The Practice of Therapy

Gordon Brewer: Well, hello everyone and welcome again to the podcast, and I'm really happy for you to get to know Mark Oley today. Welcome, mark.
Yeah, happy to be here. Really excited for you. Yes.
Yes. And so as I start with everyone, tell folks a little bit more about yourself and how you've landed where you've landed.
Marc Azoulay: Yeah, so my name is Mark Azule. I run a company called Men's Therapy Online. We do men's therapy online. That's the pitch. Very direct, very, very you know, to the point. We'd offer individual groups and couples counseling. But you know, how I got here is probably very similar to a lot of people we've interviewed is I was a client for a long time.
I'm in recovery from substance use. And I found there's a, it's a long story here, but. Basically. Long story short, I found that when I was digging underneath all my issues, right, childhood trauma, et cetera, et cetera, a lot of it came down to my gender identity. That was a framework that really helped me to frame what it meant to be an adult, what it meant to be a man.
I realized I had some pretty confused views about that, that kept myself pretty limited. The man box. I'm sure therapists out there know what I'm talking about. I, I think I also had, I had good role models, but not good teachers, if that makes sense. Mm-hmm. So I had people that I looked up to and tried to emulate, but I didn't have, you know, education around how to get there.
So I was often, you know, plagued by perfectionism self-sabotage, procrastination, because I felt that my ideal was unattainable. Mm-hmm. So it wasn't until really. Getting deep into the men's work. A lot of stuff that was popular in the seventies, eighties and nineties from the men's movement that really woke me up to a different way of looking at masculinity.
You know, mm-hmm. A version that is more vulnerable, that is more intimate, that, you know, includes multitudes and getting involved with men's work and now, you know, doing men's work. Facilitating men's work has been really rewarding for me.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. And, and Mark, you also have a podcast, which I, I'm gonna give a shout out to right away, so, but yeah, tell, say a little bit about that.
Marc Azoulay: Yeah. Podcast is called The Men's Therapy Podcast. Again, all my branding is very
Gordon Brewer: direct. Yeah, very straightforward. Yeah. That's good. That's good. It's good for s.
Marc Azoulay: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so the Men's Therapy podcast it's been going for about five years. It is topic based. So every month we focus on a men's issue, so things like, mm-hmm.
Divorce porn, addiction substance use dating and relationships sex and sexuality. And then we find experts to talk about that topic and provide, you know, kind of practical tips and, and knowledge and education. You know, a a lot of guys I think are very reticent to come to therapy. So I found that they need quite a lot of rapport through the virtual world.
And if we talk about, you know, business to weave it in, right. I think having different channels where you can build rapport is really critical. Mm-hmm. So I've had guys that have been listening to my show for two years that then finally give me a call, join one of my groups, or decide to work right with us individually.
So we give away a lot of our information for free. Right. So the podcast was about. A free Slack channel, which is like a chat room that guys can join. So we're trying to create more accessible channels for guys to access good mental health content.
Gordon Brewer: Sure, sure. Yeah. And you, you know, the thing is, is as you've already alluded to, is, is that in our field as therapists I don't know what percentage of therapists are actually male.
Do you know? I mean, it's just, it's very low. It's, it's around
Marc Azoulay: 10%. It's around 10%.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. Right, right. And so I think with a lot of the people in the audience out there, they might find working with men intimidating. Mm-hmm. And find it, yeah. Just something that they are uncomfortable with. But, you know, I'm sure there's lots of directions we can go here, but what, where do you feel like is kind of the starting point?
In working with men, and I'm sure it all has to do with the different issues and that sort of thing.
Marc Azoulay: Yeah. So I, I think there's kind of a tagline that I use when I talk about this that maybe can anchor our conversation in the beginning, which is, and I, and I gotta, you know, do the kind of disclaimer, right?
I'm gonna talk about men and women, you know. Gender is not tied to sex. Right. I'm just gonna be using kind of heteronormative terms just for simplicity of the show.
Gordon Brewer: Sure, sure. But if people
Marc Azoulay: wanna talk about more, you know, edge cases and L gt lgbtq, I do work with queer men and they can always email me and I can have that conversation with them.
