Dr William Pollack: Real Boys' Voices

(Addenda $44.95)

Review: Gilbert Wong

Dr William Pollack, a clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, runs the ongoing Real Boys project looking at the mental and emotional health of American male adolescents.

This is the second book on the subject and delves more into how boys confront their concerns.

The tragic truth is that, as here, youth suicide rates are climbing and overwhelmingly these are young males.

Pollack has found a deep sadness and what he calls an "immobilising depression" among young males because of the "boy code" which requires them to mask emotion or expressions of weakness or desperation, turning numb and mute in their distress.

This is an important book that will have relevance to those who know, love and remain confused about what is going on with their own adolescent boys.

Would that such a project were able to take place in this country.