In this short video, I explain what a men’s group can give you, what it usually cannot, and how one-to-one sessions by video help the 2 work together.
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Online therapy and men’s groups helps men who sit in a men’s group, circle or community, or are thinking about joining one, and want a confidential one-to-one space as well. We meet by video, in English, for sessions of one hour with 50 minutes of therapy, booked at times that fit your time zone and your group’s rhythm.
I help you digest what the circle stirs, or understand why groups of men have never felt safe. This page sits under online therapy for lonely men, within my online psychotherapy for men. My page on online loneliness therapy covers feeling alone for anyone, whereas this one is about men, their groups and the private work that sits beside them.
To begin, ask for a free 30-minute call or book a session. My client policy sets out the practical terms, and you are welcome to write to me.
Online therapy and men’s groups is for men, in any country, who have found a circle of other men or are looking for one, and who want a private space of their own too. Your group may meet in a hall, a forest or on a screen, and something in you has begun to move.
A men’s group is one kind of support, and some situations need another. If one of these is closer to yours, the link leads to the page that fits.
You can also send me an email
These reviews describe clients’ experiences of working with me. They come from my wider practice and do not all relate to online sessions. Each person’s experience is their own, and a review does not promise a particular outcome.
“Looking back over my 22 years of practice, I am convinced that a men’s group and individual therapy do different jobs, and that men are often disappointed because they expect one to do the work of the other. A good circle offers witness and belonging. It seldom has the time for the slow, private work on why a father’s silence still sits in your chest. In the room, one part of you wonders ‘Do these men really want me here?’ while another decides ‘I will listen, and my own story stays at home.’ Sometimes both arrive together: ‘Let me in, but not too far.’ You deserve both spaces, and each strengthens the other.”
Mark Colclough, MA, psychotherapist and EFT couples therapist
I am Mark Colclough, MA. I have practised since 2004 and offer online psychotherapy and couples therapy in English.
My training brings together your emotions, your thoughts and your relationships. My deep passion is the moment when what happens between you finally makes sense, to each of you and to each other. I have lived and worked in nine countries, so I know something of life across languages, cultures and borders.
Read about my background, or explore online psychotherapy and online couples therapy.
I meet regularly with experienced psychotherapists to reflect on my work, question my understanding and develop my skills. Supervision is part of the professional care I bring to individual and couples work, including online sessions.
My focus is thoughtful practice, integrity and responsibility.
You are welcome to ask about the kind of support you need.
Tell me where you are based and your time zone. We can then consider whether online sessions together are suitable.
Diego is 41, a Chilean product manager living in Berlin with his partner and their 2-year-old daughter. For a year he has joined an online men’s circle every second Sunday, with men from 5 countries on the screen. He is the one who asks thoughtful questions and keeps time. Last month another man said gently, ‘We never hear about you.’ Diego laughed, then lay awake furious and close to tears. He has skipped the last 2 meetings.
I would start with that sentence, and what happened in Diego’s body when he heard it. In our first video session he would probably notice how early he learned to be useful instead of known. That gives us a reason to work one to one, and very likely a way back into the circle.
I have presented this clinical example as a compound of 22 years of clinical practice.
The circle has opened something in you, and you are carrying home more than you can hold by yourself.
There is no correct moment to add individual therapy to a men’s group, and nothing has to go wrong first. If something has been stirred and not settled, if you hold yourself back in the circle, or if you cannot make yourself join one at all, that is enough. Over 22 years of practice I have seen group experiences open doors that need a quieter room to walk through.
In our sessions I help you see what the group touches in you, what you are guarding and what wants to change. The 6 questions below can help you check whether a one-to-one space would help now.
If it keeps happening, treat it as a signal. Perhaps you sleep badly after a meeting, replay one man’s words for days or feel raw well into the week. Something real is being touched, and it is leaking into your ordinary life.
