Have you been feeling low energy? Hopeless? Or blue? 

Maybe you’re having difficulty concentrating, feeling worthless, not finding joy in things you used to do.

Rarely, if ever, do clinicians ask: “Are you angry?”

Some budding research suggests they should. Anger, researchers found, may be a central component of depression in working-age adult men, who have the highest suicide rate in the US.

Il tema è noto (2013) e discusso da studiosi di gender studies come ad esempio del Center on Men’s Health Disparities, University of Michigan

The masculine depression framework hypothesizes that the struggle to adhere to hegemonic masculine norms places men at risk for experiencing an alternative depression variant often characterized by externalizing symptoms.7 Rather than appearing sad, men experiencing emotional pain are more likely to react with anger, self-destructive behavior, self-distraction, or numbing of pain with substance use, gambling, womanizing, and workaholism.9 Others have proposed that irritability could be the key symptom linking men and depression.8 Winkler et al10 found that male patients with depression scored significantly higher on irritability, were more prone to overreact to minor annoyances, experienced anger attacks (sudden spells of anger and aggression with physical features similar to panic attacks), had lower impulse control, exhibited greater substance use, and experienced more hyperactive behavior compared with depressed female patients.9,11

Molti di questi studi indicano come esperienze di bullismo in giovane età possano avere severe ripercussioni psichiatriche nella vita adulta.

Il tema torna periodicamente di attualità nei discorsi rispetto alle “spazi online” di radicalizzazione per uomini e all’effetto dei social network :

algorithms consistently select content that evokes anger and outrage from its users to maximize engagement. And sometimes, those extreme emotions turn into extreme actions.

alimentando una spirale di depressione, rabbia e maggior consumo/selezione di notizie che inducono risposte di rabbia che portano a un progressivo isolamento e peggioramento dei sintomi.