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Episode 5 - Dr Zac Seidler
116 Plays1 year ago
In episode 5 of Doctorama AMA President Professor Steve Robson chats with Dr Zac Seidler.
Learn more about Movember at the Movember website.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Movember and Dr. Zach Seidler
00:00:00
Speaker
Well, we've all heard about Movember and we've all seen some very dodgy mustaches grown over the years. But have you ever stopped to think about what Movember is really all about? And what the charity is aiming to achieve? Well, we're about to find out what lies beneath that luxuriant facial hair here on Dr. Rama. You're listening to Dr. Rama with Steve Robson, bringing you the best of health, medicine and people.
00:00:30
Speaker
My guest today on Dr. Rama is Dr. Zach Seidler, a clinical psychologist, but he has a very interesting role at Movember. Zach, welcome to the podcast. Nice to be here, Steve. Zach, tell me a little bit about yourself. And I know that you had a very interesting childhood that I think will be quite relevant to a lot of people listening to the podcast.
Influence of Childhood Experiences on Men's Mental Health Passion
00:00:51
Speaker
I thought I was the therapist, Steve.
00:00:56
Speaker
I've got, it's very hard to know where to begin, but my role currently at Movember, which I'm very excited about, is our new 20 years of Movember kind of rolls out and we're looking forward to the next 20. I'm the global director of men's health research, which is a very broad brushstroke of attempting to look at all of the research that affects 50% of the world's population. It's no small task.
00:01:26
Speaker
But I've been invested and deeply passionate about men's health and men's mental health for over a decade now. And it started in many ways from my childhood, as you suggested. My grandmother grew up really close to Sigmund Freud in Vienna, post World War II.
00:01:47
Speaker
came here and my dad was a GP working in King's Cross in Sydney, working with the underprivileged with those who were suffering from heroin addiction and homelessness. And I worked as a young lad in methadone clinics as a receptionist on a Saturday morning, because that's what a 14-year-old kid should be doing, obviously. And I really learned a lot about
00:02:16
Speaker
myself and about the world on those days with my dad and watching him treat, you know, every man and his dog in a really, really respect based manner. He was, you know, he didn't discern, you know, your value based on where you'd come from or what you looked like. He was so, you know, focused on just giving people the best care. And so that those stories that I witnessed in that waiting room really that I saw
00:02:47
Speaker
him engage with with you know, the most colorful members of our society kind of gave me a drive and a love for people and for characters and From then on I was like, I don't want to do law I didn't really have a science background in psychology felt like the the best middle ground there and so I am studied for ten years straight which is not that much to many of your listeners as as Medeco's but I went through Masters and PhD and and
00:03:16
Speaker
really focusing on men's mental health and depression and suicide and ended up at Movember trying to answer these very hairy questions as we described them because they are complex and they really do not discriminate. I'm still trying to get my head around a 14-year-old helping their dad, and I think your dad was a GP, is that right?
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah. Helping your dad at a methadone clinic and dealing with people who really had serious problems with addiction and I would imagine not great social circumstances a lot of the time. So your mates were probably out kicking a football around or something like that and you were working at a methadone clinic. I mean, how did that play with your friends at the time?
00:04:03
Speaker
Well, it meant that come Monday morning I had some damn good stories, which was the best part of my weekend. But what it meant for me as a kid was that I'm very lucky to have grown up with great privilege and to have gone to a good school and then being able to go to university and all this stuff. And it actually gave me an understanding, I think, of that privilege. It gave me an understanding of
00:04:30
Speaker
of what I had and where I came from. It put everything into perspective, but also it made it very clear how quickly things can change.
00:04:38
Speaker
I witnessed lawyers and taxi drivers and teachers and you name it, it didn't matter the profession, white collar, blue collar, I was seeing people who had stumbled into addiction. That's really how I saw it as a kid. And I was like, wait a second, these people don't look like I thought they would. And so that kind of has really sat with me moving forward in my work with men in clinical practice as well, which is that
00:05:08
Speaker
Really, you never know what is what is hiding behind that mask. Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we spoke about when we spoke the other day was around young people
Challenges Young Men Face Today
00:05:20
Speaker
today. So obviously you had quite a unique experience as a young person yourself. But I think you've done quite a lot of work with young people, young men who are looking to, I guess, find
00:05:34
Speaker
a sense of masculinity and what it means to be a young man these days. Have you got some thoughts on that? Plenty of thoughts. So it's kind of the zeitgeist. This is the moment that we're in. This is what everyone is talking about. Toxic masculinity is a term that's bandied around left to right and center. The likes of Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson are spoken about seemingly in every conversation I'm in. But when it comes down to it, we're really lucky in November because we take a unique stance here.
