82,000 chapter downloads and counting: the spectacular success of The Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health

Feb 28

By 2015, the social sciences had long been a field where men and masculinity were seen as a problem to be overcome. Since the 1980s, the ‘deficit model’ of masculinity had held sway. This gloomy view of men and boys had spread from sociology to psychology, and then very quickly to governments, law and even mass culture.

Against this backdrop, back in May 2015 four psychologists presented a symposium on men’s mental health at the British Psychological Society (BPS) annual conference in Liverpool, UK. It was the first of its kind, and although Martin Seager, Roger Kingerlee, Luke Sullivan and I realised that a fresh approach to men’s mental health was needed, we had realistically modest expectations for how much we could expect to achieve from our visit to Liverpool.

“Little did we know at that time that our modest idea for a handbook would explode into a massive tome, with 32 chapters written by 50 experts from 19 organisations in 7 different countries.”

However a conversation with the people at the Palgrave Macmillan bookstand led to a discussion about the need for a book crystalising the disparate ideas about male psychology that were circulating on the edges of academia. To the great credit of Palgrave Macmillan, they were far-sighted enough to see the potential for such a book, and before long a contract was signed. Little did we know at that time that our modest idea for a handbook would explode into a massive tome, with 32 chapters written by 50 experts from 19 organisations in 7 different countries. And little did we know too how successful it would be.

Just over four years later, in March 2019, The Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology and Mental Health was published. Being the first of its kind, nobody knew what the response would be. Although around half of the content was about men’s mental health and various therapeutic approaches to helping men, the book also covered such diverse topics as aspects of masculinity, the education of boys, fatherhood, domestic abuse, health, social identity, suicide, the military, social cognition, ADHD, autism, brain injury and more. (You can see the full table of contents here).

We knew that some academics saw men as a group as privileged, and were accordingly hostile to any perceived attempts to give men extra ‘privileges’, such as empathising with men and trying to understand the causes of male suicide. However by the time we had the official book launch at UC L, with short talks by some of the Handbook authors, it was clear that the number of book sales and chapter downloads was – intriguingly - exceeding expectations.

“According to the publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, the Handbook of Male Psychology is, with over 82,000 chapter downloads and almost 100 citations, one of their “best-performing titles within the psychology list, and at Palgrave Macmillan in general””

So where are we now, nearly four years after the publication of the Handbook? Well, according to the publisher, Palgrave Macmillan, the Handbook of Male Psychology is, with over 82,000 chapter downloads and almost 100 citations, one of their “best-performing titles within the psychology list, and at Palgrave Macmillan in general”. This is no small achievement, given that Palgrave is one of the biggest publishers in the social sciences and humanities worldwide. The number of downloads represents well over 2000 books sold.

Figure 1 shows the top ten downloads. Note that 22 other chapters are not on this list, among them some very highly downloaded and respected chapters, often talked about online and at conferences and meetings.

**Figure 1.** The top ten most downloaded chapters of the *Handbook of Male Psychology*

You can see in Figure 2 the ten most cited chapters from the Handbook. The Altmetrics scores cited in the third column are a measure of how much a chapter is “discussed and used around the world” e.g. in public policy documents, blogs, mainstream media and social media.

**Figure 2.** Chapters of the *Handbook of Male Psychology* most cited, their number of downloads, and their Altmetrics scores

Figure 3 shows which countries have downloaded the most chapters in the past year. Interestingly, the figure shows there is as much interest in Germany and The Netherlands as there is in Canada. It is interesting that some smaller countries were strongly represented in the past year, though on reflection these figures make sense. For example, Lithuania was the country with the 9th largest number of downloads, but this makes sense when you realise that this is a country with one of the highest rates of male suicide rates in the world, thus a country with one of the greatest needs to understand and improve men’s mental health. (See for example this exciting development).

**Figure 3.** Chapter downloads of the Handbook of Male Psychology, by country in the past year.

Figure 4 shows how the Handbook compares to similar books in terms of citations (i.e. mentions of the Handbook, or Handbook chapters, in other books or journals). The bars represent books of the same Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) i.e. ‘Good Health and Well Being’, and same Field of Research (FoR).

**Figure 4.** Number of citations from the *Handbook of Male Psychology* compared to similar books.

Although there are some truly unique insights in the Handbook (e.g. Martin Seager’s concept of gamma bias), in many ways the success of the Handbook is not that it is telling us something new, but that it is reminding us of something that most of us already know to be true. As US author Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Society is always taken by surprise at any new example of common sense”. The Handbook represents a stepping back from the ideological deficit view of masculinity, and instead and instead an exploration of male psychology not just from an objective viewpoint, but from a viewpoint that is rooted in the tradition of psychology as a science and an evidence-based therapeutic approach. It will aways have the unique place of being the first handbook that broached a topic that many could not talk about, and demonstrated how necessary these conversations are for us all to have, and how eagerly people would engage in them.

If you liked the Palgrave Handbook of Male Psychology, you will want to know about, Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction, which is the first BPS textbook on male psychology. It is written by Louise Liddon, one of the authors of Chapter 32 of the Handbook, and John Barry, one of the editors of the Handbook. The contents of Perspectives can be viewed here, and reviews can be viewed here.

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Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only and is not a substitute for therapy, legal advice, or other professional opinion. Never disregard such advice because of this article or anything else you have read from the Centre for Male Psychology. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of, or are endorsed by, The Centre for Male Psychology, and we cannot be held responsible for these views. Read our full disclaimer here.