Randy Flood didn’t set out to specialize in men’s work. As he tells Ken Porter, it all started with an internship at a forensic psychological practice in Kalamazoo, Michigan. “I stumbled into it,” he says. More than 30 years later, Flood is the director and co-founder of the Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan. As a psychotherapist, author, and podcast host, he remains focused on men’s mental health and well-being. Flood hosts the Revealing Men podcast in part, he says, to provide thought-provoking ideas and interviews that pull back the curtain and reveal the inner lives of men. He hopes listeners will be inspired to reveal their true selves and live more balanced and authentic lives.
With this conversation, Flood decided to let someone else be the host. “I heard other podcasters doing this kind of formatting,” he says. “And, I thought, ‘that’d be fun to do.’” He enlisted Porter, a good friend and his work partner to do the honors. “I asked you, and you said ‘Sure. I’ll do that. Sounds fun.’” Porter, a somatic therapist, certified specifically in Hakomi therapy, has appeared as a guest on the Revealing Men podcast several times. He and Flood have run men’s therapy groups together for nearly 20 years and themselves participate in a leaderless men’s support group.
For this interview, Porter focuses on the roots of Flood’s interest in men’s work, the challenges and progress made, and Flood’s thoughts on the future. Read excerpts of the conversation below (edited for length) and listen to the full podcast on these platforms: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher.
A Career Focused on Men’s Health
Porter: What got you into doing men’s work? What got you interested in it?
Flood: I was working with domestic violence perpetrators, sexual offenders, and drunk drivers as an intern and running these groups with other therapists. …. I started looking at the people in the groups and I realized that they were all men. The specialty at that time was forensic psychology, looking at criminal mentality, criminal behaviors, whatever is the propensity of someone to act out criminally. …. I didn’t believe that men were born to be criminals. And so, I started asking the question, ‘What happened to these guys and why are they here?’
I became curious about that. I moved out of that lens of just looking at them as criminals that I needed to rehabilitate … I wanted to see them as a special population. …. I began immersing myself in men’s psychology. …. And I began to understand the process of male socialization.
Deciphering Men
Flood: Eventually, I became interested in working with men beyond just the criminal population. I wanted to work with a general population of men because I believed that all men to some degree grew up not being socialized into emotional intelligence, relational intelligence. They were just socialized to climb corporate ladders and play in football fields and not socialized into relationships. A lot of men’s struggles, I believed, came from a lack of opportunity to be taught and cross-trained in the art of intimacy and understanding emotions.
And so, I founded the Men’s Resource Center with my colleague, Charlie Donaldson in 2000 and we developed programs (as you know) way beyond working with criminals. …. We help men be better versions of themselves.
Men as a Special Population
Porter: I love that story, love that trajectory. …. It reminds me of Oprah’s [Winfrey] book, I believe it’s called ‘What Happened to You’. It’s like, it’s not that you’re a bad person. It’s something that happened to you. …. There’s a reason why you have these certain behaviors or these certain proclivities. I love that you were able to see underneath the surface and say, ‘Yeah, there’s something going on here.’ And the common theme is men!
Flood: Men and how they are socialized. Betty Frieden talked about a problem with no name. Looking at women back in the 50s and 60s. ‘Well, why aren’t they happy? They got the picket fence, and they got the nice China and the perfect drapes that they’re able to pick out, live in the suburbs. And why aren’t they happy raising their children and just staying at home?’ There became an interest in women’s work. …. We became interested in studying women as ‘what is unique about their gender and their experience in the world?’
And that is what I became interested in: What is unique about growing up male and particularly American culture. I continue to be very interested in working with men as a specialty.
Realizing Men’s Full Potential
Porter: What is the importance of working specifically on men’s issues?
Flood: I think that men need to become part of the solution. …. There’s such a propensity for men to externalize, and act out, and pass the pain that they experience on to others. I think that [it’s about] seeing men as a special population, and giving them a chance to have safe places to talk about their experiences of growing up male and giving them permission to have a different view of masculinity that’s not emanating from a patriarchal culture. …. I think that to engage men and to see opportunities for them to be both masculine and also develop this other part of their humanity that they heretofore have sometimes seen as being a woman, being weak, being unmasculine. They get stuck in this gender binary or this gender straitjacket that limits their full potential.
