Men in Mind for General Practitioners — Part 3
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Men in Mind for General Practitioners
Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

Men in Mind for General Practitioners

Men in Mind is an online training program built to help primary care professionals get the most out of every interaction with a male patient.

Part of Movember's work to change the face of men’s health, the course draws on leading research and the lived experiences of men to unpack how masculinity shapes the way men seek help, communicate and engage in care.

The course is backed by the latest research and is the first of its kind worldwide.

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Your RACGP CPD certificate

Enter your details once — we'll have your certificate ready at the end

When you complete this module you'll receive a personalised RACGP CPD Statement of Completion. Enter your name and member number now so it's ready the moment you finish.

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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

  • Part 1 was about recognising the problem.
  • Part 2 was about building the relationship that gets him to come back.
  • Part 3 is about applying this to presentations where clinical connection is critical: men's depression and suicidality.

The opportunity here sits inside the assessment itself. For many men, the way assessment is usually structured (talking about problems, asking for help and naming emotional experience) can feel like a test of masculine standing. Mental health is where the double jeopardy lands hardest: the very behaviours that lead to a diagnosis are the behaviours masculine socialisation has trained him to resist.

His reluctance isn't only socialised. A mental health diagnosis can carry real consequences for him: life insurance, employment, professional standing. For men whose distress is a reasonable response to overwhelming circumstances, the diagnostic system can feel like another thing being done to them rather than for them.

The effect is measurable. For every case of male self-harm captured in hospital records, there are three more showing up in ambulance data (Turning Point, 2019). The distress is there. It's just not making it into the clinical picture.

Watch this short video as Prof. Magdalena Simonis describes how she works to draw it out.

Prof. Magdalena Simonis

The gender lens is a really important one. It becomes easier when we think about the whole person.

Raising the bar for men's health means taking more time, which is the whole of person, and parking those assumptions around the stiff upper lip — the "He'll tell me if he's really got a problem," which he won't tell you if he's really got a problem. You've got to ask, and you've got to think beyond that facade.

It's really about knowing that the individual that you're sitting with has a particular risk profile and has a set of needs that we're there to meet, and those needs may or may not be expressed. It presents differently in males.

It might present very differently, like not wanting to leave their room, being online all the time, not getting out of bed, not grooming themselves, the monosyllables, the grumpiness, and even eating disorders. So they tend not to present as crying all the time, but rather feeling flat, disinterested, avoiding social interaction — and they are signs that we need to really understand and question more, and get them to talk more about what's going on.

Life quake came from an American psychologist that I was reading. Certain things in a man's life can come along like an earthquake and shake everything up — losing a loved one, losing a job, birth of your first child. Men often come to us at a time of life quake. Identifying what has actually been shaken up in a man's values around identity, and why, is normally what they need to know to help them make their next decisions.

And if we can help someone explore what the answer to that question might be, then that's far more powerful than taking any manner of other steps to support their mental health, because that's normally at the crux of it.

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Hear it from him

The men below show us what the research can't.

Let's start with Kai.

D David
T Tom
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Hear it from him

3.1 Meet Kai, 23

Press play to learn more about Kai's story.

Kai

I think I got it from my dad, where it's like, 'it's fine. I mean, you're not crying, are you? Otherwise it's a waste of time for you. I keep time whenever I'm with a professional. I'm so anxious about taking too much of their time. I'm usually like, 'it's fine, if I'm not dying then it's fine.'

I have a history of trauma, so it makes it very hard for me to actually voice my opinions.

It took a severe mental ill health, and almost killing myself, to get to that point. I can't just raw dog life and hope for the best.

The questions she asks are about all aspects of my life, not just the one problem I came with. She's looking at long-term changes for me. She wasn't writing when she was talking to me. She was just like, 'alright, talk.'

I have started seeing a dietician because of my GP. With that I was able to manage my eating disorder a lot better.

Sometimes scans are out of my budget, so we look for simple solutions for right now. A lot of my medications sometimes have to be out of pocket.

I'm not just a checklist in her schedule. I was a person that had meaning, that had a backstory, that I was being listened to.

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Every hero has a backstory

Some of it is what's happening now (work, relationships, recent change). Some of it is what he's lived through (history, formative events). And some of it is what he's been carrying from a lifetime of being taught what it means to be a man (the backpack). That 'backpack' can make the rest of the backstory harder to reach.

