Shari B. Kaplan, LCSWIntegrative Mental Health

Men’s Mental Health Month: Why Whole-Person Care Matters #mentalhealthawareness

4 Jun 2026 · 1 min

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In a brief monologue for Men’s Mental Health Month, Shari B. Kaplan, LCSW, highlights a stark statistic that 750,000 men died by suicide in the past year. She urges therapists to move beyond surface‑level advice such as gratitude or mindfulness and instead adopt a whole‑person approach. Kaplan emphasizes that depression in men often stems from concrete life stressors—pain, illness, injury, loss of income, and threats to identity. She argues that effective treatment must address each of these dimensions to help men re‑establish their sense of self, feel safe within themselves, and cultivate genuine hope for a meaningful life.

Chapters

As part of Men's Mental Health Month, I want to share some jarring information. 750,000 men died by suicide in the past year. And I want to encourage every therapist out there to please explore everything about an individual. Why are they stuck in their thoughts? We need to be doing better as a profession in looking at a whole person, how someone's pain causes depression, how an illness or an injury or a loss of income can affect someone's identity. They do not need an attitude adjustment. They do not need to be more grateful and more mindful. They need real help that addresses every aspect of who they are so we can help them reestablish their identity and help them feel safe within themselves and create meaningful lives and be feel like they have hope.