00:06:03
Speaker
We're not looking for alarmist headlines. We're looking for health outcomes. We're looking to understand why young men are slipping through the cracks. You don't need to look very far beyond health and education outcomes and employment outcomes now to know that within a decade we're going to have serious, serious issues for young men in our society. We already do now, but it's only trending downwards when you look at
00:06:28
Speaker
Suicide rates when you look at, you know, risk taking behavior and more broadly when you start to look at, you know, suspension, expulsion, lack of, you know, graduation from university. You know, the boys are not all right. And so I think that
00:06:44
Speaker
What we're trying to do is understand in online spaces, for instance, like TikTok and Twitter and Reddit, what are young men seeking? What are they doing on these platforms rather than going, oh, you need to get off. You should stop gaming. You should stop doing all of this. This kind of infantilizing of young men is really, and fragileizing is not useful. We need to listen to them. We need to seek out their experiences.
00:07:11
Speaker
and go, what does masculinity mean to you? What type of role models do you need? What is not working for you? Because they are, I can tell you, having done hundreds of qualitative interviews with young men, they are feeling shamed, they are feeling distanced, and they are angry because they do not feel a part of the conversation. They are spoken at, they are not spoken with or to.
00:07:32
Speaker
And that's what we're trying to do at Movember, is engage with those disenfranchised and disillusioned young guys. It's really a very, very different world. And I'm probably showing my age here, Zach, but none of these temptations were around when I was a kid. But now, just with the ubiquity of social media platforms like TikTok and so on, I know and I hear that there's very ready availability to young men at pornography online.
Social Media's Impact on Young Men's Connections
00:08:01
Speaker
There are all of these
00:08:03
Speaker
things that just weren't there when I was young and they're clearly shaping a new generation of young men. Have you got some thoughts on, I guess, social media and how that has influenced young men's thoughts and actions and things? So what we're witnessing is something that is kind of strange given the term social media. We did some research looking at the role of social media on
00:08:27
Speaker
men across the life course and their sense of loneliness. And what we found is that middle age and older men, actually, the longer they spend on social media, the better it is for their sense of social connection, because they're using it in a way that is actually, you know, my parents and grandparents age bracket are kind of engaging on Facebook to connect with long lost school friends, for instance, whereas what, you know, the 12 to 25 year olds are doing is a very, very passive
00:08:58
Speaker
antisocial type behavior, which is that the longer they spend on there, the less social connection that they have and the more lonely they feel. And so for young guys who are trolling, who are just scrolling through endless TikTok content, for instance, there is a detachment from society. We know that the average of time that a young guy is spending on TikTok alone for days above two hours,
00:09:27
Speaker
So when you start to add this stuff up across platforms, you really begin to understand what is a loneliness epidemic amongst these young guys who may well be speaking with these faceless friends online, but they do not have a sense of quality of connection with others. And it's playing out in
00:09:47
Speaker
in social and intimate relationships, men are dating far less, they're extremely worried and stressed out about their dating lives and about who their friends are and it means that when they are going through stressful times and they're down in the dumps, they do not have anyone to reach out to and that's of real concern.
00:10:07
Speaker
Look, loneliness is obviously a huge problem, and we know that it has health implications that can be quite severe for people. But I'm just amazed that you could spend a couple of hours on TikTok. I mean, that's an opportunity cost of other things.
00:10:24
Speaker
You could be doing that. That's really extraordinary. Is this eating into school time or when are they doing all of this stuff? The thing is, is that it's very easy for us to look at this and be like, do something else. Well, you know, you don't know what you're missing out on. But when they were born with the phone in their hands, it's a really different. They don't know.
00:10:43
Speaker
you know, I get to the point at the end of the day where I'm like, I've been on my phone too much. I have that impulse because I didn't have it once. Whereas they've grown up with this type of, you know, technology around them at all times. They don't understand when enough is enough because it is their, their way of communicating, connecting and learning in many ways. So there are benefits there, but it is ruining sleep. There is no doubt about that. It is increasing, um, you know, body dysmorphic eating disorder behavior. We know that that is,
00:11:11
Speaker
that is definitely happening for young girls on these platforms. And we don't need to go into the whole sexual abuse and the real deep dark concerns that come out of this stuff. But really what it comes down to is that there is, it's an anxiety inducing experience. And what we're trying to understand through research now is where is the Goldilocks moment? How much
00:11:36
Speaker
Can you spend gaming? Can you spend on social media where it's actually going to be beneficial for you? Because there is a sweet spot, but it tips over pretty quickly. And the sensation seeking that we have these young men looking for, these dopamine hits that they're getting with these apps.