Sure. So, always gonna get that outta the way, but yeah. Yes. The kind of the phrase that I use is that in therapy women need safety. But men need respect, and I think our education, especially the modern therapy education, call it the past 30, 40 years, has been built around building safety, which is not inherently a bad thing.
But when you tell a man that therapy is a safe space, he immediately is gonna cringe. You know, he doesn't, we don't really know what that means in a lot of ways.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Marc Azoulay: Mm-hmm. And also a lot of men being that we come from a privileged class, right? Like we are the safest people on planet Earth. So safety isn't really what we're attracted to.
What we're attracted to is respect. Mm-hmm. And modern therapy education doesn't teach therapists how to build respect from their clients. And what I mean, kind of specifically, and we can dive into more tips here. That looks like challenging your client, right? Calling 'em out. That looks like self-disclosing, right?
Showing that you have been through something yourself and that you've overcome a difficult challenge, maybe something similar to what they've mm-hmm. Overcome. That, that looks like, you know, helping them make real world change. So taking on more of actually a coaching framework, giving advice, you know, so those three things are counter to what modern therapy training is.
You know, when, when a guy comes into therapy and he and his pain is just being validated and he is feeling safe and safe and safe, and he is like, oh, you know, that's so hard. That's so hard. A lot of guys leave therapy because we, we do want answers. We do want solutions. We do want to get better. We're looking for an expert, whether that be from an academic standpoint or an experiential standpoint, to help us get better in our lives.
And we, we, we want results. I think modern therapy, the way it's taught it, it's very slow and most men don't have the patience or, or frankly, the emotional tolerance, if you want to put it from that framework to sit in ambivalence for too long.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. You know, I found I like you, I, I work with a lot of men and I think it just comes with the territory being in a male, a male therapist.
But, you know, I think you're, you're very correct in saying I think some self-disclosure goes a long way. And also I think normalizing for men what they're experiencing, you know, that just for them to understand, okay, this is not. This, what you're going through is, is tough, but a lot of people go through this and so there's that kind of solidarity piece I think to it as well.
Marc Azoulay: Totally. Yeah. I mean, so many men are isolated, right? I mean, you had the mm-hmm. The surgeon generals thing in 2017 where they, they said that there's a epidemic of isolation that was mainly around men and specifically around actually white privileged men is what they were studying.
Gordon Brewer: Right? Right.
Marc Azoulay: Is that there's a, there's a massive. Loneliness epidemic where guys are living in echo chambers. And I think mm-hmm. To this, you know, idea of patriarchy where patriarchy affects both men and women is from the male lens. We're not allowed to be messy in many ways.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Marc Azoulay: You know, we're not allowed to suck at something.
I, I think once you reach a certain age, call that 25 to, I don't know, 32. Most men are expected to be confident at basically everything at, at every category, right? At fi financially career sexually. Relationships fitness, right? We're supposed to be just crushing it on all fronts, but most guys, most humans are lagging behind on a couple of those.
Mm-hmm. But as men, we hide that. We hide those deficiencies because oftentimes the culture doesn't have room to accept those. There's a lot of shame. Saying, Hey, I'm not that good. This, Hey, I don't really have my finances figured out. Hey, you know, I'm not sexually competent. Hey, I'm not relationally competent.
I don't know how to handle a conflict with my partner or my spouse. So I think that normalization that you're talking about we do it mainly through men's groups. I think men's groups are awesome. But, you know, individual therapy also great of like, Hey, it, it's okay to be behind on these things. And, and this is the most important part right back to the respect piece, and I'm gonna help you get better at it.
Yeah, it's not about accepting that you're behind. That might be a step. Mm-hmm. As long as that step makes, you know, helps you get better. I think a lot of men don't want to be victims and they feel like therapy can often make them feel victimized, where it's like, oh, just accept all your flaws. Whereas I think as guys who are like, okay, I can accept my flaws, but I want to get rid of 'em though.
You know? Like, I wanna, right. I wanna train, I wanna, I want to grow, I wanna learn, right? I wanna get better. I don't want to just be a victim.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Right. And I think I think too, like you said earlier they being very results oriented. Yeah. And goal oriented. I think it goes a long way. You, you know, one question that comes to me, I'd love to hear your take on this Mark, is what does vulnerability look like in men?