I mean, there are ways in which you have different gears in life and being able to understand what the social context is or what the relational context is … just like we do with vehicles, you know. We got snow mode, and rain mode, and eco mode, and sport mode. As drivers, we want our vehicles to be nimble and know what kind of terrain they’re on and hopefully have a chassis system and an RPM transmission ratio to handle it.
We can socialize men to be nimble and flexible and ask the question ‘What human traits are required right now? Are they softer ones that we typically categorize as women’s traits or are they harder traits that we traditionally have categorized as masculine? How can men have both developed and live fuller lives.’ Engaging men is, I think, important rather than talking at men and telling them what’s wrong with them. Getting them to see a personal investment in this work.
Porter: I’ve heard you say, many times, ‘We’re not taking away anybody’s masculinity in any way, …. if anything, we’re fortifying it, we’re enhancing it, we’re expanding it beyond these narrow confines.’
When Men Seek Help
Porter: What are some prevalent themes that tend to come up in your work with men?
Flood: I think one of the more prominent themes is relationship problems. They’re either experiencing or being told that they’re ineffectual, they’re inadequate, they’re not good enough, that someone in the relationship wants something different, something more.
They could be experiencing just a lot of criticalities, a lot of emotional distance. They could experience a separation or divorce perhaps from a relationship with someone they love. I think that men come in with experiencing the pain of that rejection and then are at risk of either externalizing that and targeting women in that ‘well, she’s just a complainer. She’s the problem. … Can you help me help fix her?’ A lot of times guys will be interested more in couples work, for example, rather than doing some individual work. But, once they get in the door and you begin to talk to them, it’s hard for them to ask for help.
Good Relationships Require Work
Flood: Men can be more comfortable asking for help on their golf swing or their financial portfolio, but asking for help learning how to do relationships better or learning how to understand their emotions, it’s harder for them to see that as valuable. But then, when you get some basic education about what, ultimately, they want in life, it’s often that they want success in their job and they want their favorite basketball team to win in the Sweet 16. But they also want to have close relationships with their children and meaningful friendships. And they want to have their intimate partner like them, like to be around them. And they like to have connection and a sense of satisfaction in those relationships.
Those relationships require skill. They require for you to have emotional resources. You can’t connect with someone if your heart’s not open. A connection is more than a sexual connection. It’s a more heartened connection. Connection to mind, stories, narratives, connection to fears and dreams. … You help them understand that what they really want in life requires them to do the work. If you want to be really good at golf or you want to be really good at investments, you have to be willing to learn.
So, once they see this as a coaching opportunity or an opportunity to learn rather than they’re sick and there’s something wrong with them, they’re developing themselves, they’re growing themselves up, they’re healing themselves, then I think they become more engaged and more inspired to do the work.
Learning to Build Connections
Porter: You do a lot of work with addiction. And addictions ultimately come down to relationship. I mean, they certainly can have a harmful impact on somebody’s personal life. But relationally, it’s really hard to be in a healthy relationship if there’s an addiction process going on.
Flood: When you have an addiction, you have a relationship with something that’s not human. It’s quite intimate. It consumes your life and it’s all you think about. You’re thinking about obtaining whatever you’re addicted to, whether it’s sex or alcohol or drugs or gambling or whatnot. You’re preoccupied with that throughout the day. … It’s a relationship. So, it’s a matter of helping people break up with that one and learn how to develop true relationships that are going to be more meaningful and fulfilling.
Porter: Would you say that the way most of us as males have been socialized sets us up for addictive, not just addictive behavior, but any kind of behavior that takes us out of relationship?
Flood: It sets us up to have relationships with things that are not as fulfilling and sustainable. I mean, you can have relationships with your favorite sports team. You can have relationships with your job where you’re succeeding and getting more and more credentialed and getting more and more money.
You can have relationships that are fun and interesting with your neighbors, but maybe they don’t really know you. They don’t see the inner life. They don’t see your fears, your struggles, your insecurities. You talk about things that are safe or there’s this bantering. A lot of times guys struggle with loneliness because they don’t have those intimate, more sustainable relationships that truly fill you up.