Many men won't present with obvious distress. They'll come in for back pain after losing a job, sleep problems after a relationship has ended, or a regular script renewal a few months into a financial squeeze. The presenting complaint is real, but the situational stressor underneath it may be the more important clinical signal.

The challenge is that the distress underneath is often hard to see.

  • Traditional masculinities like control, self-reliance, stoicism — push him to lead with what feels acceptable to bring in, not what's actually going on.
  • Our own biases work in the same direction. Practitioners are more likely to read men as coping, more tolerant, less in need of emotional follow-up, which means an understated presentation gets met with an understated response.

Both forces converge to keep the stressor invisible.

Asking about his backstory (work, relationships, recent change) in the early stages of a consult is one of the most useful things you can do, even when he hasn't signalled distress. It surfaces signals you wouldn't otherwise get and shapes the treatment that follows.

The National Suicide Prevention Office (2025) sets out Australia's ten-year strategy for suicide prevention, drawing on research and interviews with around 3,000 people with lived experience. It frames suicidal distress as a human response to overwhelming suffering, with psychosocial risk factors present in 67.4% of suicide deaths. Because that distress so often stems from life circumstances rather than a diagnosable condition, the strategy makes the case for recognising it earlier, not just in crisis. Start here to learn more.
Smith et al. (2018) present a critical review of the assumptions underpinning gender differences in mental health diagnosis. They identify two clinician-side biases that contribute to underdiagnosing men's depression: implicit bias (unconscious stereotypes about who looks depressed) and statistical discrimination (applying group-level data, such as men's lower depression rates, to an individual male patient). Both shift the clinical threshold without the clinician noticing. Access the paper here.
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Knowledge check

Kai describes the messages he's inherited about health: don't bother a professional unless you're "crying," don't take up too much of their time, "if I'm not dying then it's fine." Without meaning to, how can a practitioner reinforce these messages?

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Knowledge check

Kai describes his current GP: "The questions she asks are about all aspects of my life, not just the one problem I came with." What clinical purpose does that serve?

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Knowledge check

Kai mentions his trauma history makes it hard to voice his opinions, on top of the masculine messages he's inherited. Reflect on the backpack metaphor from Part 1, what does this mean for how a GP should approach him?

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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

3.2 No worries

Of the many shapes distress takes in men, anxiety is the most common globally. It's often described as a gateway disorder — anxiety symptoms tend to be the first to manifest in a person's life, often well before depression, substance use or suicidality emerge. Despite this, research into men's anxiety is thin. The field has historically been dominated by sex-differences research, comparing men to women rather than exploring men's experiences directly.

So what do we know and what can we do with it?

A caveat

Most of what we know about this comes from recent research focussed on young men aged 15–25. The patterns are likely to extend across the lifespan, but keep in mind that the evidence is built on this base.

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The body talks first

It's always been considered the ticket to entry and anxiety is no exception. Chest tightness, disrupted sleep, nausea, headaches, fatigue. Symptoms that mimic cardiac, respiratory or gastrointestinal conditions and get investigated as such, sometimes for years. Anxiety wasn't visible in many men's fathers or peers growing up, so there's no template for what it looks like in a man. The body is permitted territory for distress in a way the mind isn't.

Reading between the lines

He's drinking more. Training harder. Working longer. Withdrawing. Masculine norms permit these forms of coping in a way they don't permit naming distress directly, so the behaviour change often shows up well before anxiety can be put into words.

Pause for a mo'

Think about a recent consult where you had a sense that something else was going on beneath what the patient initially came in for. What was the signal that told you that?

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A young man in conversation with his GP

Practical tools

Working with anxiety

Pause for a mo'

Think of a young man on your books who keeps coming back with small things. Skin issues, sleep problems, a niggling complaint that never quite resolves. What's one thing you could do at his next appointment to name what you're seeing and reframe his help-seeking as strength?

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Kai

Breathing has been a bit difficult recently. And she'd be like, 'All right, talk me through what you've been feeling.”

Kai

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Hear it from him

The men below show us what the research can't.

Now, let's meet David.

K Kai
T Tom
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Hear it from him

3.3 Meet David, 68

Press play to learn more about David's story.