I would look at what exactly is being stirred, whether it is new or very old, and whether it settles or builds. That tells us whether you are feeling the healthy discomfort of growth or a wound that wants focused care. If you recognise this, book a session with me and we can look at it.
Both can live in you, because they protect different needs. One part longs for the company of men who understand, perhaps something you never had with your father or brothers. Another remembers the schoolyard, the team bus or the barracks, where belonging meant hiding anything soft. You turn up, and you sit nearest the door.
I will not treat either side as the problem. I help you hear what the longing is after and what the fear remembers, so you can choose how close to go and how fast. The aim is to decide from strength, not from an old wariness.
Many men do, particularly after their first honest share. On the way home you rerun every sentence and wonder whether you said too much or sounded weak. At the next meeting you study faces, and if someone seems cooler you assume it is about you.
Wanting acceptance from other men is one of the oldest needs a man has. I help you quieten the alarm that hears rejection in every silence, compare your fears with what actually happened and learn to tell the group directly what you need.
This pattern turns up often in men’s work. You go to every meeting, speak from the heart, stay late, and then one evening it is suddenly too much. You miss a month and feel too embarrassed to return.
I help you slow this down until we can find the moment closeness tips into threat. Frequently it comes just after another man has really seen you. I respect that protective reflex, and I will also ask you to own the cost of leaving without a word. Together we find ways to step back that leave the door open.
Some men become the joker, the one who sorts the tea or the one who draws everyone else out. When the talk turns emotional, you go practical or glance at the clock. Nobody would call you distant, and yet nobody in the circle really knows you.
That distance is protecting something real, and I will not shame you for it. One to one, you can explore what sits behind it with no audience at all, and find out how to let more of yourself be seen at your own pace.
Men’s groups often raise that question, sometimes for the first time in a man’s life. Years of meeting other people’s expectations, at work, at home and in the culture you grew up in, can leave you unsure what is truly yours. That is the start of a real question, not a crisis.
I help you examine where your ideas of manhood came from, which still fit and which you keep out of loyalty or fear. Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette’s “King, Warrior, Magician, Lover”, with its 4 faces of mature manhood, can be a useful map, as long as it serves your own answer. Expect challenge from me, never a ready-made pattern to copy.
Book a session if the circle has already stirred something, or ask for a free call if you are still deciding.
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Tell me briefly what kind of support you are looking for.
Include your country and time zone so we can discuss whether online work together is possible and find a suitable time.
You do not need to explain your whole story in your first message.
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Understanding what the group stirs matters, and the change also has to reach your home, your work and your friendships.
Working with me beside your circle helps you make sense of what each meeting opens, spot the habits that keep you guarded among men and change things in ways that outlast the evening itself. Without one-to-one work, many men have the same moving evening again and again and go home unchanged.
I have been a student of men’s work since 2010. Eli Buren, a dear friend and mentor, has been a central influence. I have sat in his work many times. I also draw on Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, Robert Glover, Sam Keen and David Deida. I have used this work to add to and deepen my training as a psychotherapist.
In our sessions I guide and challenge you rather than only listen. The 6 questions below describe what we work towards.
Related reading: Why do I still feel lonely when I have friends? and Why is it so hard to ask for help when I’m struggling?.
I help you tell the centre from the surface. The tears you did not see coming, the irritation with one particular man, the urge to slip out early: each points at something underneath. Often it is grief, an old hurt with a father or brother, or a belief that you must prove yourself before men will accept you.
You get my honest reading and my view of what needs attention first. I will also question explanations that keep you stuck, such as ‘that group just is not for me’, when it may be exactly where you need practice. You can book a session with me to begin untangling it.
You can learn the early signs. There is usually a sequence: your arms fold, your jaw tightens, a thought arrives such as ‘I am nothing like these men’, and you start planning your exit. Once you catch the first link, there is a moment to stay, or to say aloud that something is happening.
I help you slow that sequence and see what triggers it and what it protects. Seeing it is only half the work. We rehearse a different response, you try it at the next meeting and bring back what happened.