Marc Azoulay: Oh yeah. So this, this is actually a really good topic because it's talked a lot about online, right? And like social media and TikTok. So kind of what I define vulnerability as is especially emotional vulnerability. Saying something and not knowing the outcome. And I, I tell that to my guys.
Mm-hmm. Because what a lot of guys do, especially when they've been in therapy for, call it a year or two, is they actually weaponize intimacy, you know? Mm-hmm. They use it as persuasion, so they, they'll say something about themselves. They'll say something about their past childhood, about their drinking problem, about their dad's anger, but they'll say like.
They're using it to convince their, their spouse often why they're not gonna change or why. Mm-hmm. They need to have a lot of grace or why they need to just like stay where they're at, you know? And that's not vulnerability that, that's using emotional intimacy as a persuasive tactic. Right. So a truly vulnerable thing is bringing something up without an agenda, not knowing how that conversation is gonna go.
You know? And the most vulnerable thing a man can say, especially in the modern era, is, I don't know. Right. Like, I don't have an answer, or I'm lost, or I'm confused, or I don't know what, what's gonna happen here. I think for a man to say that is really, really vulnerable. Mm-hmm. 'cause like I was saying before, it's like we're supposed to have all the answers all the time.
Right. And the minute a guy admits that he doesn't know, he doesn't know what's gonna happen, doesn't know what's next, he then opens himself to be helped and opens himself to true emotional connection, which is what we all want, but we're just so, so deeply, deeply afraid of it.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. That makes, and that, that makes perfect sense.
Yeah. So one, one of, I'm wondering as you've worked with other therapists just around all of this, but, and particularly you know, if, if we think about. The majority of therapists being women. Mm-hmm. What are some kind of tips you would say, in, in being able to engage with a man from a, as a female therapist?
Marc Azoulay: Oh, for sure. Yeah. There, there, there's a lot there. So. I do whole presentations on this, I try to run through 'em. And you can, you can add some too, of course, but
Gordon Brewer: Yeah, sure.
Marc Azoulay: So, so the first one I think is difficult for a lot of women therapists. Okay. But lemme back it up, right? So when I talk to men, right, and you probably have this experience too, right?
I, during an intake, I ask them, Hey, how could I be a good therapist for you? Right? Or, or what are you looking to get out of therapy? Some kind of mm-hmm. You know, question like that, right? And, and if you don't do that mm-hmm. I encourage you to do that for your clients listeners. Mm-hmm. And by and large, most guys call it eight outta 10.
Say, I want you to call me on my bullshit. Have you heard this, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I'm sure they all, they all say that. They all say that. I want you to call me on I on my bullshit.
Gordon Brewer: Huh
Marc Azoulay: And most therapists don't call people on their bullshit because we're trained to validate. Again, the novice therapist, right, is trained to validate, accept, kind of go with the flow, be client centered.
Again, all these are good things in practice. Mm-hmm. But with men, they lose respect for you.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Marc Azoulay: They want you to call them on their bullshit. So I think for, you know, a, a traditional female therapist, it can be difficult to muster up what feels like aggression. Right. Which is, you know mm-hmm.
Because of patriarchy. Right. An anti feminine trait, a trait that women have been told to suppress and not act on, and that it's, you're gonna be a bitch or whatever. Right. Yeah. But I, I think being aggressive and, and being forceful can be really, really helpful with men. Right. Right. Do it from a place of compassion.
Right. You're not there to nag them or, or, you know, shame them, but being like, Hey, you know, last week we talked about you having that conversation with your daughter and you didn't do it. What's that about? Yeah. You know, rather than just being like, oh, you know, I imagine it was difficult and yeah, like your work was hard.
And you're right. Like she wasn't that available. She had soccer three days that week. Like, we'll try again next week. Right? Like that. That's that safety piece.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. Men, we
Marc Azoulay: don't want that. We want someone to be like, Hey dude, you made a commitment. You broke your commitment. I'm not gonna fire you. Right.