Porter: And it’s a huge void when you don’t know how to connect. I can speak from experience because I was trained with the best of them, or the worst of them, to disconnect. It can be a very lonely place.
Defining Strength and Courage in Men’s Work
Porter: Wondering what you would say have been some of your more gratifying experiences in this work?
Flood: Traditional views of masculinity have this narrow view of what is demonstrative of courage or strength. There’s strength that’s kind of defined through physicality. It’s like, ‘How much weights can you lift?’ I remember me and my brothers taking the weights out in the yard and every weekend trying to lift more weights to just get a little bit stronger. And it’s great to get stronger because it helps you compete in sports, but there’s so much of men’s identity that gets defined through physical strength.
Or the strength of credentialing. You know, more and more degrees, more and more experience. It’s that kind of thing. But it’s not the strength it takes to handle intense feelings without acting them out. That takes a lot of strength too. There’s like this sensation in the body, there are physical sensations that can be heat, or like electricity, or almost like an ache. And you’ve got to have this crucible inside of you that can hold that heat. If you don’t have that crucible inside of you, then that heat can bust out and hurt people.
You’ve got to have developed this emotional strength, and this ability to study your emotions and say, ‘Well, what are these emotions telling me?’ I love it when guys finally get it that emotions are just data, just giving us information. …. So, guys like to study, like what’s going on inside an engine because they want it to work, right? They want it to, they don’t want it to be on the side of the road, stranded. And if something breaks, they want to know what caused it. ‘How can I prevent it from breaking again? I need to, you know, the rings are bad, and the pistons and the oil is going down, and they get geeked out about that.
And so, when you take that kind of masculine curiosity and say ‘Well, look at your body as an engine. There’s a lot going on inside of you. Let’s study these emotions, have a strong crucible to handle them, and then courage. The courage to reveal what’s going on with you.’ Guys in group, when they get to the point of understanding that, they’ll often start out (we do a check-in in group), and they’ll say, ‘well, you know,’ (they have to ask for time) ‘I got something today that I’m scared to death to talk about. And I know that tells me I need to talk about it.’
And that seems antithetical to being a man. It’s like men hold their cards close to their chests. They don’t want to reveal [their] game plan or what’s going on with [them] because people will take advantage of [them] or manipulate [them]. And so, there’s a tremendous amount of courage and strength it takes to reveal yourself, to expose yourself, and saying ‘this is what’s going on.’
Porter: It is so gratifying to see those breakthrough moments, isn’t it?
Flood: Yeah. You see guys at the beginning—a group doing the banter and dancing around and with their armor on and their mask on—and they don’t want to reveal what’s going on and posing and pretending and. …. We understand it. I don’t judge them. I understand they’re scared. But when they finally get this clear understanding that the healing and the growth comes with having the strength and courage to reveal their authentic selves and talk about that with other men, that is just beautiful. That’s spiritual. That’s sacred to be able to witness that and watch.
The Power of Group Therapy
Porter: We’ve talked a lot about group work already. I’m curious where you put the importance of group work for men as opposed to just individual one-on-one work.
Flood: I think group therapy, unfortunately, doesn’t happen in the mental health community at the level that I think it should. I was involved in group therapy when I went through my years of therapy and I was also involved in individual. And, I found that I didn’t get to my issues and to the grit of all of what was going on until I got into group with my peers, people just thrown together in their humanity to try to figure stuff out and to have conversations with each other.
My experience with men is that with individual therapy, they often run out of material. When you see them individually, they’re so focused on the problem and talking about the specifics of the problem, and giving you the details of ‘he said, she said,’ and giving the mechanics of it all. Then when you start drilling down into the emotions, into the guts of what’s going on, and some of their family of origin, childhood issues, fears, insecurities, shame, that’s too scary. And they won’t talk about it as though they’re too scared. They just think that’s kind of mambi -pambi. ‘We don’t need to get into that to fix my problem, do we?’ They start thinking ‘This therapy thing isn’t for me.’ The attrition rate was really high when I worked with men without group therapy.
