"Shaping boys"...(20.12.25)
"Shaping boys"...(20.12.25)
Having written a short end of year Christmas blog, I find myself with an hour today and giving thought to the recent government announcements that impact upon how we treat young, adolescent boys.
I wrote a piece in spring 2025 when the TV show Adolescence gripped the nation. I took issue with its central narrative: that "young, white males" - as a category - are inherently problematic and in urgent need of correction. My point was simple: adolescent boys are not 'broken versions of girls' requiring urgent repair, but an increasingly misunderstood cohort navigating a world that often fails to either understand or accommodate their emotional realities. This would include virtually every institution adolescent boys come into contact with.
This week, the government announced new measures for schools in England: teachers will receive training to spot and challenge misogyny, with high-risk pupils (boys as young as 11) potentially referred for behavioural courses. The strategy covers: consent, pornography literacy, and 'recognising misogyny'. The aim is to tackle the roots of violence against women and girls by addressing "toxic ideas" early.
These initiatives are no doubt well-intentioned - no one could argue against protecting children or promoting healthy relationships. Yet as a therapist, they prompt questions: when does education become the shaping of beliefs, and who decides what qualifies as "toxic"?
In my blog BACP Blues earlier this year, I touched on Antonio Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony - something I endured in an old Economic History module. Gramsci argued that dominant groups maintain power not just through economics or force (traditional marxism), but by embedding their values so deeply into culture - through education, institutions, media - that they become accepted as "common sense"; as a social currency indicating virtue. People accept these ideas as natural, even when they might contradict lived experience directly. To borrow Orwell, it's when we stop believing the evidence of our own eyes. To borrow Gad Saad, a form of 'suicidal empathy' then emerges.
I see echoes of this in therapy, particularly with young men presenting with issues like OCD. A surprising number hold a very dim view of their own maleness: the instincts of anger, desire, physical power, or drive to excel are experienced as inherently "bad" - sources of shame to be interrogated and expunged. I had a teenage boy once tell me he hated himself, not because of anything he had done, but because of something he imagined "all boys do".
When I introduce the idea that these impulses can be natural and channelled constructively, with positive expressions of masculinity, I often see surprise or shock. They expect me, in a position of authority, to share the culture’s suspicion - which they've encountered in most institutions they have passed through. Disabusing them of that notion is often where reparative work begins: self-acceptance replaces shame, resilience grows.
Gramsci’s framework illuminates a parallel I’ve observed in therapy regulation. Just as schools are now tasked with monitoring certain ideas in boys, professional bodies have increasingly embedded particular social justice perspectives into training and ethics - presented not as one view among many, but as essential. The school announcements are strikingly similar: well-meaning efforts to address harm, but assuming a specific view of "toxicity" and aiming to reshape young minds accordingly.
I've written about this before – on "whiteness", activism in the room, BACP's direction. The response from therapists has been heartening, as I wrote about on my Christmas blog: many share the unease but fear speaking up.
So with others I'm building something different - a space for therapists who believe the client comes first, full stop. Evidence-informed, ideologically neutral, focused on the individual. Early days, but it's needed - and growing. Therapy can be a place where young men rediscover strength without shame, and every client finds acceptance for who they are.
Comments
Post a Comment