Steadiness is not holding everything in or looking calm. It means staying present enough to feel what is happening and choose what you do with it. Many men know only 2 settings in company, shut tight or flooded, and there is a great deal of room between them.
Together we find where the wave begins physically, and how to ease it while still feeling it. Men often open up more easily side by side, busy with something shared, than when asked straight out how they feel. On our calls we use that, for instance by walking through the evening step by step.
First you need to be clear about your feeling, your need and which part of the load is yours. In a circle, many men either say nothing or say everything in one rush and regret it. Underneath there is often an old shame about needing anything from other men.
I help you find words that are honest and in proportion, so you can tell the circle ‘I need more time on this’ or ‘that remark hit me’ without drama. I will challenge you when you mute yourself, and also when you expect the group to hold everything you feel.
Clearer decisions come once you separate fear, loyalty and habit from what you actually know about the group and about yourself. Some circles fit you and are simply demanding. Others are wrong for you, and staying out of politeness costs you.
I help you weigh what each option would ask of you and what you might be avoiding. You hear my view, and the decision stays yours. Men’s groups and circles exist in many countries, from men’s sheds in Australia and Ireland to circles that meet online, and in recent years a wave of men’s communities has grown across Denmark. If one does not suit you, another may.
Lasting change reaches past the group evening. It shows up as a man you call between meetings, a new way of talking with your partner, more patience with your children or less need to prove yourself at work.
If you need a good deal of solitude, that is not something to fix. The goal is a life that holds both: time alone that restores you, and men around you who actually know you.
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You do not need to describe the group or have your story in order. We start with what is alive for you now.
When you begin, I listen, help you name what the circle has stirred or what keeps you out of it, and give the work a direction. You need not explain the whole history of your group, or your life, first.
This is a focused strand of my online psychotherapy, structured individual work on your inner life and your relationships, including those with other men. If the group has shown you that your relationship at home needs attention and your partner is willing, online couples therapy offers long-term relational development and healing. For a steady series of sessions, therapy discounts and bundles bring real savings and a plan agreed at the start.
I ask what brings you now, what your circle is like, what has stirred in you and what you hope will change. Not in one yet? Then we explore the pull of the idea and whatever keeps stopping you.
Before we finish, I give you my first understanding and suggest a direction, and you judge whether my way of working is useful to you. If you would rather talk before booking, ask for a free 30-minute call.
Individual work is the right choice when what needs attention is private, layered or old: your history, a loss, shame you cannot yet voice in front of others, or a pattern that keeps coming back in every group you join.
One to one, I give you direction and challenge from session to session and hold the thread between meetings of your circle. My page on online psychotherapy shows how this fits my individual work more broadly.
Couples work makes more sense once your relationship, not just you, is asking for steady care. If the changes you are making in the circle are causing friction at home, if your partner feels left out of this new part of your life, or if one argument keeps coming round, working on it together usually helps more.
With both of you on the call, I help you see the cycle you repeat, own your part and find steadier ways of being together. Online couples therapy is long-term relational development and healing.
That depends on what the circle is stirring and how much room your life has. If your circle meets fortnightly, our calls can fall in the weeks between.
To begin with, I suggest weekly or fortnightly video sessions. I will tell you if we meet too rarely to build on what the group opens, and when we can space out. Some men prefer a back-to-back block across a few days instead.
A bundle suits you when you want a run of sessions beside the circle and would rather not decide after each one.
A bundle gives you significant savings and the safety of a structured plan, and I will help you judge whether one fits. The details are on therapy discounts and bundles.
It has done its job when you can be yourself in the circle and in the rest of your life, and no longer need a private space to digest each meeting.
I review progress openly and do not encourage dependency. Sessions can grow less frequent, pause or end. Coming back years on with a different question means nothing has failed.