The beautiful thing about group is it puts them in a room with other men who have been engaged in the therapy longer than they have. We call those guys the elders in the group. And every group has a life cycle. You’ve got the new members; they call them the newbies. And you’ve got the guys that have been there for a little while, kind of getting traction and understanding how group works and starting to do the work. And then you have guys that have been there for a long time, sometimes years.
It’s kind of the spirit of the 12-step community. The 12th step is giving back to the community that saved your life and that helped you become a fuller person. We experience that life cycle and that helps men settle in and see other men speak this foreign language. …. A lot of times they think of connecting to emotions as a form of emasculation rather than cross-training. So, helping men be in community with other men where they’re revisioning their masculinity and giving themselves a greater permission to do the work.
If you don’t have the mindset or the framework to do this deep work, this intense work, building that crucible, and being able to dive into those emotions, and learning the benefits of self-regulation. If you don’t have mentors helping you with that, it’s hard for me as a therapist. Because they assume that I’m a therapist. Of course, I want you to do that emotional stuff! But when they have other men, their peers, telling them, ‘No, this is a taste of honey. Once you start knowing … how to do this work, you’ll always want to do this work. Because it brings so much more edification, and connection, and meaning to life and relationships. Trust me, just come along.’ That shepherding is what happens in group. That’s why I think it’s so powerful.
When Men Feel Safe to Share
Porter: You do men’s groups. You don’t do mixed-gender groups. I suppose there are pros and cons either way. If you can speak to that a little bit.
Flood: My experience with working in men’s groups and being a part of mixed-gender groups as well is that I believe that men tend to feel safer quicker when there aren’t women in the room. It’s hard for people to understand this, but men are often afraid of women. They’re not afraid to go out and play basketball because they know they’re superior. We’re gonna kick some ass,’ and ‘We’ll beat these women. I’ll get on the court with them.’
But when it comes to sitting in a circle with women, doing this conversational thing, and talking about feelings and stuff, that for men can be quite foreboding and scary. They’re afraid of being judged by women and condemned. Because a lot of their history of externalizing behaviors is passing their pain on to perhaps women and children with people they loved and hurt. They don’t want to talk about that. They don’t want to talk about what they’ve done to hurt others with women. And so, there are a lot of things that get in the way of them feeling safe and settling in and doing the work.
And I find that men will get more comfortable quicker with men and be able to see other men talk about shameful behaviors. Then that gives them permission to talk about it as well. When we are socialized, we’re socialized by running in man packs and being around other men. This idea of re-socializing men and men-specific groups is a really important feature of what we do at the Men’s Resource Center.
Porter: I often hear women talk about the need for a safe space with other women. And I don’t hear men talk about it that often. It’s just not something that’s talked about, probably because men aren’t that great at talking about their inner experience. That’s why we’re doing what we’re doing.
Flood: Right. It’s not easy for men to say ‘I feel unsafe.’ …. Part of being a man is … to be able to be tough enough to withstand unsafe things. It’s like, ‘Don’t climb that tree that far up and cut that limb down that might fall on your house, you might hurt yourself.’ ‘I got it, it’s not that big of a deal.’ Guys are trained to show their masculinity or prove their masculinity by going into burning buildings and saving lives.
But to stand outside at the bottom of the tree and say, ‘I’m scared, I’m not sure I want to do this.’ That doesn’t mean you don’t do it. But to really, honestly say, ‘This makes me really nervous. I’m really scared I’m going to get hurt. But I need to do this. I’m going to do it.’ That’s hard for guys to do. They just perform. And we don’t see what’s going on inside them.
Escaping Gender Binary Restrictions
Porter: I’ve often heard you talk about how you’re basically cross-training a new form of courage or you’re taking this courage that has been more externalized in someone’s life and showing men how to harness it internally.
Flood: We have the left, and the right brain. The yin and the yang. The sun rises in the east and sets in the west. There are so many of these polarities. But we love the midday. We love the sun over the top of us, too. But we don’t do that with humans very well. It’s like, ‘No, you’re a man, you go off into the west. You stare at the sun as it goes down. You’re a woman. You stay over to the east.’ It’s like one gets the yin and one gets the yang. It’s that gender binary.