00:11:56
Speaker
is only going to be writ large when it comes to addiction more broadly from a gambling perspective, from a substance misuse perspective. So I think that the links here, you cannot see this as an isolated issue. So Zach, if young men are spending all of this time on social media, on TikTok, it must affect the quality of personal relationships. And you've alluded to loneliness there,
00:12:26
Speaker
When a young man does meet a partner, I mean, a lot of the social interaction that my generation used to just isn't there anymore. Does it affect the quality of relationships moving forward for young men? I think what we're seeing, and I don't like to harp on about gender differences because I think it's a bit of a cul-de-sac. We know that men and women differ and we seek really in November to look at how men differ from one another, you know, this within group understanding.
00:12:54
Speaker
What I tend to see is that as they develop into young men and into adults, what we tend to see is this, it's not even around mental health literacy specifically, it's more around their ability to communicate their wants and needs and internal experience.
00:13:13
Speaker
And so instead of having that that ability, that literacy, any issue that starts to bubble up explodes in externalizing symptoms. So we're getting a lot of this type of anger, aggression, substance misuse, risk taking. And that's how we see, you know, the bulk of my research has looked at how depression and anxiety manifest in men and rather than that internalizing
00:13:37
Speaker
idea of I'm hopeless and I want to lie on the couch and eat ice cream and cry myself to sleep. It is an explosion. It's an irritability. It's a frustration. And the world does not know how to respond to that. That looks like men behaving badly. But I see it as men crying out for help in many instances. And so we need to jump on this stuff in a preventative manner to look for what distress, spot the signs of male distress and suicidality as well.
00:14:07
Speaker
And understand that in relationships, if this behavior is happening, there are surefire ways to respond to it in a way that's not going to inflame the situation as well. Zach, it sounds like some absolutely extraordinary work is going on. And I will tell you, I'm alarmed hearing all of this. And I'd like to hear from you that there's some hope that it's not just all bad news and that there's some positives out of all of this.
00:14:35
Speaker
Definitely. I am a very optimistic young man myself, hopefully still young. And there is a real sense of community amongst young men, which we shouldn't deem to be this dark underbelly. They are looking out for one another and looking after one another in ways that we can't necessarily fathom, but rather in ways that we should be seeking to understand.
00:15:02
Speaker
that there is a real sense of camaraderie and togetherness amongst young men and there is an understanding that they are in crisis and they speak about it in those terms as well and so they are they are more than happy and willing to engage if you meet them on their terms where they're at and so that's what we're trying to do at Movember and that's what I recommend
00:15:25
Speaker
all of the other health practitioners and organizations seek to do as well is to listen and learn rather than talk down to this group who has so much lived experience to offer all of us. And young men need to be the future. And so as a result of that, we need to really find a way to embrace, engage and empower them in future.
Movember's Community Impact and Mustache Advice
00:15:49
Speaker
Zach, it is absolutely fascinating speaking to you about this, and I'm hoping we'll be able to tee up a sort of part two of this at some stage pretty soon. As you know, I've got involved with a November, a Movember, sorry, project this year. I'm very anxious that I'll grow a hopeless mustache. Should I be ashamed of growing a pretty
00:16:14
Speaker
whether beaten, moth-eaten, mustache, or is that acceptable to Movember? Finally, the content that everyone asked for. As we always say, whatever you grow will save a bro, Steve. So we will take the fully hair. I've got a Borat mustache. You can't imagine what I deal with in Movember. It's in my contract that I have to grow once. My partner loves it. I can tell you that.
00:16:42
Speaker
Yours is very intimidating, Zach. We appreciate that. It gets me stopped at the airport, so I don't know if that's a beneficial part. But I think, Steve, whatever you grow, if it's wispy, if it's grey, we love it. You know, men come in all shapes and sizes, and we want everyone to get out there and grow a mode, but also have those conversations and look after yourself and your mates.
00:17:04
Speaker
Look, it is absolutely fantastic talking to you. This is really important stuff. Movember are doing an incredible job and it's a real delight to have the opportunity to
Conclusion: Movember's Anniversary and Gratitude
00:17:13
Speaker
speak with you. As I said, I'm hoping we'll be able to speak again, but I want to wish you all the best. And I think maybe as Movember comes up to its 20th birthday, which is in November this year, we might speak again and explore some of this stuff again. So I want to thank you for your time this afternoon, Zach.
00:17:33
Speaker
Thanks a lot, Steve. That's Zach Seidler, Dr. Zach Seidler from Movember here on Dr. Rama. And we'll make sure we put some information below the podcast here on how you can get involved in Movember in what is their 20th birthday year on Dr. Rama.
00:17:59
Speaker
You've been listening to Dr Rama, a podcast produced on Ngunnawal country by the Australian Medical Association. All rights reserved.