Terry Real was talking about men and intimacy before it was cool.
Seriously, this guy has been a thought leader in helping men break out of the bondage of the Man Rules for three decades. If you care about men having fulfilling relationships that balance intimacy and vulnerability with genuine strength then you will learn a lot from his conversation with Dan in this episode.
He doesn’t mince words. He is direct with humor and compassion much like the relational approach to therapy that he has developed.
Terry wrote the first book calling attention to the epidemic of male depression, I Don’t Want to Talk About It. Sharing his own challenges with depression Terry broke the silence about men’s depression. Terry helped our culture to begin to understand that if you don’t pay attention to the Man Rules you will miss so much of men’s depression because it hides in men’s need not to be or look depressed.
It is against the Man Rules to be depressed because it is a weakness. I have a good friend struggling horribly with this right now. Like hundreds of thousands of men right now he has this story inside of him beating the sh@# out of him saying that he just needs to “Man up” and get off his ass. Meanwhile, his depression is tearing him apart piecemeal.
What’s great about Terry is that he doesn’t let men off the hook and he doesn’t let women off the hook. We all have a part to play in the relationships that don’t work. As Terry says, “Leading men and women into increased intimacy? Men have to open up their hearts and women have to open up their voices.”
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