I'm not gonna reject you or abandon you, but like, let's talk about what happened. I'm not gonna let you get away with this one and we're gonna figure out how to strategize so you do it next week. You know? Right. Yeah. So that's one. I'll, I'll pause there because I'm curious what you think about that, but I got more I can rattle off
Gordon Brewer: to.
Yeah, so I, I, yeah. I think it's the accountability piece. I'm just thinking about a, a particular, a particular male client that I have, and one of the first things he starts with with me is he says, well, I did my homework. You know, and it's kinda like he wants that validation around, okay, I did something and I followed through on things and yeah.
Yeah.
Marc Azoulay: Validation around action, right? Where we're very action oriented. Yeah.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Uhhuh. Yeah.
Marc Azoulay: So, so that's a big one. Another one, which again is I think difficult for women is confronting misogyny. Confronting, you know, sexism and confronting erotic transference, and that's the whole topic right there.
But
Gordon Brewer: yeah, most
Marc Azoulay: guys, especially that have not been to therapy, which is who you're seeing, right? You're seeing guys who are new. Mm-hmm. They're gonna kind of project a couple things onto you, right? Either. Mm-hmm. They're gonna project this kind of like sexual. Object. You know, and they might be like inappropriately flirty.
They might be trying to impress you. They might be hiding, you know shitty parts of themselves because they wanna appear, you know, desirable in your eyes. Right. Another thing they can reject is kind of like a weak little girl, which is shitty to feel right? But they might be. Mm-hmm. In that way, they might be trying to take care of you.
They might be disrespecting you. They might be like having kid gloves around you, you know? Mm-hmm. Or the third one. Is a controlling mother, in which case they're gonna be very defiant. They're gonna be very like, kind of just like shitty, you know, like, yeah. Like petulant, right. Is maybe a good word.
So yeah, if you can understand those transferences, and, and I, and I, I'm, I studied psychoanalysis, so I love talking about transference. If you can understand those transferences and name them, which again, takes a lot of courage. Yeah. You can really break through with these men, you know, and I think with, with, again, a heterosexual dynamic.
One of those is likely going to be active. Mm-hmm. So the, the work of the therapist is not to fall into those traps, not to play it up. But to name it as it's coming, because it often comes from misogyny, root. You know, I think most men, me included, right, have a virgin, have a thread of misogyny in us.
We were raised with it. We try, you know, the ones that are trying to work on it, we try to soften it and, and temper it at times. But it's there. It's, you know, just how everyone's like, a little bit racist in a way, right? So yeah, being able to name that, call that out and work with that is gonna be really critical because if they're doing that to you.
And oftentimes men come to therapy for relationship issues. They're probably doing that with their female partners in, in the world. Yeah. But those people are not telling them what's happening. Right. They're just leaving. Right. So as, as a therapist, you can actually dig into some of these shitty dynamics.
And not leave. Right. Actually work through it with this person and maybe help them see a blind spot where they do think women are inferior or something. Right. Or that they can't handle their emotions or whatever it is, right? Mm-hmm. I see that come up a lot in the male female dynamic in the therapy room,
Gordon Brewer: right?
Right. Yeah. And I think it's yeah. One, one of the, one of the things that I've, I've seen happen now also as a male therapist, but I'm a, I'm assuming, and I've, I know with some of the, some of the female therapists that I've supervised, men will challenge in an indirect way. Mm-hmm. Kind of in a passive aggressive kind of way.
And I, and I think, excuse me. And I think the purpose of it is, is to kind of see, can you handle me? Yes.
Marc Azoulay: Yes.
Gordon Brewer: And, and, and so they'll drop a bomb of some kind, maybe some sort of big trauma and go into graphic detail. And, you know, they're just looking for what's the reaction? Are they gonna handle this or are they gonna freak out?
Before they can really feel like, okay, I've got, I can trust this person.
Marc Azoulay: 100%. 100%, right? Mm-hmm. And like, just a thread on that, you know, if, if a guy's coming to you, it's because he can't handle himself. So he, he will be reticent to share with you something that is too big for him because he is like, well, this, like, I can't handle it, or, or this hurts me.
