Men's Mental Health Done Differently

Each day in Australia, seven men will take their own lives. University of Newcastle researchers are working alongside men with lived experience to explore new ways for more men to get the help they need.

Around two-thirds of Australian men experiencing psychological distress never seek professional help. For those who do, many disengage early.

Existing services help many men, but for others, asking for help runs against deeply ingrained expectations about being strong, self-reliant and in control. Finding new ways to reach these men is one of the most important challenges in mental health care, in Australia and around the world.

Associate Professor Myles Young is tackling this challenge through a nationally recognised body of work that’s reshaping how mental health support is designed and delivered for men.

His research is grounded in two simple but fundamental questions: what makes men want to seek help, and do existing supports fit the way men live their lives?

To answer those questions, he created the Good Talk Lab – a team of researchers, clinicians and men with lived experience who work together to develop and test new ways to connect men with mental health support. Their research into three key interventions is showing immense promise.

Walk-and-Talk Therapy

Lower uptake and higher dropout rates for traditional psychotherapy suggest this form of support may not meet the needs of many men. So, the team at the Good Talk Lab decided to reframe the approach and examine the impact of taking the sessions outdoors.

Walk-and-Talk Therapy provides the same psychological support, just delivered outside – with men engaging shoulder-to-shoulder with a therapist rather than sitting face-to-face in a consulting room.

An initial pilot study has shown promising outcomes, and the team is now running the world’s first randomised controlled trial to compare walk-and-talk therapy with conventional indoor therapy for men with depressive symptoms.

Better Left Said podcast

For some men, walking into a therapist’s office is still a step too far. Research by Associate Professor Young and his team found that podcasts offer a promising alternative.

Nearly half of adult Australian men listen to podcasts regularly, and features like privacy, portability and self-paced engagement align with what men say they want from support.

Drawing on expert guests and lived experience voices, Better Left Said explores topics relevant to men's mental health and wellbeing through a familiar, everyday medium that men can access independently, when and where the need it.

Tackling physical and mental health together

For many men, mental and physical health challenges don't arrive separately. Yet most programs target one or the other. For men especially, finding support for either – let alone both at once – can be difficult.

Associate Professor Young led a multidisciplinary team that investigated whether SHED-IT Recharge – a self-guided, online adaptation of the University’s evidence-based weight loss program – could improve physical and mental health simultaneously.

Designed to address men’s specific needs, the three-month program is entirely self-directed, with no appointments or professional contact required.

EARLY FINDINGS

Walk-and-Talk therapy:  Nearly 40 men from the Hunter region signed up for the Walk-and-Talk pilot study. Attendance, satisfaction and mood improvements were strong across the walk-and-talk and control groups, with walk-and-talk participants reporting larger reductions in stress and anxiety. While a larger trial is exploring benefits in more detail, initial findings – which were featured by the American Psychological Association – suggest the approach is a viable treatment option for men.

SHED-IT Recharge trial: Men participating in the trial lost more weight and experienced greater reductions in depressive symptoms than those in the control group, with benefits maintained at six months. More than half also achieved a clinically meaningful reduction in depression symptoms, compared with around one in five control participants. The findings highlight the potential of scalable, self-directed programs to reach men who may not otherwise seek support.

Better Left Said: The team successfully recruited men from across Australia to take part in a pilot trial of the Better Left Said podcast. Results are currently under peer review and will inform a larger trial.

More information:

Associate Professor Myles Young
P: (02) 4921 6096
E: myles.young@newcastle.edu.au
W: goodtalklab.com

Last updated September 2026

Associate Professor Myles Young leads the University of Newcastle’s Good Talk Lab, is a member of the University's Global Sport and Movement Collaborative and is an affiliated researcher with the Hunter Medical Research Institute.

Associate Professor Myles Young

It’s not that men don't want help. It’s that the help on offer doesn't always meet their needs. We’re working to change that.