David

"I spent most of my career in advertising, about 30 years. But the interesting thing about that was I lived with, and I still do, a mental illness. Bipolar one. Really severe depressions, amazing manic episodes. I wasn't diagnosed until I was 48."

"When I was younger, I was a macho guy. Tough. I don't need help. I figured I was better off handling my mental health issues myself, and that's exactly what I did for the next 25 years."

"I never spoke to anybody about my mental illness throughout my career in advertising."

"We wear that mask because that mask helps us operate. I'd put on that mask every day, even if I was feeling like pure shit. Put that mask on, walk in that door, smile. And then at night I'd go home, strip the mask off, sit on the lounge and drink a few beers. My wife used to constantly say to me, how can you be so good with everybody else but be so terrible at home?"

"When my kids were about 14 and 12, we went to do the classic Disneyland holiday. Not knowing anything about time zones and the effect on sleep, it was the worst holiday of my life. I was so deeply depressed."

"When I got back, I literally almost physically couldn't function. I had nothing in the way of energy. And I just thought, I've got to do something."

"I don't think if it hadn't been for all the physical symptoms and the exhaustion and literally almost the inability to move, I don't think I would've done anything. I think I would've just kept rolling, like I was."

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David
Pause for a mo'

David says the physical symptoms were the reason he came in, he'd otherwise have "just kept rolling." But he did come in. What does that tell you about a man like him showing up to see you?

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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

3.4 Male-type depression

For many men, anger is a more socially-sanctioned emotion than sadness.

Boys are taught early that anger is a permissible response. Sadness, fear and vulnerability are not. That socialisation carries into adulthood and shapes how distress presents.

Distress in many men shows up as irritability, anger, substance use or risk-taking, alongside or instead of low mood. The diagnostic system wasn't built for this shape.

The DSM-5-TR now acknowledges men's greater likelihood of alcohol and drug misuse, risk-taking and poor impulse control, but treats these as co-occurring features rather than primary signs of depression (Rice et al., 2022). The result: standard depression screens miss the men whose distress runs externally.

The gap is measurable. In a representative sample of 1,000 Canadian men, a standard depression screen identified 7 of 13 men with a recent suicide attempt. A screen designed to capture externalising symptoms identified 11 of the 13 (Rice et al., 2019).

What signs are we missing?

Cole and Davidson (2019) presented 366 male college students with vignettes showing either internalising symptoms (sadness, hopelessness) or externalising symptoms (anger, substance use, risk-taking). Participants were significantly less likely to label the externalising vignettes as depression and rated those men as less masculine. Men may not recognise these symptoms as depression in themselves. Access the paper here.
Rice et al. (2022) review the applicability of DSM depression criteria to men's experience. The DSM-5-TR now acknowledges gender differences, including men's greater likelihood of alcohol and drug misuse, risk-taking and poor impulse control, but these remain framed as co-occurring features rather than primary signs. The authors argue that gender-responsive practice needs to treat externalising symptoms as part of the depression picture, not as noise around it. Access the paper here.
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What can depression look like in men?

Depression usually surfaces through sadness, fear or vulnerability. Masculinities push against those, so distress finds other ways out. It tends to take two shapes: distress in the body, and behaviour that holds it at bay.

  • When his experience (loss, rejection) doesn't line up with his expression (withdrawal, anger).
  • When he covers up his experience using emotion suppression or minimisation.
  • When he distracts himself from his distress or attempts to numb emotions via excessive video game use, online activity, or pornography consumption.
  • When he is over-committed or over-worked at school or employment.
  • When he is increasingly relying on alcohol or other drugs to distract, avoid or numb distress.
  • When he needs access to and use of drugs or alcohol in order to calm down (feel "normal").
  • When he is showing increased irritability, conflict and anger, aggression or interpersonal violence (e.g., blaming and animosity towards others).
  • When he reacts to situations with excesses in anger/lashing out at others.
  • When he has increases in physical or somatic complaints (especially sleep or aches and pains, or complaints about declining physical health).
  • When he has a decrease in sexual interest (e.g., loss of libido) but not necessarily in sexual activity.
  • When he has increased risk taking behaviour or recklessness (e.g., dangerous driving).
  • When he shows poor impulse control and doesn't care about the consequences of his actions.

