Where have all the male counselors gone?
Every summer on my family's farm in southern Indiana, a day was dedicated to harvesting sweet corn by hand. Those long, sweltering hours taught us resilience, hard work and duty. Looking back, I also see how easily those good lessons can become something less healthy: the belief that when you're struggling, you suffer in silence.
After nearly two decades as a counselor, leader and professor training the next generation of counselors, I have become convinced that one of the profession's greatest missed opportunities is the absence of men.
Now, this needs to be stated carefully. I am not saying there are too many women in counseling. Women have served this profession with distinction and continue to bring wisdom, compassion and clinical excellence to people in deep need.
The problem often lies not with who is there, but who isn’t.
In counseling, there aren't too many women. There are too few men.
This absence hasn’t always been a reality. The American Institute for Boys and Men reports that men made up 68% of psychologists in 1968, but only about 20% today. In social work, male presence has fallen from 38% to about 18%.
At the same time, boys and men are struggling. The National Institute of Mental Health reports that the suicide rate among males is nearly four times higher than females. CDC data shows men are less likely than women to receive counseling or therapy.
Those facts should make the church pause.
This is not because every man needs a male counselor. The research on gender matching between a client and counselor is more complicated than that. The truth is, once a strong therapeutic relationship is established, regardless of the genders involved in the counseling dynamic, what matters most is trust, rapport, clinical skill and the ability to help a client move toward healing.
But before any form of therapeutic relationship can exist, the client has to actually walk through the door. It is at this moment that male representation matters. Not a mile down the road, but in the first ten feet.
There are men who would eventually talk openly with a gifted female counselor and be helped greatly, but they cannot yet imagine beginning that conversation with anyone other than a man. There are boys who have never had a healthy father figure sitting across from them and speaking out of strength, patience and honesty. There are husbands, fathers, pastors, veterans, and old and young men carrying pain, shame, anxiety or addiction. They often have no model for what healing might look like.
Too often, our culture speaks about masculinity mainly as a problem to be corrected. Certainly, there are distorted forms of masculinity. Strength can become domination. Silence can become emotional cowardice. Anger can become violence. But the answer isn’t found in masculinity’s absence, but in its redemption.
Scripture presents Christ not only as saviour but as the Wonderful Counselor. If Christian men are looking for examples of strength, they need look no further. The Bible shows the shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. It shows the Lord who washes feet. It challenges men to bear burdens, protect the vulnerable, tell the truth, confess sin, pursue wisdom and serve sacrificially.
These qualities don’t just need teaching on pulpits but demonstrating in counseling chairs.
We rightly recognize God's call into pastoral ministry, overseas missions, teaching, being a husband, leadership and fatherhood. But what about the calling into counseling?
There are young men sitting in churches who want to serve Christ but may not be called to preach. There are fathers and second-career men who are the other side of a brutal experience. Could they be trained to walk wisely with others? There are ministry-minded students who need someone to tell them that the counselor’s sofa is a way in which they can serve the church and advance its message.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects strong growth for mental-health counseling roles in the next decade. But this is more than workforce data. This is about life-saving discipleship.
The Church has long called men to preach, plant churches and lead families. Perhaps it's time we also called more of them to the counselor's chair.
Dr. Ryan M. Burkhart is Dean of the School of Counseling and Professor of Counseling at Colorado Christian University.
