Using the Pakeha Construct Therapeutically

Most research in the area of counselling men suggests that the best methodologies are specifically gender-informed. The remainder of this chapter will address counselling approaches which are designed to capitalize on the validity of the above materials outlining the historical construction of Pakeha masculinity. Wholeness for male clients will look significantly different than for female clients, once the basic premise has been accepted that all of us are indelibly imprinted by the gender expectations of the culture in which we live and, more importantly, the culture in which we spend our most formative years.

Richard Meth and Robert Pasick argue (1990, 132-33) that therapy with men is not personally or socially responsible unless it includes issues of power and control, fear of dependence, vulnerability, femininity, self- disclosure, and failure. A counselor's projected treatment plan should be designed to convince the client that tackling these issues is indispensable to achieving healthy masculinity. Obviously, these issues relate directly back to the component parts of the historical construct of Pakeha masculinity, including entitlement, guardedness and a siege mentality, homophobia and sexual conquest, inarticulateness, and self-esteem.

While it is customary to begin the counselling process with a structured assessment, Meth and Pasick (1990, 138) posit that even the assessment should be gender-specific. They suggest structuring the assessment of male clients around five steps:

Identifying the beliefs that the male client holds about masculine identity and behaviour.
Identifying the sources of these beliefs in societal institutions and in the client's family-of-origin.
Identifying some of the potentially harmful results of these beliefs.
Connecting the client's beliefs about masculine identity and behaviour to the presenting problem or problems.
Emphasizing to the client that these beliefs were not freely chosen, are not "carved in stone," and can be changed should he choose to do so, as the logical road to new health and self-integration.

Once a treatment plan has been devised based on this series of assessment steps, the counselor must be ready to adopt what Meth and Pasick call "a male model of communication." Especially in the initial phases of the counselling relationship, "this requires therapists to concentrate on active strategies such as setting goals, using lists and diagrams, delineating tasks in sessions as well as 'homework,' and creating 'contracts' to structure the therapeutic relationship" (Meth and Pasick, 1990, 149). This fairly aggressive approach will provide the male client with some sense that he has retained control over the therapeutic process and will further encourage his participation, unlike the more ontological and verbal "female model" which most therapy stimulates and which the male client is poorly equipped to intuit. Other active strategies might include negotiating a "formal" contract to govern the relationship, using manual activities in the therapy process, or incorporating outdoors activities into the larger structure of the course of treatment (see Culbertson 1994, chapter 1).

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