Watch for the masculine stereotypes that can camouflage these presentations clinically: the 'grumpy older man', the 'invincible young thrill-seeker', the 'party boy', the 'new dad's existential crisis'. These framings explain away what should be acted on.

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Knowledge check

David presented as a man on top of things, a successful career and a mask that held in public. What does his story show about recognising depression in men like him?

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Knowledge check

David was deeply depressed. But when he finally booked an appointment, he went in talking about his sleep and his exhaustion, not his mood. Why did he lead with his body?

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A person in conversation with their GP

Practical tools

Working with depression

Download the Male-Type Depression resource — a summary of the symptoms and the Male Depression Risk Scale (MDRS-7) with scoring guide.

Download
Pause for a mo'

Think of a male patient who came across as fine. Looking back, was there an opportunity to explore the conversation differently? Revisit the MALE framework and choose one technique that might have opened that conversation up. Write the exact words you would use.

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David

Good professionals make you go, this is not a weakness. You're dealing with an illness, not internal weakness. And for a male, that's a huge thing.

David

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Hear it from him

The men below show us what the research can't.

And finally, let's meet Tom.

K Kai
D David
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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

3.5 Meet Tom

Press play to meet Tom.

Tom

My health probably wasn't really much of a consideration as I grew up. Played state-level hockey, didn't have to visit the GP for too many things through my childhood. I didn't feel any barriers in getting help as I needed or asking for it. I joined the police in 2014 at the age of 19.

Things started to change in me. My sleep really started to deteriorate to the point I'd be waking up multiple times a night, struggling to fall asleep to begin with. And then the most prominent symptom for me was an inability to keep food down, particularly around exercise or heightened moments most of the time, and it continually got worse. Was quite nauseous, feel sick, throw up. Thought there must be something going on inside my stomach.

So that led me to seek help by booking to go to a GP. I really felt like I got on with him at that time. Thought, "Okay, this guy's pretty cool." We didn't really go into the background of exactly what had been happening in my life. It was more centered around the conversation of exercise, and he told me, "Don't want you to lose your gains, mate," based off me going to the gym a bit at that point, and gave me the anti-nausea tablets and said, "Come back in a couple of weeks if you're still struggling."

It didn't change anything in me at all. So I went back a couple of weeks later, hoping to see that same doctor. Couldn't get into him, so I went to a different doctor. Also got on really well with him. I left there that time with stronger anti-nausea tablets and some over-the-counter sleeping tablets.

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Knowledge check

What does Tom's appointment reveal about how masculine norms can operate in a consultation?

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Tom
Pause for a mo'

Based on your read of Tom and everything you've learned so far, what would you already be holding in mind, about what might be going on for him, and how he's likely to behave in this room?

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Tom's backpack

Acknowledging the whole man means recognising there's more in the room than the presenting complaint

Here's what else Tom was carrying. Select each brick to see what wasn't visible.

A brick

Select a brick

Select each brick to see what wasn't visible.

0 of 4 selected
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What you already know

The backpack shows what Tom was carrying. What you know about men fills in the rest, the part no consultation reveals on day one:

  • he sits in the age and demographic group at the highest risk of suicide
  • he's less likely to raise his mental health himself
  • he's more likely to downplay what he does bring in
  • his job makes disclosure feel costlier, not easier

None of this comes up on its own. Knowing it's likely to be there is what lets you go looking.

Pause for a mo'

Tom came in about his stomach. Underneath was trauma he hadn't named, a job that made talking feel impossible and a level of risk that doesn't show up in a nausea complaint. The gender lens is what brings that into view. What does it change about how you'd handle the next ten minutes with him?

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The suicidal man

In 2024, one in three men who died by suicide experienced a mood disorder (ABS, 2024). That's a significant pathway, but it leaves the majority of male suicides driven by other factors. Suicide is rarely the result of a single cause. It typically reflects the convergence of underlying vulnerabilities (early life adversity, trauma, mental illness, substance use) with acute stressors (relationship breakdown, job loss, bereavement, serious medical diagnosis). Mood-screening alone won't pick up the men whose risk sits in that wider picture.

The content in this section is drawn from mental health research with men who have experienced suicidal crises. It offers a way of understanding how masculine socialisation can shape the development and presentation of suicide risk.

