Patti Henry, M.Ed., L.P.C., is the author of The Emotionally Unavailable Man: A Blueprint for Healing.

She is a psychotherapist who has been in private practice since 1988, working with men and women individually, and with couples. She began her career developing women’s programs in psychiatric hospitals in an attempt to empower women. Her focus and research shifted, however, when she noticed how desperately men needed healing as well.

Ms. Henry received her graduate training at the University of Houston where she did her independent study and research on, Codependency: Learning to Break the Cycle. She has appeared on the PBS series, Mental Health Matters, as an expert in marital therapy. Ms. Henry speaks extensively across the country, dedicated to healing emotional unavailability. She lives in Houston with her husband and two sons.

A word from Patti:

There have been times in our country’s history where the general populace operated under totally incorrect beliefs. Here are three of the Big Ones:

1. It’s okay to steal land and massacre a population in the process.

2. It’s okay to own another human being ñ not to mention beat him, chain him, and take his family away at will.

3. It’s okay that women have no voice in developing policies that will affect them because they are not bright enough to understand such complexities.

That’s history: American Indian genocide, slavery, women’s suffrage.

This is current: complicit child abuse. Today’s totally incorrect belief sounds like this: It’s okay to force little boys to cut off from their feelings, to be ashamed of them, and to stop developing their emotional selves. Further, it’s good for them.

How crazy is that? It’s child abuse to do this to our little boys. Both male and female babies are born with their emotional selves intact. Why do we insist our boys must not be allowed to keep or develop such a vital part of who they are? It is reminiscent of the former Chinese cultural expectation that females have small feet. Parents would bind little girls feet and break their toes to stunt their growth. The result of this barbaric behavior? Crippled women who endured lifetimes of severe pain when they walked or tried to run on their too small and deformed feet.

This is what we are doing to our little boys as well: crippling them. Taking away their chance to develop empathy by preventing them from being free to feel their own pain and be comforted. Without empathy for others’ pain and suffering, the child is unable to create compassionate solutions. Bullies are born. This is not good for our little boys. This is not good for our world. For our emotionally handicapped little boys grow into emotionally handicapped men.

We must become awake to the societal damage caused by this: divorce, infidelity, poverty, domestic violence, pornography, unethical business tactics, addiction, and even stealing, murder and war. We must, as a society, come together and say, "No more!" to this complicit child abuse. I envision a day when no one says to a little boy, "Suck it up. Big boys donít cry." What a different world we will be able to create with those emotionally available boys who grow into compassionate, empathic, emotionally available men.