NEWBURY PARK : Men Share Worries Caused by Recession

Seventeen men got together one evening last week to share their pain, fear and anger about the recession. It was the first meeting of “An Evening for Men,” a support group for men personally affected by the downturn of the economy.

“I needed somebody to talk to, just to get it off my chest,” said Camarillo resident David Stolt, 36, after the meeting in Newbury Park.

Stolt said his landscaping career “dried up rather nicely” from the prolonged drought.

“I’ve got to get a job,” said Stolt, who has a mortgage and three children. “I can’t get a job because of the state of the economy. I can’t get a job unless I want to go scrub toilets or flip burgers for minimum wage.”

The group’s purpose is not to analyze the political or economic causes of the recession, or to help men find a job, said its founder, Corbett Phibbs, a Newbury Park family therapist. Instead, Phibbs said he intends the meetings to provide a safe atmosphere for the men to reveal their emotions and to regain “that deep masculine energy” for solving problems.

Phibbs said he plans to continue the meetings, at no charge, on the second Friday of each month in his office.

“Society has a real negative view of non-successful men,” said participant Ron Resner, 38, of Westlake. “For men to really share what’s going on with them, they have to feel safe.”

Rather, the meeting began with the men passing around a large, heavy rock, Phibbs said.

“It’s a ritual to let them acknowledge the burden they have being men, how much money they have to make,” Phibbs said. He also passed around a mask, asking participants to say who they are behind their “masks.”

Women are excluded from the meetings, Phibbs said, because men are “taught instinctually to get strong and quiet around women.”

“When you’re scared and you’re feeling fragile, and your wife and kids are looking at you wondering what’s going on, you don’t feel comfortable saying, ‘I’m scared, and I don’t know what’s going on,’ ” said Moorpark resident Phil York, 48. York said he hasn’t worked steadily since last fall.

Even for men to express emotional pain among themselves is “not the American way,” Stolt said. “It’s not macho. But, hey, we’re human.”