A book review of Beyond the Blue: A Survival Guide for the Male Labeled, and a Healthier Society for All by Chris Warren-Dickins, LLB MA LPC
Stars: ***
Zero Labels LLC (2021)
Mental Health>Men/Male Labeled
365 pages
Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. This post contains affilaite links.
Summary: Does any of this sound familiar?
- Depression snarls at you like a beast
- Anxiety burns through the pit of your stomach like a fireball
- You are constantly angry and in conflict with people around you
- A ten-ton trauma drags you down
Without the right help, any one of these issues can threaten your career, your business, or your personal relationships. What if you discovered that you already carry survival tools to help you to tackle these threats to your emotional and physical well-being?
This Survival Guide offers an alternative approach to the corner-cut logic that is labeling. When it comes to survival of depression, anxiety, relationship conflict, or trauma, labels can sometimes fail to help because we are more complex and sophisticated than that.
Chris invites us to look beyond the blue of the male label that was given to us, with an appreciation that our lived reality may differ compared with some of the assumptions associated with this label. These assumptions act as significant obstacles to adequate mental healthcare, and the reality is that there is little opportunity for adequate and accessible mental healthcare for people who have been given the male label. This was already a problem before the pandemic, and now it has become a healthcare crisis. Untreated depression, anxiety, relationship conflict, and trauma pose a risk for all of us in society.
Beyond the Blue
This mental health book is designed for those who were given the male label but who may or may not feel it fits. I am a cisgender female but I reviewed the book anyways. I feel the help it provides would be beneficial to any gender but it’s nice to have a book designed for the male labeled. Why? Because help for them is always less available as it is.
The author knows what he is talking about and he presents it in a simple way. The book has blanks to fill in answers for certain written exercises. The book covers depression, anxiety, conflict/anger, trauma and how to find a professional that will be helpful if needed.
Recommended for the male labeled who feel that most mental health resources are aimed at women.
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