Men are Trying Therapy - But We’re Losing Them at the Door

We talk a lot about how hard it is to get men into therapy. And that’s true.

But we don’t talk nearly enough about something else:
Men are going to therapy — and then leaving quietly, often after just one session.

It’s a leak in the system that we can't afford to ignore.

🚪The Silent Dropout

In a large Australian study of 1,907 men who had accessed therapy:

• Nearly 45% dropped out without even telling their therapist.

• Of those men, over half (54.9%) said the reason was simple:
  They didn’t feel a connection with the therapist.

That means around 1 in 4 men who attend therapy end up quitting not because they don’t want help…
…but because the help they found didn’t feel right.

🔍 What We’re Really Seeing

It’s not a resistance to healing.
It’s a mismatch in approach, in language, in tone — sometimes even in posture, pace, or energy.

In clinical terms, we call this a poor “therapeutic alliance.”
In human terms, it’s:

“This person doesn’t get me.”
“I’m wasting my time.”
“I feel like a problem being analyzed, not a person being heard.”
“This isn’t for me.”

💬 A Message to Men Who’ve Walked Out of Therapy

If you’ve tried therapy and left thinking “maybe it’s just not for me” —
there’s a good chance you didn’t actually fail therapy.

Therapy failed you.

It didn’t meet you in your world. It didn’t speak your language.
Maybe it pathologized your coping instead of understanding your context.
Maybe it went too deep, too fast — or hovered too long on “how you feel” without showing what to do about it.

You’re not alone in that.
And it doesn’t mean therapy can’t work — it just means the fit matters more than you think.

🧠 A Message to Therapists Who “Specialize in Men’s Issues”

A lot of therapists check the “men’s issues” box on Psychology Today —
but don’t always reflect on what that should mean in practice.

Here’s a hard truth from the data:

💡 Men who strongly identify with traditional masculinity are more likely to drop out of therapy — especially when they feel misunderstood, disrespected, or emotionally exposed without context or preparation.

That doesn’t mean we should reinforce rigid masculinity in therapy. But it does mean we need to:

• Understand how men are socialized to relate to vulnerability, shame, and asking for help

• Adjust our pacing, not just our goals

• Listen to the coded ways men talk about pain: through anger, withdrawal, workaholism, or humour

• Focus not just on “getting them to feel,” but helping them build psychological flexibility, value-driven direction, and agency

Most of all, we need to earn their trust — because for many, that trust is hard-won and easily lost.

🔁 Reframing the Problem

This isn’t about blaming therapists. And it’s not about excusing harmful behaviour in men either.

It’s about recognizing that we are losing men who want help — simply because the current system wasn’t built with them in mind.

And the good news? That’s a solvable problem.

✅ What Can We Do?

For Men:

• Shop around for a therapist. Ask about their experience with male clients, how they work, and whether they can explain their approach in plain language.

• Speak up if therapy isn’t feeling helpful. A good therapist will want your feedback and know how to adjust.

• Know this: Needing support doesn't make you weak. It makes you human. And finding the right support makes all the difference.

For Therapists:

• Reflect honestly: Have I adapted my clinical lens to understand male-coded distress?

• Learn from frameworks like:

  • ACT (Acceptance & Commitment Therapy)

  • Strength-based, values-driven work

  • Narrative therapy that honours male identity while challenging stuck patterns

• Stop assuming “men’s issues” means anger or fatherhood. It often means disconnection, performance pressure, emotional illiteracy, or being stuck between strength and sensitivity with no map.

💡 Final Thought

If nearly 1 in 4 men drop out of therapy due to poor fit, we’re not just facing a personal problem —
we’re facing a systemic one.

Let’s stop blaming men for “not showing up.”
And start asking: What kind of therapy do men need to show up and stay?

The answer might not be easy. But it’s absolutely worth figuring out.