Fazel and Runeson (2020) provide a comprehensive review of suicide epidemiology, risk factors and clinical management. They frame suicide through a life-course model in which predisposing factors (psychiatric disorders, family history, early-life adversity, previous attempts) interact with precipitating events (relationship breakdown, new diagnosis of serious illness, substance misuse, access to lethal means). The model reinforces why assessment needs to weigh both long-standing vulnerability and the acute trigger in front of you. Access the paper here.
Bennett et al. (2025) surveyed 2,660 men globally to identify which childhood adversities most increase male suicide risk. Bullying, emotional abuse, emotional neglect and maternal over-control raised the odds of suicidal ideation compared with no suicidal history. Sexual abuse further distinguished men who had attempted suicide from those with ideation alone, pointing to early adversity as a core vulnerability shaping later risk. Access the paper here.
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A note

Not yours alone to carry

Male suicide risk doesn't have a single cause. Situational stressors, masculine socialisation, mental illness, social disconnection and structural pressures interact in ways that are rarely traceable to any one thing. The responsibility for noticing and responding is shared across everyone in a man's life — partners, mates, family, employers, and the healthcare system.

Your role as a GP is important, but you're not carrying it alone.

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The role of masculinity in male suicide

Suicide does not affect men at higher rates simply because of biological difference. It's shaped by what men learn over a lifetime: to provide, to protect, to stay in control. When distress peaks, four threads of that socialisation converge:

  • Strength and resolve. Men tend to choose more lethal methods, which makes an attempt more likely to be fatal.
  • The need for control. When control slips, the loss can feel harder to live with than to leave.
  • Habituation to risk. Years of physical risk-taking and tolerance for pain lower the psychological threshold for self-harm.
  • Identity disruption. Events that threaten masculine identity (job loss, relationship breakdown, financial insecurity, social isolation) carry weight beyond their surface.

The clinical implication is that preserving a genuine sense of control matters at every stage of risk, and that life events touching masculine identity warrant closer attention than their surface details might suggest.

Bennett et al. (2023) present a comprehensive review of male suicide risk and recovery factors. Across 78 included studies, 96% documented an association between cultural norms of masculinity and male suicide risk. Access the paper here.
Pirkis et al. (2017) studied 10,000 Australian men and found that self-reliance, a widely acknowledged masculine norm, is a strong risk factor for suicidal thinking. Access the paper here.
River and Flood (2021) interviewed 18 Australian men who had attempted suicide, focusing on emotional restriction in the development of suicidality. The men described learning from childhood that expressing emotions like sadness reduced their masculine standing, while expressing emotions like anger could enhance it. The pathway to suicide for many men is built less on absent emotion than on emotion actively suppressed over decades. Access the paper here.
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Stages of suicidality

Male suicide rarely comes from nowhere. For most men, the path there follows a fluid trajectory that unfolds over weeks, months or years. Much of it hides in plain sight, in front of family, friends, workplaces and the healthcare system, but rarely recognised for what it is.

That trajectory tends to follow a pattern. The model in this section breaks it into three stages, to help you understand how risk develops over time.

Press play for an introduction to the stages of suicidality model.

Dr Zac Seidler

There's no doubt that there's a huge amount of individual variability in the way that men express and experience their distress.

Yet research has shown us that the link between risk factors, psychological distress and suicidal action is not static — but can actually follow a fluid trajectory with differing timelines across three stages.

The content of this section has been informed by our work with colleagues at the Black Dog Institute, University of Melbourne and the University of British Columbia in Canada. They really tried to delve deeper into how men get to the point of suicidal action — and most importantly, what can interrupt an attempt.

The stages described here are not necessarily distinct nor sequential, but they give us a frame for recognising what we might otherwise miss.

This content is designed to sit alongside your existing clinical skills, not replace them. When working with someone who may be at risk, you should continue to draw on your established assessment and intervention approaches. What this adds is a way of applying those skills with men in mind.

The following is an evidence-based overview of warning signs across three stages. Select each stage to expand.

Ridge et al. (2021) present a qualitative study exploring how 11 men moved towards, but subsequently stepped back from, suicide. Risk factors and opportunities for intervention are discussed throughout. Access the paper here.
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Hear it from him

Tom's story, part 2

Press play to learn more about Tom's experience.

