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In her more than 30 years working as a therapist in the field of addiction medicine and mental health, Steff Condon says she has seen what she calls the âbeautiful fruitâ of recovery in lives changed by restoration and respect. Now in private practice, she provides individual and group counseling for men and women, counsels couples, leads two groups for Sanford House, an addiction treatment facility in West Michigan, and co-leads a menâs psychotherapy group at the Menâs Resource Center of West Michigan with psychotherapist, Randy Flood, its director, and co-founder. In this segment of the Revealing Men podcast, she and Flood sit down and talk about their experience counseling men. As they talk, they highlight the courage it takes for men to seek therapy and restoration. And they reflect upon the privilege they feel for witnessing the healing and transformation of men over time.
In the process, Condon discusses the respect she has for the men she counsels and the support men in her groups give to one another. She and Flood address the impact shame has on men and how gaining emotional intelligence can help resolve common misunderstandings between men and women. Thereâs a lot to unpack in this conversation between colleagues and friends. Throughout, their care and concern for the men they help is evident. You can hear the conversation in its entirety on the Revealing Men podcast on Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or Apple.
What Does Courage Look Like?
Condon describes her role working with men as to âhelp them to walk through their own fear and be willing to see other parts of their lives ⌠to allow them the courage to address â particularly â their addictions.â âFor guys, traditionally,â Flood responds,â courage can mean overcoming some kind of physical challenge: the courage to climb the mountain, the courage to go down the rapids in your kayak, or to put your head down at fourth and one and try to get a first down, ⌠Describe this kind of courage youâre speaking of.â
âI think this courage is the courage to have the willingness to look at oneâs actions and look at oneâs situation and step underneath the situation and really be more honest with oneself,â Condon replies. âMy work,â she continues, âis to help men look at their relationship with themselves and what their posture with themselves has been.â She notes that some men have a posture of avoidance, i.e., âI donât want to feel anything. I just want to be numb.â Others are dealing with a âpoor meâ attitude or just want someone else to fix it. Condon wants men to recognize how that type of relationship with themselves can become abusive, self-abusive, and violent in the avoidance: âItâs violent to avoid taking care of myself. Itâs violent to expect other people to always do that for me.â
âItâs interesting,â Flood observes, âbecause we focus on menâs violence towards others âŚbut youâre speaking to this violence that they do towards themselves.â  âI really encourage people to look at what theyâve done with their pain and how thatâs really not working for them,â Condon responds, âBut also looking at how it does take courage to go there; it does take courage to pause, it does take courage to do it differently than youâve been wired to do it for so long.â
Validation and Support in a Menâs Group
At the end of her group sessions, Condon speaks an affirmation to each man: âThe work youâre doing is worthy of respect.â Itâs like âDonât bail! Keep pushing!â she tells Flood. That encouragement is important, especially when it comes from the men in the group as well. âSo, you think that itâs not just you, itâs not just me,â notes Flood, âbut, thereâs something powerful when these men validate and nurture and honor each other.â âAnd honor the challenge of the work,â continues Condon, âthe courage to name whatâs true. And the courage of being vulnerable and ⌠[t]hat they make sense. That theyâre o.k. That theyâre not weak …â
This may be one of menâs biggest fears. That to connect with emotion means theyâll cry and end up being seen as ineffectual and weak. Itâs important for men to see that emotion is a part of being human, Flood says: âThis is part of your humanity. You were born to cry. You just lost your capacity. Lost your skill.â âOftentimes in a menâs group,â he says, âI will ask what their memory is of being on a lap of their mom or a dad. And a lot donât have any memory because itâs usually pretty early â three, four years old â where theyâre saying go climb trees, go get your knees scabbed up, and be a real boy.â
How Shame Holds Men Back
Early in the conversation, Flood refers to Condon as a âmaster in utilizing experiential exercises in groups to get guys to the hidden “roots and feelings not spoken or even conscious of.â Condon uses experiential work to help cut underneath defenses and fears. It provides a different way to experience and see things â âwithout all the intellectual chatterâ â she says. âI think it cuts through the defenses that protect the shame and keep people hostage.â
