Working with Men: Meeting the Challenges of Orthodox Masculinity: Video Course
Seminar
Speaker: Dr Michael Beattie
Product: Video Course
Price: $239
CPD Hours: 5
Video course packs, including all notes are available immediately on booking. The access links are part of your ticket. Online video access remains available for 1 year from the date you receive the video course.
For more information on ticket types and order processing times please click here
Every part of our lives, whether we are aware of it or not, is touched by gender identity and the cultural and contextual meanings made of it. However, perhaps because of the very pervasive nature of gendered experience, reflexivity around one’s own gender identity is rarely covered in much depth in professional trainings. Instead, gender is often either taken for granted or otherwise felt to be the preserve of ‘experts’ who work with populations where questions of gender are understood to be the principal presenting problem.
All of our course times are shown for Melbourne / Sydney so check what time this course will be on in your time zone using the time zone checker.
Full Course Information
This workshop starts from the position that we all have a gender identity and that we can all struggle with it to a greater or lesser degree at times. In particular we will focus on the psychology of men and the ways in which boys and men are socialised into manhood in Western culture. Using this understanding as a foundation we will go on to explore specific domains of men’s experience and some common content and process issues that arise in therapy with men.
The aim is to deepen our understanding of how orthodox masculinity expectations shape the male psyche and the implications this has for our therapeutic work with men.
The workshop is scheduled as three modules:
Module 1: Psychology of Men and Masculinities
This is an introductory session that looks at current theory and research on how men come to understand their gender identity, the norms they have to follow to be considered ‘real men’ and how this can create masculine gender role stress. It introduces the idea of an orthodox masculine gender identity and considers the impact on presenting issues and the therapeutic relationship.
Module 2: Unpacking the Lived Experience
Having identified the norms that govern orthodox masculinity we unpack and explore the lived experience for men in key domains of their lives and how these norms can give rise to psychological distress and maladaptive coping mechanisms:
- Young Men: The experience of boys and adolescents, in particular the role of bullying and shaming in identity formation and how this can create chronic maladaptive manifestations
- Family Men: How men experience and are challenged by their role as husband and father, including issues to do with sexual intimacy and love, perceived failings of masculinity and being judged as primary breadwinners for the family
- Working Men: One of the core tenets of orthodox masculinity is the ‘primacy of work’ and many men’s principal experience self-worth comes through work – how can this create challenges in relationship – particularly at times of redundancy and retirement?
- Other Men: Orthodox masculinity involves the stratification of men against an ideal by which they can be measured to determine the extent of their manliness – what is life like for ‘othered’ men, including gay and trans men?
Module 3: Key issues in Working with Men
The final session explores some of the principal process issues that men are likely to present with in counselling as a result of struggling with orthodox masculine expectations and suggests ways in which practitioners can work effectively with them:
- Restricted emotionality and shame
- Anger and aggression
- Compartmentalisation and the challenge of integration
- Working with the masculine narrative
About the speaker
Dr Michael Beattie is an HCPC Registered Chartered Counselling Psychologist with a research interest in the psychology of men and masculinities. In addition, he has worked in the field of sexuality, sexual identity and sexual health as well as with issues of gender identity and gender dysphoria. His book Counselling Skills for Working with Gender Identity & Gender Dysphoria was published with colleagues by Jessica Kingsley in 2018. He currently works as a Counselling Psychologist at the NHS Gender Identity Clinic in London. Prior to entering the field of counselling psychology Michael worked in marketing communications, facilitating strategic planning and training sessions for clients across the world.



What Our Customers Say
"Such an insightful, interesting and useful workshop."
"Thank you, really informative and inspiring and affirming."
"Thank you for such an enjoyable CPD"
"Thank you and nscience for an informative and most interesting evening"
"Thank you so much for this wonderful "body seminar", that I could vividly experience as happening with in my own body and sharing this with all of you. Now I have a smile on my face expressing a pleasant feeling of being grateful and connected…thank you so much for this. Leaving the seminar with a new understanding and ideas for my patients…"
“nscience staff and technical staff were friendly, helpful, patient and efficient, and clearly responded quickly and ably to feedback. The venue was well-located and the facilities were high quality. Very good indeed.”
“The event was enjoyable and absorbing throughout, with plenty of useful and applicable learning to take away and digest.”
“Your speakers are simply the best in the field! I wish I could come to more of your programmes.”
“Excellent venue and great content - thanks to you and your team for a wonderful day.”
“I am recommending you to all my students and friends in Dublin!”
“The video recordings are a great resource. Thank you!”
