport, identification with coaches as role models, tendency for sport to be a shared family activity, time invested playing, etc. The particular salience of athletic identity for any one person is unique and informed by a large number of social and individual factors. The following excerpt is from my study.

"Athletics provide one context for the socialization of many young boys. Sports play a pivotal role in teaching values and gender norms for many young boys who are learning not only what it means to be an athlete, but correspondingly what it means to be a man competing for value in American society (Whannel (2007) as cited in Steinfeldt, 2009, pg. 261). In this way, “boys learn cultural values and behaviors, such as competition, toughness, and winning at all costs, that are culturally valued aspects of masculinity” (Messner, 1989, pg. 74). Research examining the degree to which a person identifies with their athletic role, using the Athlete Identification Measurement Scale (AIMS; Brewer, Van Raalte, & Linder, 1993) has suggested sports provide an especially powerful arena for the socialization of young boys that may translate into a stronger identification with their athletic role and the values within sport: "As a result, the athlete’s emerging self-image often reflects an identity associated with the glorified athletic self (Messner, 1992).  This athletic identity is formed by a combination of cognitive, affective, behavioral, and social aspects that are related to the role of being an athlete" (Brewer & Cornelius, 2001; Murphy, Petitpas, & Brewer, 1996). This identity development process, facilitated through sport socialization experiences, encourages many young men to adopt a win-at-all-costs mentality that subjugates personal needs in order to meet the team’s goal of winning (Watson, 2006)” (Steinfeldt, 2009, pg. 262). Sports provide an influential context for young men to internalize the values of sport which reinforce traditional masculine norms of American society."

When we discussed the values of football, the players described self-sacrifice and playing through pain as dominant cultural values. They spoke of early locker room mantras including the ubiquitous "No pain, no gain", "man-up", "never back down", and the especially problematic "boys don't cry". These mantras are just a small sample of the powerful messages potentially received by young boys which serve to reinforce traditional masculine norms.

These norms are not necessarily always problematic or damaging, nor are they universal, but the players indicated that these cultural norms influenced their perceptions of seeking help. Generally, the players described their perception that seeking help was a sign of weakness. That men, as a rule, should try to address their problems on their own and would only seek help from those they know, for sure, have gone through something similar. They similarly described an unspoken rule that men should not offer help to another teammate, who they know to is going through a hard time, unless they have explicitly asked for advice. 

Coaches, in particular, play an important role in the socialization of young male athletes. They set the cultural norms for the team, and serve as powerful male role models, often at a time of identity formation. As a clinician, I make sure to have an open conversation around the messages being sent to young athletes and the ways in which coaches, and athletic departments, can create a culture which values help seeking and offering help to others as an act of strength and growth. We work to create a T.E.A.M culture, which stands for: Talk More, Educate the Team, Advocate, and redefines Man Up.  "Talk More" involves increasing role clarity and expectations, increase communication between team and coaches, and create supportive team values and norms. "Educate the team" involves providing psychoeducational workshops about signs and symptoms of common mental health concerns. "Advocate" involves encouraging players to talk to each other and reach out to others for help, and provide information about campus/community resources. Finally, "Man Up" redefines what it means to be a man--that there's strength in reaching out and seeking help. 

 

Brewer, B. W., Van Raalte, J. L., & Linder, D. E. (1993). Athletic identity: Hercules' muscles or Achilles heel?. International Journal Of Sport Psychology, 24(2), 237-254.

Messner, M.A. (1989). Masculinities and athletic careers. Gender & Society March 1989 vol. 3 no. 1, 71-88. doi: 10.1177/089124389003001005.

Steinfeldt, J. A., Steinfeldt, M. C., England, B., & Speight, Q. L. (2009). Gender role conflict and stigma toward help-seeking among college football players. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 10, 261–272.

The problem with 'mental toughness'

Vince Lombardi once said, “Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain.  Its qualities are sacrifice and self-denial.  Also, most importantly, it is combined with a perfectly disciplined will that refuses to give in. It’s a state of mind – you could call it ‘character in action’” (Family of Vince Lombardi, 2010, Famous Quotes).  

Mental toughness, or more recently 'grit', is a term tossed around within the sports world as if everyone knows what it means and who has 'it'. There doesn't seem to be a consensus on what mental toughness is, what it looks like, or how to develop it. When asked what mental toughness means, most people begin to falter, trying to grab onto a definition that eludes them. On one end of the spectrum many people fall back on the you know it when you see it description, and on the other end other folks say mental toughness is akin to not giving up.

People talk of mental toughness as if it is a mental state you will yourself into on the field. The goal is for athletes to compartmentalize their struggles and push all of their fears/doubts/worries aside. The ability to compartmentalize is glorified and pervasive in sports culture with such idioms coming to mind: leave the last play behind you; leave it all on the field; shut out the rest and just play; shake it off; don't think about it, etc. But the truth of the matter is our brains do not work this way--there isn't a separate brain structure for competing athletically that shuts down other areas of the brain. We are a collection of our experiences and we can no more tune out the rest of our life during competition than we can breathe underwater. It's just physically not possible. In this way, we're setting athletes up to fail by glorifying an impossible way of being and performing.

Instead, perhaps we should be taking a step back and helping athletes develop resilient mental health, which must be developed and continually supported. More on that another time.

 

Family of Vince Lombardi (2010). Famous Quotes. Retrieved on October 5, 2012 from: http://www.vincelombardi.com/quotes.html.