Social Constructionist Theory Of Mental Health Intervention

The Intervention
At the macro level, interventions have a larger scope and are more complex, mainly because the problems they are trying to solve are also large and complex. The case of creating an intervention to change perceptions around male help-seeking is no exception to this. The expectations that societies hold are extremely difficult to break down because, as the social constructionist theory explains, they are what construct people’s perceptions of reality; to change them is to ask people to change the way they see the world. As such, the problem of the stigma surrounding men seeking help for mental health concerns is not going to be fixed in a matter of months, weeks, or maybe even years. Despite this, efforts need to be made, and
They would run national public awareness campaigns through television, billboards, and social media. These ads would cater to the qualities that are typically found admirable in men, such as saying men have the strength to improve a tough situation, and they would use terminology that has been found to resonate with men, such as letting them know that there are other men who are experiencing similar feelings and that they are not alone. SAMHSA would also create a website that caters toward men and contains resources to assist men with their mental health concerns. This can range from self-care tips, to advice on how to have hard conversations about mental health, to getting in contact with formal mental health services. These discussions would be framed with wording that appeals to men, such as formal counseling being more about achievement and self-improvement. These interventions do not challenge gender expectations around help-seeking per se, but they do show that help-seeking and masculinity can be compatible, which can lead to conversations about what else is masculinity compatible with that may also be currently considered taboo. They also begin conversations about the stigmatized subject of men’s mental
Winerman (2005) found that one way to convince more men to seek help is to show them that the things they need help with are normal. She uses the erectile dysfunction drug industry as an example of this. Because of the awareness made by advertisements for erectile dysfunction drugs, more men are seeing their doctor for the issue and feel less shameful about it as a result of the condition not feeling abnormal. Public awareness campaigns for mental health could potentially accomplish the same goal. In addition, smaller scale education campaigns have found great success. Man Therapy, an interactive mental health campaign for men that employs humor to circumvent stigma and address mental health issues, has found great success in Colorado. In its first 18 months the website had 356,090 visitors, and in a survey conducted on the website, 51 percent of survey takers agreed or strongly agreed they were more likely to seek help after visiting the site (Mocarski, 2016). It can be inferred from the success of such a campaign at a state level that a national-level interactive campaign like Man Therapy could be very effective in starting a national discussion about men’s mental