Tom

So 2017 sort of carried on doing what I was doing. Something happened in 2018 that tipped me over. I carried on working through this whole period, and an incident where a colleague committed suicide that I attended. That was something where I went, I really need to get help. I was already struggling a lot, but I realised there's no way I couldn't get help for this. So I delved deeper into my PTSD. Severe depression, anxiety, sort of diagnosis came. I saw three different psychologists, one for over 60 appointments on mental health plans.

I was still working. I've worked the whole way through this. Obviously knowing that I shouldn't have been, but I was in a masculine mindset. I never saw myself as the masculine type, but in my mid twenties as a police officer, in an industry like that, I certainly didn't feel like I could be open about my mental health, out of fear of losing my job, respect, all the things that come with that. Sort of compounded by what I did for work as well. So I wasn't talking about it either. I saw different GPs a few times to keep seeing this psychologist, so I didn't have to pay for it. I wasn't getting asked the questions, for how this was actually going. Am I progressing with this person? Which I really wasn't. I was getting worse and worse, despite the sheer volume of appointments I was going to. Those conversations weren't being had about what's actually going on here.

Fast forward to 2020, 2021. I made a couple of attempts to take my own life in that period, within relatively short succession of each other, around three months. I had been prescribed antidepressants at this point, and the dosage just kept getting upped when I did visit the GP. So I was reluctant to go back and keep going through that process. They were numbing me out, but I wasn't getting the real help I needed to combat the PTSD. I eventually, on the last attempt on my life, I went, I can't keep doing this. I can't keep seeing this psychologist. I stopped seeing them and just kept taking the antidepressants. I just rolled the dice and said, I'll get this one last crack.

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Knowledge check

Tom describes his masculine mindset being "compounded by what I did for work." How should a GP weigh this?

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Knowledge check

Tom kept working, stopped talking and pushed through as he got worse. In the stages of suicidality, how should this pattern be read?

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Knowledge check

Across multiple visits, Tom's antidepressant dose was increased without anyone asking how he was finding the medication. He felt "numbed out" but didn't raise it. What's the practical move here?

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Part 3: Hiding in plain sight

3.6 Interrupt the downward spiral

The pathways into suicidality are complex.

Situational stressors, masculine socialisation, mental illness, substance use, social disconnection and structural pressures interact in ways that are rarely traceable to any single cause, and they're almost never the responsibility of any single person in a man's life. The techniques in this section are drawn from psychological and qualitative research with men who have experienced suicidal crises. They won't work for every man, and they aren't a substitute for the clinical judgement you're already using.

You will also rarely know exactly where a man sits along the stages of suicidality. What follows are evidence-based practices that may help you interrupt that spiral, which you can draw on depending on what you're hearing in the room.

A caveat

The content here is a way of applying a gender lens to your established suicide intervention practice. When working with any patient at risk of suicide, you should continue to draw on your usual assessment approaches, referral pathways and safety planning.

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A young man looking toward a list of practical tools

Practical tools

Working with suicidality

Seidler et al. (2021b) explored the pathways Australian men take into care following suicidal behaviour. Men most often sought help only after exhausting all forms of self-reliance, or after a critical conversation with someone who pushed them to seek help. Access the paper here.
Oliffe et al. (2021) conducted a qualitative study of men who had survived a suicide attempt. "Saving graces" emerged as either changing their own mind or being saved by others, highlighting what made the difference between attempt and recovery in men's own words. Access the paper here.
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MALE, revisited

The techniques in this section aren't separate from the MALE framework — they are the MALE framework, applied where the stakes are highest.

Download a summary of the MALE framework practical tools discussed in this section.

Download
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Hear it from him

Tom, continued

Press play to hear about what changed for Tom.

Tom

I booked in with a GP that I'd never met or heard of before, at the same clinic. It was probably the eighth different GP in that period that I'd seen. I don't think I saw the same one more than twice through that whole time. I went into that appointment at this point very sceptical, had lost pretty much all of that trust that I'd gone into this whole process with, just in the system, because it wasn't helping me and I just kept getting worse. So went in there for one last throw of the dice. And this GP, he just asked the questions. He asked me why I'd stopped seeing this psychologist. He asked me if the medication was helping, instead of just upping it. And really just asked about me, what was going on for me in my life. And I for the first time felt I could be open and honest with my doctor. He actually cared.

