6.45 Colorado : New campaign will use “manspeak” to help men deal with suicidal thoughts, The Denver Post, Jun. 26, 2011

The Carson J. Spencer Foundation is partnering with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Cactus Marketing Communications to develop an “edgy, intriguing” suicide prevention campaign meant to capture men’s attention. The new campaign will “be using manspeak” to reach out to men, who “tend not to see their personal crisis through a mental-health frame,” according to Sally Spencer-Thomas, executive director of the foundation. “It is really, really deeply hard-wired in men that it is not masculine to ask for help,” even when they are experiencing depression, substance abuse, or other mental health problems, says Spencer-Thomas. This creates a kind of “double jeopardy” for men, who are more likely than women to take their own lives, yet less likely to seek out a mental health professional to help them through relationship difficulties, job loss, or other personal crisis.

Read the article at www.denverpost.com.