Home as a Place of Refuge, Despair, and Self-Care for Men Living With Mental Health Challenges

Men's poor mental health outcomes and heightened risk for suicide have been linked to their maladaptive responses to life stressors. In this photovoice study of 21 New Zealand-based men who experienced depression, anxiety, and suicidality, participants' home emerged as an important place and resource for dealing with their mental health challenges. Utilizing the therapeutic landscapes "enabling places" framework combined with masculinities theory, we explored the affective, material, and social resources of home for determining how men's mental health challenges play out behind closed doors. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze individual photovoice interviews, revealing how home served along a continuum of enabling and disabling spaces. In this context, home could be a place of refuge, despair, and self-care for participants, and the specificities of those inhabiting forces are described thematically. In terms of refuge, the materiality of home created an affective sense of safety that afforded men spaces to privately conceal and deal with their mental health challenges. Home could also invoke despair in being a risky or disabling place where men felt trapped and isolated, heightening self-harm risks. These same spaces could also promote men's self-care practices in the context of managing their anxiety, depression, and/or suicidality. The current study findings confirm the need for more research that is place and space based to inform mental health supports for men. Implications for men's mental health promotion are discussed.