Not sure this is the right starting point? Here is how this page sits beside the options men in groups most often consider.
| Option | Choose it when | Pace |
|---|---|---|
| Online therapy and men’s groups (this page) | You are in a men’s group, or thinking of joining one, and want individual work as well. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions beside the group |
| Online therapy for lonely men | You feel cut off from friends and want to understand why, with or without a group. | Weekly or fortnightly video sessions |
| Online psychotherapy for men | You want to look at your life as a man broadly. | 1-hour video sessions at your pace |
| Online father wound therapy | The circle keeps bringing you back to your father and what you never had from him. | Weekly 1-hour video sessions at first |
It is individual psychotherapy by video, in English, for men who belong to a men’s group, circle or community, or are considering one, and want a confidential one-to-one space as well. It helps you work through what the group stirs and carry the changes into the rest of your life.
We go deep into your past, your body and the fathers, brothers and teachers who formed you. This page sits under online therapy for lonely men, because for many men a circle is part of the way out of isolation.
Come when something from a meeting stays with you for days, when you hold back what matters most, or when an old pain has surfaced that you are not ready to share with a room of men. Feeling that you need a bigger space is reason enough.
With 22 years of practice behind me, I look at whether the feeling is settling or spreading, and whether it links to your family or a long pattern. If it keeps returning, it deserves one-to-one attention.
Yes, often. Many men learned early that other men are rivals or judges, not friends. I make no promises about speed. What I can do is trace where that wariness began and let you try something new with me first, where little is at stake.
In my clinical experience, a man who stays closed among other men nearly always has a sound reason, such as a harsh father, a mocking older brother or a school that punished gentleness. I would focus with you on those reasons, respectfully, and on small steps towards trust.
It can be. When a circle works, it often touches things you have kept at a distance for years, and the first weeks can feel unsettling. That alone does not mean the group is wrong for you.
I help you tell the discomfort of growth apart from a group that is not safe for you. Groups differ a great deal in style, size and purpose, and many gather around a shared activity, so if one does not suit you, another may.
Because closeness with men can feel both necessary and risky. Some men chase it, join everything and feel hurt when it is not returned. Others hang back, stay polite and leave before anyone gets near. Each is a strategy you picked up long ago, on a playing field or at the family table.
I help you recognise your own direction of travel and its price. Then we try out other ways of being among men: saying what you think, remaining when it turns awkward and taking a step back while still keeping contact.
No. Their stories are theirs, and I would want you to protect them. Our attention goes to your own reactions, thoughts and choices, and what they connect to in your life. When our first hour ends, you will know how I see things and where I suggest we go.
There is nothing to prepare. Book your first session, or begin with a free discovery call if you have questions.
My recommendation is a course over a few months, weekly or every second week, rather than one conversation. That is usually enough to work through what has surfaced and change how you are in the circle.
Over 22 years of practice I have found it works well to agree a first stretch, review it honestly and then decide together how to go on.
Not at all. Many men find the 2 fit well together: the circle in your own town, and a private hour by video from home, where nobody from the group will see you arrive. If you move country, the individual work comes with you.
You need a quiet room, headphones and a steady connection. Calendar times appear in your local time. Any doubts can be settled on a free call.
Each session is one hour of individual psychotherapy online, with 50 minutes of therapy. For the fees, shown in US dollars, visit my prices page.
Planning a regular rhythm next to your circle? A bundle takes 10 per cent off each session and gives the work a firm outline. See therapy discounts and bundles.
Go ahead and book a first session, or request a free 30-minute call if a question needs answering beforehand.
When no slot works, or a meeting has left you badly shaken, get in touch with me directly. Some of my calendar is held back for urgent cases, and I can usually find a time within days, as acute online psychotherapy explains. Book now, and we begin where you are.
You can also send me an email
I want therapy to help you understand your experience and make choices you can use in everyday life. We pay attention to feelings, needs and the responses that happen before you have time to think.
Our online room should offer enough trust and honesty to explore what is difficult. I bring attention and professional judgement. You bring your experience, questions and the right to say when something does not fit.
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P.S. I’ll call you in a bit!