Condon goes on to list some examples of how shame is experienced. âThe experience of feeling exposed. Of judgment. âŚThe experience of recognizing I did something that violated my value system.â She relates how important it is for men to be able to share their feelings of shame honestly in a safe setting. âItâs a critical piece in any kind of growth,â she says, âto address how our shame holds us back. âCause itâs also based on the lie that if other people saw this, they would just run away. And so, Iâve been running away. Iâve been running away from myself. Iâve been trying to make up for it. Iâve been doing all these other things to make you focus on those things, to not do my own work. And doing that work in a group and letting other people continue to love you and care about you when youâve hurt yourself and youâve violated your own compass code is so healing.â
Flood agrees. âI think to be in a room with guys and be able to take that mask off, put the armor aside, and to reveal whatâs truly going on in your life. I think the fear is that Iâm going to be shamed. Which, in some circles of men that does happen and we can appreciate why guys are really fearful of being vulnerable. But when you can do that in the company of other men, there is a lot of healing with that. And it gives other men permission â âwow, you feel that way too. I thought I was the only one.ââ
Permitting Men to be Intimate
Women do a disservice to men, Condon believes, when they say âall men want is sex!â âI think it diminishes the humanity of men,” she says, “and it also diminishes the humanity of women in terms of just being individuals and people and multi-faceted. âŚ[it] just sabotages real relationships and real intimacy and is really a tragedy.â
This stereotype is encouraged in part by our culture, Flood says. âWe train boys to have this non-relational look at sex as a conquest. âŚAnd so, if you disconnect boys from the heart and donât give them other ways of experiencing intimacy – sitting down and being emotional and close with another man or a woman without sex being involved – then sometimes sex becomes the only vehicle for human connection and for intimacy.â Men need to be permitted to experience intimacy in more ways than just sexual contact.
âSometimes I think women want to hear menâs own struggle with things,â Condon observes. To be honest and to move beyond just saying theyâre sorry. âMaking it deeper and really bridging the relationship rather than just kind of shoving it off or sluffing it off âŚ,â she continues, âbeing willing to ask questions and to go deeper with that: âhow did that hurt you?â âWhy did that make you so mad?â âWhatâs that really about?ââ
âWhat I hear you saying,” Flood responds, “is that you want to have a deeper conversation about âwhat was going on with youâ or âwhat got triggeredâ or âwhat is this connected to,â so thereâs a deeper awareness of it.’â âYes,â says Condon, âŚâ Itâs like having that depth of intimacy in terms of both being on a parallel path of healing and being able to support each other in that and being open to that. I think that that is a beautiful healing journey for men and women together.â
Flood and Condon both view emotional and relational intelligence as essential to success in recovery and relationships. Flood says, âSo much that we do in group is to teach those skills and ⌠it is a skill. Youâre not born with it. Youâre born with emotional resources. You can see a baby, a toddler, be sad, angry, and scared. Itâs unbridled. Itâs full and large. The resources have to turn into an intelligence. And then that intelligence can transfer to relational intelligence in terms of not only whatâs going on with me but I want to be curious of whatâs going on with you. And then having this dialogue about that.â
The Privilege of Working with Men
Near the conversation’s end, Flood affirms the courage of the men who actively sign up for menâs support groups and therapy. The men who are taking the first steps toward developing the language of emotional and relational intelligence. In Condonâs words, âIt is a sacred privilege to be able to do this work and to hold peopleâs trust and be able to encourage and confront and to do that with colleagues.â
To someone who might be thinking about getting into therapy, Condon says âCome! Come and see! Come and watch. Come and be part of it. Take a risk. Exhale fear. Exhale the lie of fear. Itâs a different kind of mountain.â
If youâre curious about experiential therapy, our online menâs support groups, or counseling and consultation, contact the Menâs Resource Center online or call us at (616) 456-1178. Also, feel free to reach out if you have questions about this segment, ideas for a topic, or would like to be a guest on the Revealing Men podcast.
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