Why would I share with you? Like, if I can't handle, there's no way you can handle it. And again, that's like a misogynistic thing. Mm-hmm. Because by and large, I think women can handle a lot more emotional intensity than men. Yeah. You know? Right. But, but, we'll, we'll, as men, we'll keep that a secret because we don't want to hurt them, or we don't wanna burden them, or we don't wanna freak 'em out or whatever the, the justification is.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. So
Marc Azoulay: that's where it comes back to that respect. Thing and that strength piece of being like, yeah, I can handle it. You know, like you mentioned, self-disclosure, Hey, I've, I've handled stuff similar in my life. You know? Having really key tools of like, okay, here's the problem. Let's pull our toolkit.
I can work with this thing. I know exactly what to apply to the situation. Feeling confident and feeling confident, you know? Mm-hmm. That's what a guy wants to see is he wants to see strength and grounding when he shares his trauma, not empathy. Right. Which again, is very different. Yes. Yes. Than how therapists are trained.
Right. Like I've had, you know, I've worked with female supervisees where the guy shares his big story and the woman, you know, was saying, Hey, I was so touched. I started crying. I started, you know, crying in the session and feeling for him.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm. To
Marc Azoulay: a man, especially a man that is not emotionally intelligent, he sees that as weakness, which again, is, is messed up.
It's wrong. But in that moment, he sees that as a failure, right? As, oh, this really hurt her, or this is too heavy for her. Right? Yeah. What the guy wants is like clinical precision, right? Just being like, like a doctor, like, okay, you have cancer, here's your options, here's how we work through it. You can pick A, B, C, or D, right?
Mm-hmm. If you pick E, you're gonna die. Right? Right. So like having like a clear level head is more what I think men are looking for in therapy and kind of in that they, they hear, Hey, what you're doing is like, it's not a huge deal and I know how to handle it. Right? It's confidence.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. And I think that's especially true.
And this might be, you know, being a little stereotypical, but in the work I've done with veterans, I think that's so important. You, because they, they're carrying a lot of them, particularly if they've been in, in harm's way and an action, they're carrying a lot of really deep, heavy stuff and.
One reason that a lot of them come to therapy is they don't know how to disclose any of that without feeling, feeling judged, or feel like they're gonna do more harm to somebody by sharing all of that. And so being able to, to kind of convey that in a, in a very direct way, I think is so important.
Marc Azoulay: Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, a key difference, and I can use that example as, as a way to illustrate it, is I think, mm-hmm. By and large, as men we see, we first see emotions as obstacles. And then through therapy we can see them as information. Whereas I think most women see, see emotions as first chaos and then as an experience, right?
As something to actually enjoy and experience and live in.
Gordon Brewer: Mm-hmm.
Marc Azoulay: So when a guy is sharing an emotion or sharing something, and do you as a female therapist, get emotional? He's like, oh no. Now I have to take care of her. Right? Yes. He's immediately out of his own experience, he's out of his own emotions.
He sees as an obstacle, needs to get handled, right? Emotion, need to get, you gotta handle your emotions, right? Right. And then he's taking care of you. And again, that's comes often from a misogynistic place of thinking that you can't handle yourself, whatever, right? Mm-hmm. He, he moves into that mode, and then there's a part of him, especially if he has an avoidant attachment of like, okay, well, I'm never gonna share anything of that level of intensity again, because now I have to deal with all this, right?
I have to deal with this extra emotional problem in the room. Em. Right,
Gordon Brewer: right.
Marc Azoulay: And then through therapy, the idea is to see them not as emotions, but as information still not as experienced. I think most guys, we prefer to be just either peaceful or happy. Right? Like, I don't think we, mm-hmm. We wanna live in our emotions in the same way that typically feminine individuals do.
But we wanna see them as information of like, okay, I got upset here, or I got afraid here. Or I felt shame here. What does that mean I need to do next? You know, again, it's more action oriented, right? Like, yes, this is a data source that I can take in, integrate and then act on, which is just a very different way of experiencing emotions.
