The Value of Personal Reticence
Five years ago, Thomas Yarrow was going through a difficult time: his marriage was breaking down. He was aware of the advice given to all men at such moments: that it's essential for your mental health to open up to friends, to talk about your feelings, to express your emotions. His response? to spend lots of time with people who didn't talk much at all... and when they did, the discussion was about welding, axles and engine parts... Now Yarrow, [professor of anthropology at Durham University] 48, is publishing a groundbreaking study of the relationships within the group - and it will not make him popular with the burgeoning mental health industry that centres on coaxing men into emotional disclosure. In fact a stiff upper lip, he found, serves many men pretty well. The study, published later this month in the journal American Ethnologist , is subtitled "Rethinking male friendship and the value of personal reticence".... It argues that research routinely linking emo...