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Is true friendship a cornerstone of emotional wellbeing?

Friendships that offers support, belonging and genuine connection.

If so:

Why are so many men in Australia and beyond quietly battling loneliness and isolation?

• How do male friendships change over time?
• What does it takes to move past surface-level banter and build friendships that matter?

You are invited join Ryan and I in conversation as we unpack the power of authentic male friendships.

If this episode raises a need to get some counselling support Howard is available for consultations in Australia.

Check out his private practice:

Men and Relationships Counselling

Or reach out to a professional in your area.

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TRANSCRIPT

Speaker A: Is true friendship a cornerstone of emotional well being? You know, friendships that offer support,
belonging and a genuine connection? And if so, why are so many blokes in Australia and in fact around the world quietly battling loneliness and isolation?
How do male friendships change over time? And what does it take to move past that surface level banter and build friendships that matter?
You are invited to join Ryan and I in conversation as we unpack the power of authentic male friendships. Welcome to Man Talk, a podcast of real conversations about life, your life,
our life, the emotional well being of men. My name is Howard Todd Collins. I'm the director of Men and Relationships Counseling, a private counseling practice here in sunny Melbourne, Australia.
Thank you for being here. Sit back and relax and join me and my very good friend Ryan for this latest episode of Men Talk.
Today we're, we're talking about friendship and men.
I did a bit of research on what Beyond Blue has been talking about in terms of the statistics for blokes around friendship. According to BeyondBlue, 25% of Aussie blokes have nobody outside of their family or their partner that they can call upon or rely upon.
And in the same research, some of the men who do have lots of friends,
97% agree that having mates is a good thing, it's essential.
And out of that,
87% of men in that context struggle with to actually make the time to catch up with mates.
And it's a theme that comes up in my conversations with men about feeling isolated and lonely and realizing that maybe their priorities of making friendships or staying connected with mates somehow gets dismissed or pushed down the priority list and it leads to all sorts of problems for blokes, the isolation of men,
depression, anxiety and so on. That's part of the research.
But I guess in some way I wonder a bit about what is it about men and friendships that you know about in your life that are useful for us to be thinking about and feeling our way through.
In the conversation today,
what do you reckon?

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