Gordon Brewer: Yeah. Yeah. It's that, that, this is fascinating and I love the way that you're, you're framing this. I, I don't know that I, you know, I've thought about these things, but the way you're framing it is just makes, it makes so much more sense in just thinking about the action oriented. I know in the work that I do with couples, you know, one of the, one of the, the, common. Common kind of, and again, this is being very stereotypical with, you know, gender roles and that sort of thing. So, but what a lot of times happens is that the, the. The female will present a problem or present some sort of thing that's going on, and it might be that they're just wanting to vent.
They just want to express what it's like for them. And where, where there's conflict is, is that the man will typically launch into solutions for that problem. Yes. And so then there's this conflict around, well, you don't hear me. You don't understand, you know, and it feels like criticism coming from the man, but really all he's attempting to do is solve the problem for the woman.
And so again, that's, that's again, I'm, I'm recognizing that's a bit misogynistic as I'm, as I'm saying all of that, just that cultural, cultural thing. Yeah. But that's, but that is the pattern. That's one of the things that Yeah,
Marc Azoulay: yeah. The pattern, right, and, and to use that framework, right? It's like, yeah. The, the woman is, is sharing the emotional experience of her day.
Right? Mm-hmm. And what she wants is she wants the man to be, to join her in that emotional experience. Like you said, not fix it, not solve it, not do anything. Just be with her. Just join her on this emotional journey that she went through because she loves her man and she wants him to be there, you know, all the time.
Right? So Uhhuh, hey, that's the way she can try to like invite him into her world. Guys, we don't see that at all, right? We're like, if there are emotions, there is a problem because emotions are obstacles. Right. So like if you're emotional about something, something went wrong. Mm-hmm. So like, I need, because I love you, right.
As a man talking to the woman because I love you, I'm gonna help you be less emotional because mm-hmm. I like it when I'm less emotional and I'm more levelheaded and I can just do my day. So I'm gonna help you be less emotional and Yeah. That, that common thing happens all the time.
Gordon Brewer: Oh, right. And
Marc Azoulay: I think, you know, the, the, the, which is probably tried at this point, but the kind of the intervention is teaching the guy to ask.
Do you want solutions or do you want me just to listen? Mm-hmm. And teaching the woman to be okay with that ask. I, I think, I think when we talk a lot about what men need to change, but there's also kind of the shadow side of femininity where a lot of female identified individuals, like they think that guys should just know all these rules, or they think that because we are, we need to be overt about something explicit.
Like, Hey, do you want. Advice or do you want me to listen? It kind of cheapens it, right? It makes it less romantic or less magical or less natural or less real. Right. I think there's some conditioning there. Mm-hmm. So like both people need to move towards the center of like, the man needs to ask, the woman needs to be okay that if he asks, it doesn't mean that he doesn't care, or that he doesn't know what to do.
Right. It's that he's trying to communicate with you. And it is, I think it's really two different languages and we're trying to figure out a bridge between those two languages.
Gordon Brewer: Right. Right. Yeah. Oh boy, this, this is fascinating st stuff. And to maybe switch gears a little bit in, in your work with other therapists, what, what sort of things do you find that people are needing the most help with?
Marc Azoulay: Yeah, so, so I, as therapists, I, I think the, yeah. The, the big thing that I find, and I guess we'll focus more on, on women therapists because we're of chatting about them I think it's really finding a voice, which again, is I think the work of women now in modern culture, right. Is to find your voice and, and, and.
Mm-hmm. Be unique and be okay. Being unique, right, and knowing that you might get haters, you might get negative criticism, especially if you're posting online, you're gonna get negative people first because the internet sucks. But what, what I see with a lot of women therapists that are struggling to make it in private practice is that they're too general.
They, they haven't taken enough risks. And if you go to a, a, a directory like Psychology Today, right? And you plug in your zip code and you, what you're gonna see, and you made this point earlier, you're gonna see basically like white women aged like 35 to 55. Mm-hmm. And if you scroll through, if you're imagining you're a client, they all look the same.
And if you click on their profiles. All the profiles read the same. You click on their websites, all their websites are the same. And as a client, you're not gonna know who to pick. So I, I think women struggle in private practice because they don't do enough to differentiate themselves, which is big work.
I mean, that's it's big personal work to really, again, find your voice, find your creative center, and take a swing, right? Take a swing towards a niche, towards an aesthetic, towards a different type of picture, a different type of language to, to take a risk and stand out. Knowing that there will often be negative stuff.