It was only 10 minutes. It felt like a long time, but he runs very on time, and he kept to that. In 10 minutes he wrote his report, asked me all the important questions, and gave me two options of psychologists from his experience that he thought would be really good matches for me, based off what I did for work and what I was presenting with. So I left there with a referral for two psychs, and a little bit of hope.

The assertiveness at that point didn't feel harsh or firm. It felt like care. He was firm on the fact that I wasn't leaving there without a clear plan of what was coming next, and a referral or two. And to me, instead of taking that personally with where I was at, I actually went, ah yeah, he's actually listening. He's taking this seriously for what felt like the first time in a long time. And at the end, he was the first person that had ever asked me if I was thinking about killing myself. That care felt like care for me for the first time in a long time. It felt different. And I needed different.

He's the first one that I actually felt a connection with. That care, that he wanted me to be a part of the process of my own recovery. Was such a real turning point for me. When you're in that space, you don't have much you feel to live for. Just each day's agony. To empower me a little bit with my own hope of recovery was awesome. I actually left there with that. At that point I needed hope. I didn't have it.

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Knowledge check

The GP involves Tom in writing the report and asks which of two psychologists he'd prefer. Tom describes feeling like he had "a little bit of control" for the first time. How could you extend this approach at the next appointment?

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Knowledge check

For Tom's GP, what did being the bridge look like?

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Knowledge check

The GP was the first person to ever ask Tom directly if he was thinking about killing himself. Tom says it "felt like care." What does this tell us about asking the suicide question with male patients?

SCREEN 44 · content

What now?

You started this course with a number: almost 8 in 10 Australian men see a GP each year (AIHW, 2023).

Most of them are already sitting somewhere in the arc of care you've just worked through. Some came in and never came back. Some came back with something that was hard to read. And some will walk in this week with a presentation that doesn't look like what the textbook describes.

Press play to hear from some of the experts about the opportunity in front of you.

Dr. Tim Jones

We've managed to conquer gaps like this before. I look at the amount of work we've done in supporting the mental health of mothers over the last 10 years. We've made huge progress there. I just think we need to take the same approach to men's health of doing better.

Prof. Magdalena Simonis.

It would be great if we didn't have the disparity in lifespan, and I think it would be absolutely wonderful if suicide, let's stop that. Healthier minds, healthier hearts make for healthy people and healthier relationships. There's that other big picture around how do we raise healthier boys, men, and also healthier relationships.

Dr. Tim Jones

All I'm hoping out of this work is that there's a lot more quiet conversations in general practices around Australia where men feel like they trust who they're talking to, come back, and that we, as professionals, feel like we're doing a better job of treating a section of our population that does really value the care. We just need to find the right way of delivering it.

The ripple

The case for doing this work doesn't end in the consulting room. When men engage well with healthcare, the effects move outward.

  • Poor mental and physical health in men is linked to increased risk of emotional and behavioural difficulties in their children.
  • Caregiving responsibilities, where men aren't supported to manage their health, most often fall to partners and family members.
  • The economic cost of avoidable men's health conditions in Australia was estimated at $10.7 billion in 2023, with $8.6 billion of that attributable to indirect costs including lost productivity and the burden on informal carers (HealthLumen, 2024).

Care leads to care

When men are supported to engage with healthcare, they are better able to care for themselves and the people around them. A man who comes back is a man whose family see care modelled. A man whose distress is recognised early is a man whose people aren't eventually carrying the weight alone.

Small changes in how you approach these consultations compound. Not just for him. For the people whose lives are shaped by his.

The Real Face of Men's Health is a landmark report from the Movember Institute of Men's Health, synthesising peer-reviewed research, national polling of men and caregivers, and original economic modelling. It is one of the most comprehensive pictures of men's health in Australia to date. Access the report here.
Gupta and Hook (2021) surveyed 644 men in the United States on their self-care practices and caregiving of others. Men who practiced holistic care for themselves (physical, emotional and social) were 44% more likely to actively care for others in their lives. Access the report here.
SCREEN 45 · content

The opportunity…

The next one walks in tomorrow.

SCREEN 46 · resources

Certificate of Completion and Resources

You've reached the end of Part 3: Hiding in plain sight.

Your certificate

Your RACGP CPD Statement of Completion is ready — generated from the details you entered at the start of the module. You can download a PDF, print it, or email it to yourself.