I just think that we’re an evolving species. We’ve got to look at modernity and what does culture require of men and women. There’s so much more we have in common than different in the 21st century. …. There are so many different things that we’re seeing. More acceptance to see you as a unique human with a compilation of strong and/or hard and soft traits of your humanity. And let’s develop as much of your humanity as possible. Then you get to decide who you’re going to be; what your identity is. It doesn’t have to be so lopsided and focused in on ‘You’re a man; you’re going to be this. You’re a woman; you’re going to be that.’
Porter: Speaking of non-binary and gender, I’m just curious, as gender becomes increasingly regarded as non-binary in our culture and accepted as such, how you see that impacting men’s work.
Flood: Just in terms of looking at the men’s movement, I think it’s progress to see gender more fluidly and moving out of that rigid gender binary and giving men more permission to experience this softer side of their humanity. …. You’ve got to figure out the boundaries around some of it. But I mean, ultimately, you know there was a straitjacket on men and women and now we’re just kind of busting out of that.
Porter: Yeah. It’s refreshing.
Safe Spaces Where Men and Women Talk
Porter: I listened to your recent interview with William Keepin. Wow! What an amazing interview that was. It was really moving. …. Circling back to where you and I just were around men’s work and women’s work and feeling safe in a space with your own gender. I love what he said … about the wounding between the genders is like the oldest wound that humanity has, and that, I think he said, it’s thousands of years old.
Flood: It’s hard to create safe spaces for men’s work and then safe spaces for women’s work. We were talking earlier about how women, if they want to come in and talk about being a sexual abuse victim, domestic violence victim, or being objectified, …the #MeToo movement was essential in giving women a space to say, ‘Yeah, this happened to me, too.’
But to bring those wounds that are sometimes inflicted across the tribes, right? It’s like men inflicting them on women, women inflicting them on men. And to bring those wounds together and give them a chance to experience compassion for each other is such a deep, deep healing.
Porter: Which is what he [Keepin] modeled his work on right? The truth and reconciliation process in South Africa. …. I love how he said this very ancient wound shows up in every relationship and almost always people in a relationship assume that the problem is in their relationship. They don’t see that this is a giant collective problem. This is a giant intergenerational collective issue and that it needs to be addressed on the collective level. So, I’m wondering if you see yourself doing that kind of work in the future.
Flood: It does intrigue me. …. When we did those mixed-gender groups, that stuff came up and you could tell people got into their tribes. The guys were locking arms figuratively and kind of like defending each other ‘I got your back, bro!’ And the women were jumping in and supporting each other. You could see those wounds surface in just that larger, collective extended group. I could see us doing more intentional work around that. Maybe not a full three-day, you know, gender reconciliation that they do. But I think there are features of that kind of work that can be incorporated in some of the work that we do.
I’m thinking about all that, Ken. It’s definitely inspiring. And yeah, you’re right. There’s so much healing that can be done if we create the safe spaces and be intentional about it.
Reading, Writing, and Emotional Intelligence
Porter: Where do you see the future of men’s work? …. What do you see that needs to be addressed that maybe is not receiving adequate attention?
Flood: Well, just raising boys differently. I oftentimes hear guys say, ‘I wish they would have taught me this in school. It’s like, I learned Spanish, and I learned calculus, but they didn’t teach me about the foreign language of emotions. I mean, in school, if I learned this, it could have saved me and people I love a lot of pain.’
Porter: Absolutely.
Flood: We started this Altogether Boys program several years ago. ….There’s this idea that men got all the attention, and they were dominating in the classrooms and in the workforce. And so there were a lot of resources and money that were funding women’s programs locally and nationally. There was Girls Inc., which went into the schools and had special classes for middle school girls teaching them about the special challenges of growing up female.
The Men’s Resource Center got called when a smart seventh-grade girl looked outside watching guys playing kickball while they were talking about safe dating and how to make sure you keep yourself safe when you start dating and stuff. And she raised her hand and she’s like ‘Why are we learning about safe dating when the boys are out playing kickball? Why aren’t they learning the same thing?’
