The American Psychological Association (APA) has for the first time released treatment guidelines for men, and they have completely missed the boat regarding the biological basis for sex differences. Ultimate causes are not identified and instead they seem to be entrenched in the blank slate fallacy, over emphasizing social psychology and neglecting to even mention innate tendencies that have been well documented by research. The following quote from an article about the guidelines on the APA website (#1 below) brings home the flaws in the APA's thinking: "The main thrust of the subsequent research is that traditional masculinity—marked by stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression—is, on the whole, harmful. Men socialized in this way are less likely to engage in healthy behaviors."
The fact is, those above mentioned traits that are considered harmful are actually adaptations, created by the evolutionary process to benefit survival and reproduction in the context of tribal living. They are not problems of the male psyche created by a patriarchal society as the article implies. The fact that they are not helpful in the context of psychotherapy (creating barriers to treatment) does not make them pathological. When cultural factors play a role in making stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression a clinical problem, understanding the underlying biology and evolutionary adaptations could prove helpful in treatment.
The treatment guidelines (#2 below) emphasize "understanding the socially constructed nature of masculinity" while minimizing biologically based sex differences like risk taking behavior, which is only mentioned in passing. The APA article (#1 below) makes the claim that "Indeed, when researchers strip away stereotypes and expectations, there isn’t much difference in the basic behaviors of men and women." This statement is non-specific but demonstrates the flawed skew of the author's thinking. The treatment guidelines (#2 below) point out that 90% of violent crime in the U.S.A. is committed by men, then immediately point to a study indicating that many males "have been socialized to use aggression and violence as a means to resolve interpersonal conflict." It seems negligent of the guidelines rationale to not even mention the cross-cultural, cross-developmental stage sex differences in aggression, which is probably at the core of the aggressive socialization issue to begin with.
This is a classic example of one of the major problems in the field of psychology. In an effort to understand and treat the proximate causes of a problem, the ultimate evolutionary causes and factors that exist in our biology are not even considered. Yes some men are socialized towards aggressiveness, and yes there are socio-economic factors at play, but the reason men are so much more susceptible to this has everything to do with an innate biological programming that is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
I am not saying that these guidelines are not helpful; I am saying they are incomplete and lacking some very important information. Helping clinicians to target socio-cultural issues related to male functioning is important and useful, but ignoring the mountain of evidence that there are some biologically based, cross-cultural sex differences behind some of these things will leave vast holes in clinicians understanding of the problem. This lack of understanding of biology and over-emphasis on cultural causes could hinder clinicians' ability to help, unless they seek the biological context elsewhere and synthesize it with these guidelines themselves.
Further Reading
1. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2019/01/ce-corner.aspx
2. www.apa.org/about/policy/boys-men-practice-guidelines.pdf