Past Male Psychology Conferences

The Sixth Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2019)

 Will Collins, author of The Empathy Gap, has reviewed all of the conferences since 2015. He said of the 2019 conference: “There must come a time when I can no longer honestly say that this was the best conference to-date. But that time has not yet come”. The quality of the video recordings was also much improved this year, thanks to the tireless and excellent work of Tom Tokkelossi.

On that year the two themes were men’s mental health in the family context, and ways to improve men’s mental health. We had four excellent keynotes: Professor Nicola Graham-Kevan on the impact on children of witnessing parental violence (see video here); Dr Liz Bates, on how and why men remain the hidden victims of domestic violence (see video here); Mark Brooks, OBE on his Male Friendly Service for Domestic Violence (the Mankind Initiative) (see video here), and clinical psychologist Dr Roger Kingerlee, one of the key experts in the UK on male psychology, speaking about male-friendly interventions and why they can improve male help-seeking (see video here), a topic on which he contributed four chapters to the Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health e.g. Reconnection. 

This was the first year the conference had a parallel programme of workshops. Other highlights of the conference included Professor Eric Anderson’s take on gender, science and ideology (see video here); the launch of the popular gamma bias animation; PhD candidate Deborah Powney’s research on post traumatic growth following domestic violence; Professor Guy Madson’s thought-provoking take on the importance of sex differences research; and Dr Mohamad Hashi’s talk on the importance of detecting the trauma behind the anger of young Black men. There were several other excellent talks that year, which can be seen on our YouTube channel.

This was the first conference since our successful campaign for a Male Psychology Section (MPS) of the BPS. In August 2018 around 4000 BPS members voted, and there was a two thirds majority in favour of our Section. 2019 also marked a pause in conference, until the first BPS Male Psychology Section Conference in Dec 2020 (online due to covid-19 lockdown restrictions). However there is another BPS Male Psychology Section conference in Oct 2021, and there might be two conferences in 2022, one for the Male Psychology Network / The Centre for Male Psychology and one for the BPS Male Psychology Section.

A review of the 2019 conference by Will Collins, author of The Empathy Gap, can be found here.

The Fifth Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2018)

The conference in 2018 had two themes: reducing crime by men, and helping men’s mental health. The keynotes were all clinical psychologists at the coal face of therapy, doing innovative work of great value. Dr Naomi Murphy and Dr Ashley-Christopher Fallon were busy working with male prisoners, and Matt Englar-Carlson with mainly male clients. This combination of speakers is a good example of the importance of the Male Psychology Conference in giving a new platform to hard working professionals who otherwise would be tied up in their work, meaning it doesn’t usually get the publicity it deserves. (Videos of some of these keynotes will be posted on our YouTube channel soon).

There were also some excellent contributions from people such as Mark Brooks, OBE (chairman of the Mankind Initiative which supports male victims of domestic violence), Nathan Roberts (founder of A Band of Brothers mentoring for young offenders), Dr Joe Rafferty (CEO of Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust, instigator of the Zero Suicide Alliance), and Prof Svend Aage Madsen (of Copenhagen University Hospital, on postnatal depression in men).

Reflections on themes from the conference by Dr Becci Owens and Dr Helen Driscoll can be found here. A review of the conference by Will Collins, author of  The Empathy Gap, can be found here.

The Fourth Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2017)

The 2017 conference had several high points. One was Dr Sue Whitcombe, who gave an excellent keynote on the important topic of parental alienation, which is the relatively common though under-recognised phenomenon that occurs when one parent turns the child (or children) against the other parent.

Another highlight was Professor Marvin Westwood’s lecture on his "therapeutic enactment" with combat veterans suffering from PTSD. You can find a short interview with Prof Westwood at the conference here. Norman Lamb - Liberal MP for North Norfolk and ex Minister for Health - gave a talk on men’s mental health. His struggle to find adequate treatment for his son was part of his inspiration for having become a tireless mental health campaigner.

Another keynote was given by Professor Rory O'Connor, leading light in the field of the psychology of suicide, who presented on his research on the causes of suicide. This drew upon several different areas of psychology (health, clinical, cognitive and social) as well as from the social and biomedical sciences more broadly, which made for a very interesting talk (see video here) even if the issue of why three quarters of suicides are male was not addressed.