Additional resources

Tick the resources you'd like to keep, then email them to yourself. Anything you saved with the bookmark button as you moved through the module is already ticked for you.

    Tip: save resources as you go using the bookmark button inside each "MOUSTACHES LOVE RESEARCH" panel.

    Re-watch the videos

    Every video from this part, in one place — open any of them to watch again.

      Your reflections

      Review everything you wrote during the module, and email or print a copy to keep for your own records.

      You are almost done! Please click next in the bottom right hand corner to access and complete the post-course survey.

      Changelog

      Current version: v2.21

      v2.21 22 Sep 2026 Feature Current
      • The photographs fit their frames. Every video tile that shows a photograph of one person was enlarging it and cutting off the top and bottom of their face. They now sit in the frame exactly as they were taken.
      • Videos line up with the writing around them. On most screens the video sat narrower than the text and slightly to the right of it; it now fills the same column.
      • The same header and the same buttons in every part. Part 2 carried a smaller logo, no section name beside the progress bar, and its own button styling.
      • Quote screens are on black in every part, with the quotation marks easing in, and the Pause for a mo’ that sat on one of them has moved to the end of the screen before it.
      • A highlighted word now inks in purple. On the practical tools it was turning black against a dark photograph and disappearing.
      • The right expert on the right video. Videos introduced by one presenter show that presenter, and their transcripts name them.
      • Every man who is introduced by name now has his own photograph on the video tile, rather than the rotating set.
      • A tick replaces the circle on the “Just a starting point” note, and draws itself on as the screen arrives.
      • The crying-in-context screen is two panels, the copy beside the illustration, lined up with the Pause for a mo’ box below it.
      • The experts’ videos now look like the rest. Every video of a clinician or pharmacist opens on a photograph of them, with the caption on the same bar underneath that the men’s videos use.
      • A screen about one man shows that man. Where a video introduces someone by name, his own photograph fills the tile instead of the rotating set.
      • “View my reflections” is a button. In every Pause for a mo’ it now matches Save response instead of sitting beside it as a text link.
      • The quotation marks arrive and breathe. On every photograph that carries them they fade in and lift very slightly every few seconds.
      • The men’s stories now open on a photograph. Where a video of a man sharing his experience used to sit behind a plain black panel, it now moves through photographs of men from the Movember community, with the caption and the play button on a bar along the bottom so nothing covers a face.
      • A new look for the learning outcomes. The outcomes that open the course are numbered and set against a strip of portraits that changes as you read. The wording is exactly as it was.
      • The panels line up. Quote boxes, tip boxes and the practical tools used to sit at several different widths down the same page. They now share one.
      • Easier to read. TIP boxes and the feedback after a question are set at the same size as the rest of the body copy, and the “try saying” suggestions are bold and arrive one at a time.
      • A video slide that sat hard against the left edge is centred again. On the MALE framework screen in Part 2 the words and the video had drifted to one side of the page.
      • The grey band is gone from the expandable panels. Opening a “Moustaches love research” panel used to draw a shadow across the top of the text it revealed. Those panels, and the expandable stages, now sit flat inside their card the way the questions already did.
      • The Australian Government department has been renamed to the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing. Its logo is updated on the certificate.
      • A polish pass. The navigation screen now shows the real buttons, photographs and video boxes have a soft white edge, quotes that carry a source are set in the Men in Mind quote panel with its hand-drawn moustache, the expandable questions carry a moustache of their own, and several of the illustrations now move.
      • Share on LinkedIn. A new panel on the last screen, under your certificate. It hands you a ready-written post and the Men in Mind graphic for your profession, and opens the LinkedIn composer. You can change any of the wording first, and nothing is posted for you.
      • Straight into the content. The “How to navigate” and FAQ screens have been removed from this part — you have already seen them in Part 1, and they are still there if you want them.
      • Running the new RTL engine. Every control now has depth and lifts when you point at it, moving forward and back look different from each other, content rises in as you scroll, and video transcripts can follow the audio and be clicked to jump.
      • First build of MIM Pro v2. Version numbering restarts here, and this entry consolidates every v0.x change that came before it.
      • Everything you press now looks like it: the “Moustaches love research” panels, video tiles, the “Optional – click to respond” button, flip cards and answer options all carry the same shadow and lift.
      • A preview build, published to the test host only. Apart from the changes listed above, the course is exactly the live one.