New art therapy class for men planned for Cork town

ART psychotherapist Patrick Byrne wants to start a conversation that will go towards liberating men to talk about their feelings and emotions.

He is planning to facilitate group therapy for men starting on May 21 at Ballincollig Family Centre.

The weekly sessions, over six weeks, will provide a safe space for men to open up. Patrick says there is no need to know anything about art to take part in the gathering. He will encourage the men to express themselves through art.

“You don’t have to be a painter to join the group,” says Patrick. 

The art will be symbolic. If you think about it, all our memories are in picture form. So you can draw your emotions, taking them out of you so you can look at them. I will be gently guiding the men to do this.

“Not everyone would like to talk about their feelings and emotions. But they might feel safer putting something on paper.”

What if someone gives vent to something very traumatic at the group session?

“My training allows me to deal with that. I’m working with some people who have had suicide ideation. So I work at that level.

“In group therapy, it’s about wherever the person wants to go. If I feel they’re unsafe, I’ll make sure they are safe. It’s my duty of care and responsibility.”

Patrick realises that he has a challenge to persuade men to join the art psychotherapy sessions.

“Men typically don’t come to events like this. It’s generational. Men wouldn’t be that emotional because we were never encouraged to be, for various reasons. Those of us that are emotional are considered a bit outside the box. A lot of men are afraid to be emotional.”

While some people would say that the stiff upper lip approach to life’s ups and downs has changed, Patrick doesn’t agree.

“Things haven’t changed for everyone, and that includes women. From talking to women, they say (the changes) are not across the board. They don’t all go to support groups or look after their mental health. This is only the beginning.

If men come together for group therapy, I can look at continuing it and going a bit deeper. In recent times, I’ve been promoting the idea through conversation and by contacting service providers, individual counsellors and therapists and putting it out there.

“I’m asking that we start a conversation so that men might be enticed and encouraged to come along to the group. I have in the past done group therapy.

“The way it works is that all aspects of the therapy within the group will be private and confidential in keeping with the ethics of counselling.”

Describing himself as “very fluid” in the way he works with people, Patrick is open to all possibilities.

“I could be working with people who are very shy so I don’t expect people to be too open at the first session.

“It’s about giving the men space, using art therapy as a modality, another type of narrative. It’s about building up trust.”

Patrick can, to an extent, predict what will happen at the group therapy sessions.

“Someone will open up about their relationship with their partner,” he says. Boundaries will be set. The initial session will be all about making the men feel comfortable and free to talk and maybe draw.

In the second session, a theme will be introduced and explored.

Constantly researching, Patrick has also been asking women what they think of his plan.

“They all go – ‘it’s about time’. They say it’s about time men knew how to communicate. One woman said to me that she goes to various groups and wonders where all the men are. Another woman said that some men think anger is okay as an emotion. But it’s not okay.”

Are Irish men particularly emotionally repressed?

“I think it’s across the board. Maybe there’s repression because we’re an island nation. If you think about the hegemony of the church and state, we have a very patriarchal society. 

So it’s about deconstructing that and reconstructing a narrative where men can open up.

“It ought to be easier for them to talk to a male therapist. We have our own language.”

Patrick, 61, is accredited with the Irish Association of Creative Art Therapists.

I have a lot of life experience coming into this. In my own training, I had to go for 90 sessions of personal therapy. I had to look at myself before I could help others to look at themselves.

According to Patrick, restricting emotional expression can affect men in the following ways:

• A greater sense of isolation/feeling lost.
• Less support being available from loved ones.
• Health issues due to carrying chronic tension in the body and other bad coping strategies.
• Relationship difficulties due to an inability to communicate.
• Overt alcohol and drug use.
• Psychological concerns such as anxiety and depression, sometimes leading to suicide ideation.

To join the men’s group therapy sessions, contact Ballincollig Family Centre. Tel: 021 4876295.