Several presentations made a significant impact. For example, Dr Naomi Murphy discussed her work (see video here) with male personality disordered sex offenders. We learned that many of these men had been themselves sexually abused as children, and Dr Murphy’s therapeutic approach was so impressive that she was invited back to give a keynote the following year. Counsellor Phill Turner talked about his personal experiences and insights into the use of the anti-patriarchy Duluth model of treating men accused of domestic violence. Tam Roper and I (John Barry) presented our paper ‘Is having a haircut good for your mental health’, which was about ethnic differences in the wellbeing benefits of visiting the barber shop (see video here). This was also where psychology assistant Kate Holloway’s seminal work (see paper here) on differences in men and women’s needs in therapy was first presented (see video here).

A review of the 2017 conference by Will Collins, author of  The Empathy Gap, can be found here.

The Third Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2016)

The third annual Male Psychology Conference took place at University College London (UCL) on 24th – 25th June 2016. It will probably be remembered as the conference that the renowned Dr Warren Farrell gave a keynote, lecture and workshop, all on the theme of The Boy Crisis, and without a doubt these were of a quality difficult to surpass. See a short interview with Warren Farrell at the conference here.

It was also the conference that introduced Prof Marvin Westwood to the MPN. Marv, as he is respectfully and affectionately known, made a big impression on the therapists attending the conference, who appreciated his approach to treating combat stress in male veterans. Marv had come to the UK from Canada in Dec 2015 to showcase his work for Prince Harry. I attended his presentation the following day, and invited Marv to present at the MPN conference. Marv and his colleague at the University of British Columbia in Canada, Dr Duncan Shields, presented more of their work the following year, and contributed a chapter on their work to the Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health.

This conference was also lucky enough to have a keynote from Professor Gijsbert Stoet, then at Glasgow University, and now of the University of Essex. Like Dr Warren Farrell, Prof Stoet presented on the problems facing boys, but focused on how developmental and cognitive factors can be detrimental to their educational achievement. Prof Stoet has since become a member of the BPS Male Psychology Section Committee, and his work can be seen in Chapter 4 of The Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health.

Other highlights of the conference included Louise Liddon presenting (see video here) what became one of the top-downloaded papers in recent years for the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, on the subject of sex differences in preferences for therapy, coping with stress, and help-seeking.

A review of the 2016 conference by Will Collins, author of  The Empathy Gap, can be found here.

The Second Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2015)

The diversity of ideas that the Male Psychology Conferences attracted was illustrated by the keynote themes at the 2015 conference. The first keynotes talked about topics that became staples of the conference: Professor Damien Ridge (University of Westminster, on whether male distress a distinct category of distress), Glen Poole (currently of the Australian Men’s Health Forum, on how our understanding of masculinity has changed over time), and Jane Powell (Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM) on male suicide). However the conference ended with a talk from someone coming at male psychology from a totally original perspective. This was Dr Bernard Gesch, of the Oxford University, with evidence from a randomised controlled trial in a prison setting that improving nutrition can reduce antisocial behaviour. This work sparked many conversations, including how difficult it was to research in a prison context because of research governance complexities.

An example of how the conference speakers have influenced each other was Dr Frank Keating’s talk on Black men’s experiences of mental health services, which inspired a new research project, which was subsequently presented at the Male Psychology Conference in 2018 (see video here).

A review of the 2015 conference by Will Collins, author of  The Empathy Gap, can be found here.

The First Male Psychology Conference (UCL, June 2014)

Nobody knew what to expect from the first Male Psychology Conference. Held at UCL in 2014, in a climate that was at best indifferent to male psychology, nobody could have known that it was to be the first of a series of unexpectedly well-received events in the psychology diary. Unlike subsequent conferences which spanned two days and had an increasingly international feel, the first conference consisted of talks from psychologists from across England. Many of the presenters were psychologists within the recently-formed Male Psychology Network, with additional material from UK-based third-sector workers (notably Jane Powell of CALM, and Glen Poole, now with the Australian Men’s Health Forum). However the conference already contained the formula that was to prove increasingly successful: a spectrum of topics dedicated to improving the lives of men and boys, with a strong emphasis on research evidence. Because this was such a new concept at the time, almost all of the work was cutting edge. For example, UCL doctoral psychology student Sam Russ presented a study of life coaches’ views of sex differences in the needs of clients, which inadvertently uncovered unique evidence of a type of cognitive bias that we now recognise as gamma bias. Also that day, Dr Brenda Todd, developmental psychologist at City University London, presented an early version of her toy preferences research whichin with a few years became a popular discussion point in publications such as The Conversation and cited widely in academia