We have been raised on the value of self-reliance. We have been taught to admire independence and to believe that depending upon others is a sign of weakness. We believe in the Marlborough Man; men aspire to him and women seek to find him. If you listen to Tea Party folks, you would think that this country was built on the concept of complete self-reliance, independence, and without government intervention. This is all myth, fabrication, and malarkey.
This country was built on interdependence, community, and mutual aid both from one another and from the U.S. government. Without land grants, farm supports, oil supports, and a plethora of other financial interventions the U. S. as we know it, would never have happened. And without community intervention and assistance those farmers on the prairie would never have survived. Communities aided one another in building barns, fighting fires, surviving pestilence, and delivering babies. The wild west would not have been tamed without neighbors helping one another and the U.S. Calvary saving the day.
And these notions of total self-reliance have affected the psychological thinking of generations of men who have thought of themselves as less masculine, less manly, failures, weak, and a host of other adjectives, if they recognized their dependence on and need for other people. It has stopped many from seeking help for fear that they would be viewed as inferior.
As a nation and as individuals we are all dependent on one another. Many of my male patients tell me that they are always the one who takes care of others. They perceive themselves as the person upon whom other people lean and depend. However, as soon as I ask them how they would feel if there was no one who needed them, no one who sought them out for support, help, or counsel, they are stopped dead in their tracks. They recognize that it through other people relying upon them that they get their human needs fulfilled. They are confronted with the fact that by having others depend on them, they can perpetuate the myth that they are self-reliant.
Self-reliance was a value that encouraged people to think for themselves. It was intended help people avoid total conformity to others and live one’s own life rather than the life prescribed by others. Self-reliance implies the ability to analyze and make judgements about ideas rather than simply follow dogma because it comes from an authority. It was not meant to imply that we should not reach out to others when in need. It was not meant to suggest that asking for assistance, cooperating with others, depending upon others to supply those needs that we cannot obtain on our own, was antithetical to the doctrine of self-reliance.
Over the years the term self-reliance has been distorted and deified to the point of absurdity. We live in a complex and interdependent society. We are a global community where what happens in one small country affects even the largest nation. And it is no different for individuals. If we are to survive we must learn to acknowledge our dependence, our strengths and our weaknesses. We must learn that no man is an island.
[Dr. Dreyfus is a nationally recognized clinical psychologist, relationship counselor, sex therapist, and life coach in the Santa Monica - Los Angeles area treating low sexual desire, premature ejaculation, sexual addictions, drug and alcohol abuse as well marriage and relationship communication and intimacy issues. The profits from his latest book, LIVING LIFE FROM THE INSIDE OUT along with his other five books, are being donated to charity through the website Book Royalties for Charity and can be purchased through Amazon.com. Please become a fan on his Facebook Fan Page by indicating "like" on the page by clicking here. You can also find more tools to help you experience a more fulfilling life by clicking here to visit his website.]
Tags: awareness, life changes, life enrichment, living consciously, Personal Growth
I concur wholeheartedly. I just posted on my fanpage “Don’t Take MY Word For It”; it says something similar.
In my experience it is very difficult to get guys to seek help. They feel that as ‘head of the household’ ‘manothehouse’ ‘king of the manor’ (well you get the idea especially with those raised in the 50′s and 60′s) they should be able to solve all the problems of the family. It is extremely hard for most men, and probably women too to admit that they cannot solve everything. By the way—Being totally reliant on someone is more like codependency.