Porter: Good.
Flood: And so the health teacher brought the Men’s Resource Center in and we created this Altogether Boys program. But we had to fold it up because we couldn’t get any funding. Because why? Who needs funding for boys? It’s like boys have been ruling the world, you know? And so there’s just kind of a limited thinking around some of this.
I think that if we could do a better job …. You know, reading, writing, arithmetic is really important, but in terms of what really brings meaning and purpose in our lives … oftentimes it’s about relationships. And so, why aren’t we teaching emotional intelligence and providing opportunities? I see work with young boys … that wouldn’t take them off the soccer fields or tennis courts, it would just give them that cross-training. And they could continue to be young men and compete. But giving them opportunities to learn the importance of relationship skills and emotional intelligence and things like that.
The Future of Men’s Work
Flood: I think we’re moving in a better place of seeing mental health as something you seek, not just for illness, but something for personal development. You know, we get our teeth cleaned because we get plaque that gets built up and we don’t want cavities. We go see our dental hygienists. We go to physical therapists. We go do all kinds of things. But going to see a counselor, ‘Oh! What’s wrong with me?’ It’s like, well, you got emotional plaque. And you got to get to the therapist. They’ll floss it out of you a little bit, get you thinking straight, and clean things up. I mean, it’s just kind of that wellness model versus that illness model.
I think doing better work at giving men permission to seek counseling will be helpful. That’s why at the Men’s Resource Center, we try to see them as a special population and create an environment where they feel comfortable to do this difficult work because it takes a lot of courage, and strength, and dedication, discipline, commitment, and vision to be able to do this work.
Promote Your Mental Health and Well-Being
The Men’s Resource Center provides a range of counseling, coaching, and consultative services including in-person and online men’s support groups and addiction treatment programs. Each service is designed to address specific needs and issues. For more information, contact us online or call us at (616) 456-1178. Also, feel free to contact us if you have questions about this segment, ideas for a topic, or would like to be a guest on the Revealing Men podcast.
The work of the Men’s Resource Center of West Michigan is remarkable and invaluable. Thank you for this insightful episode. My interest in this focus is what I call the silent “Me Too” minority. All the dynamics you address inform why this minority are not as vocal as their female counterparts.
My focus is survivors of emotional trauma. I just downloaded “Mascupathy” as research for one of my upcoming YouTube episodes. I would welcome interviewing you in the future. I could see a series of interviews on the subject related to how me process, or fail to process, trauma.
Thank you, so much, for stepping up to your calling. Masterful work, my friend.
Dr. Linda F. Williams: I appreciate your feedback as a colleague and friend. Once you complete your study of Mascupathy, perhaps you could join me for a podcast on Revealing Men. (We could discuss and agree upon a relevant topic you’d be interested in discussing with me relative to the theme of the podcast–revealing the inner lives of men). I would also be willing to join you down the way as well.
Thanks and Be well.
I am knee-deep into the book. I had some technical challenges on my end. It was well worth the challenge. I’m finding myself wanting to make notes along the way. I’d be honored to appear on your podcast and have you as my guest on “When Your Mind Becomes the Scene of the Crime – MSCSI (Mindset Crime Scene Investigation).”
Concerning subject matter suggestions for the interview, I’d like to draw on your experience regarding the best way to provide EFFECTIVE trauma-related mental health services to men.
I’m back to the book now!
We can find a time this spring to have you on as a guest for Revealing Men. We can do it remotely using the StreamYard platform which basically is like zooming but with better recording options for podcast purposes. I usually do Podcasts on Monday or Friday mornings. Perhaps we can jump on a call after mascupathy is read and pondered and we can decide what might make sense.
You can let me know about the scheduling of your podcast.
Sounds like a plan. Still reading. I’m willing to come to your office to record if that’s an option. I listened to your November 16, 2023, episode with Al Heystek and Otha Brown yesterday. I found it by the scroll-stopping photo of the three of you during the podcast. I’m behind reading the book because I went down a podcast rabbit hole, including your and Zach’s organizational psychology episode.
I’ll pop you a private message on Facebook as soon as I finish the book!