Hello! You are visiting a website that I hope will become a resource and destination for people interested in learning about or studying the psychology of men. I am planning to have extensive writing on the psychology of men and masculinity, interviews with leading researchers and therapists, and other dynamic content. This site was created by me (Will Meek). I am a licensed psychologist in the state of Washington, am a one-person counseling center at Washington State University Vancouver, and reside in Portland, Oregon. I am always interested in other ideas and collaborations, so please do not hesitate to contact me at willmeekphd (AT) gmail.com.

Why Psychology of Men?
It wasn't until I was in my mid-20s that I ever really reflected on my gender, which is likely a privilege in being a Caucasian, American, heterosexual male. I also realized that many of my friends, colleagues, or male therapy clients had never thought about it either, and if they did they were afraid to discuss it for fear of appearing insensitive or politically incorrect. During this same time I began doing extensive reading on the psychology of men and men's issues that proved not only to be personally powerful, but were very helpful to my clients.

Doing this, I stumbled on two general frameworks of understanding the psychology of men: those that existed from a male-empowerment perspective (embraces masculinity, often sees much of gender as an outgrowth of biological sex, and encourages mature expansion of these traits) and those that emerged as a results of new perspectives from the women's movement and gender studies programs (masculinity is pure social construction based on dominance that although has some positives for individuals, causes major problems for self, others, and culture, and leads to oppression of women).

It became obvious to me that both of these threads had importance, but I found very few quality sources of information that ever incorporated both into a framework of understanding that explained who I was as a man, or could be helpful to my clients, professional colleagues, and non-psychologists in my life. So I started this website to accomplish that.

Multicultural Men's Issues
One of the most important movements in modern psychology has been the incorporation of a deeper level of understanding the role of culture and diversity factors in the lives of people. Almost all psychologists being trained now in the US receive training in multicultural issues, and the emergence of this in research and practice has been called a fourth wave of influence in the entire field of counseling psychology.

However, there still is a major deficit of understanding on multicultural men's issues. In writing the articles for this website I struggled mightily trying to figure out how to blend the research, theory, and knowledge we have of "men" with its inherent Western, Caucasian, heterosexual bias, and other cultural perspectives. So at this point, the articles make an effort at this, but it will unfortunately be a limitation of this site and the published literature for the foreseeable future. I always welcome feedback about the site, suggestions for future reading, and also ideas for improvements, especially in this area.