I mean, yeah, I can, I can say a little bit from my experience when I decide to step into men and say, I'm working with men's mental health. I got so much hate mail. I got so much hate mail from some of my colleagues, some of my professors that taught me Mm. Right. Some random people online. Right. Saying like, you're misogynist.
What about women are you like saying you're not gonna work with half the population, you know? Mm-hmm. What I would say is like, look, I'm not anti-women. I'm just working towards men, and I have a wonderful robust referral network of wonderful therapists that specialize in women's issues. So when a woman does contact me, they have a plethora of options to choose from.
Not like denying them, I'm actually getting them a better resource, you know?
Gordon Brewer: Right.
Marc Azoulay: But, but when you decide to take a bold swing, people are gonna have feelings about it. But what I wanna say to your listeners is like, those are the critics, those are the people in the stands, not in the field. So Right. You just being in the field, taking a swing, standing out is, is really, really challenging.
And I think what is necessary, especially if you want a cash pay private practice, right? If you want to be right, that kind of like cream of the crop, you know, pinnacle version of a practice it takes, it takes being bold.
Gordon Brewer: Right, right. Yeah, I would totally agree. And that, that's a, that's a theme people hear from me all the time is, is the, the importance of developing a niche and really as you you know, repeating what you said, but and as I like to say in the south, preaching to the choir, but I mean, you really do need to stand out and really define what is.
What is it that you see yourself specializing in? And also it makes you a better therapist because you're probably doing stuff that you enjoy doing. Mm-hmm. By, by doing that and a broad net casting, a broad net catches very few fish, but going after specific fish is much more successful. Yeah.
Marc Azoulay: Absolutely. Yeah. And it helps you, you know, figure out what your learning plan is gonna be as far as CEUs, if you wanna pick up another certification or whatever. Right? Like, like it helps you kind of focus who you are and your, what your professional identity is gonna be. Right? Right. And like, you know, like I said, my company is called Men's Therapy online.
I have women that reach out that say, Hey, I think you'd be a good fit for my son, but can you see me? You know? Yeah. Because I think a lot of people are absolutely afraid that like, if they're too niche, they're not gonna get anybody else. And that that is just not the case. Like
Gordon Brewer: Right.
Marc Azoulay: People are gonna, yeah.
If, if there's something they can push off of or, or ping off of or relate to Uhhuh, they're gonna have an opinion and then they're gonna want to connect with you, you
Gordon Brewer: know? Sure, sure. Well, mark, I, I know we've gotta be respectful of our time and I know we could hang out all day long and just have Sure, lots of fun with this topic.
But tell folks how they can get in touch with you and a little more about what you do as far as consulting and, and your practice and all of that.
Marc Azoulay: Great. Yeah. So everything for my practice is at Men's Therapy Online, the URLs Men's Therapy online. It's a great resource for your clients. Like I said, we have a ton of free stuff on there.
The podcast is entirely free. We have like hundreds of blogs at this point. We have free online courses, we have free Slack community. There's so many places they can plug in. Then if they wanna work with us, you know, they can join a men's group, they can work with one of our couples counselors, our individuals.
For therapists out there, I highly recommend the men's groups. It's a great adjunct to what you're doing. So we would collaborate with you. We would sign ROIs. I talk with you know, my therapist every month about their client. And then every quarter, once it gets more stable. So we have a really strong collaboration strategy.
And I think most men should be in a men's group. So especially if you are a female therapist, I think having a guy around a men, a male therapist in group and other men that have been in therapy can be really, really helpful and it might propel your work to the next level. Sure. As far as consultation, just email me directly.
It's Mark m Arc at men's therapy online. I don't really advertise it at this point. It's more kinda like word of mouth. But I'm happy to chat with you and answer any questions you might have about business growth or business development.
Gordon Brewer: Sure. Sure, and we'll have links in the show notes in the show summary for people to get to that easily.
Well, mark, I'm so glad we got to talk and hopefully we'll have another conversation before too long.
Marc Azoulay: Happy. Yeah. Happy to come back on the shop.
Gordon Brewer: Yes.