And this bizarre, indeed disastrous failure permeates the entirety of psychology as a science: every study that claims to have proven “something” about human nature always has outliers (usually quite-a-disturbing-lot of them), and almost no effort is made to find out why. And that requires showing a real interest in what they have to say about all that; and listening to them; and hearing them. Apart from the “Paradigm” he wants you to purge from your behavioral repertoire, he never explains that there actually are things that can be true about you that are bad and that you do indeed need to change (a good life is not simply about “accepting who you are as you are,” because sometimes who you are isn’t that great, and is in fact the problem); and though he warns against it, he still does not explain well the difference between genuinely changing yourself and merely pretending (“acting” a certain way as a project of “work,” rather than as a natural expression of your real self); or how to do that (his advice consists mainly of “act this way,” rather than “become this,” and he never provides or describes or even references any of the tools needed to do the latter, which is not so simple as just flipping a script—cognitive behavioral therapy is a complex and lengthy process).

Good relationships are not realized by simply being comfortable with yourself and honest about who you are and what you think and feel. This controversial e-book phenomenon became a best-seller and landed its author, a certified marriage and family therapist, on The O'Reilly Factor and the Rush Limbaugh radio show. Glover describes the middle alternative thus: “An integrated man is able to embrace everything that makes him uniquely male: his power, his assertiveness, his courage, and his passion as well as his imperfections, his mistakes, and his dark side. Likewise many of the things Glover is classifying as a problem have been traced to a very different theory of a dysfunctional male culture rather than some half-assed Freudian pseudopsych (see the essays of Phil Christman and Matthew Rozsa and Harris O’Malley on the point, backed by real science in psychology, sociology, and anthropology).When that toxic male ideal conflicts with reality, rather than abandon the ideal, men resort to tricks and tactics and excuses to try and “make” it work (like, for example, “hiding” their real views, prioritizing “getting a woman” over forming healthy relationships, and so on). Yet toxic ideas about masculinity driving their dysfunction are more frequently going to come from men than from women, don’t you think?

Nice Guy (in reference to the sarcastic “Nice Guy” trope), is not a peer-reviewed academic work but a pop-market advice-manual. If the nice guy’s girlfriend or wife is angry at him or thinks he is a jerk, he can take comfort in knowing his buddies think he is OK. I’ll add the point that, IMO, basic CBT should be a standardized required subject in all high schools.

To many women, the nice guy initially appears to be a real catch because the nice guy is different from other men they've been with. This balancing act ensures that the Nice Guys closest relationships will most likely be his least intimate. Gurian addresses the unique qualities and characteristics of boys and adolescent males in his books. Carrier’s article about self-improvement, I went for a walk in one of my gag T-shirts, this one saying, “I’m trying to be a better person, but I’m just a T-shirt.

Anyone who actually listens to other perspectives, who actually takes the trouble to genuinely find out why, for example, they are so frustrated in relationships, will find a dozen female voices explaining that “someone who believes himself to possess genuine ‘nice guy’ characteristics…actually may not. Alone, it’s good advice (you don’t want to be the opposite of “clear, direct, and expressive”); but in context it can misdirect.Glover describes this toxic Nice Guy Paradigm in a broad sense as someone who “believe[s] that if they are ‘good’ and do everything ‘right’, they will be loved, get their needs met, and have a problem-free life,” but really what they are doing to manifest that program is lying to themselves and others (about their true character, thoughts, and feelings), hiding their flaws and mistakes (rather than confronting, admitting, or accepting them), avoiding conflict (rather than resolving it), trying to “always help” (but really becoming controlling, meddlesome, ineffectual, resentful, or emotionally deaf to people’s real needs or expectations), suppressing their emotions (and foolishly trying instead to be emotionlessly “rational”), and pursuing the approval of others (particularly, for various reasons, women) instead of themselves.

There simply is no evidence women aren’t up to the task of teaching their sons to be good and competent men, nor even that any significant number of men have only women teaching them that. g. our propensity for violence or bulldozing consent, our cultural tendency toward selfishness and arrogance, a too-common indifference or obliviousness to the feelings or plight of others, and a general lack of, even resistance to building, our emotional intelligence—which are all real problems men have not adequately dealt with culturally) and what these guys misperceive as what society is telling them is dangerous and unsafe about men (e. A leading expert on sexual addiction, Carnes’s books cover issues of personal addiction and traumatic bonds in relationship.When after all that you still don’t like how someone treats you or makes you feel, leave them; no longer include them in your life.