“There is something pernicious about the wish to persuade people,” writes the psychoanalyst Mr Adam Phillips in On Wanting To Change. Phillips compares persuasion – whether it be political or personal – to religious conversion, an act of convincing that can lead to resistance and fear. As a paid-up believer in therapy, I feel I am constantly trying to persuade people in my life to give it a go, confident it would help them if they only tried. Yet, when I myself was asked by an ex-boyfriend to see a therapist a few years ago, I rolled my eyes to the high heavens.

However loving the intent, persuading someone to go to therapy can easily be received as hostile. “He acted as if I was suspicious and projecting false problems onto him,” Sofie* says of a former boyfriend whose unresolved baggage from a dysfunctional upbringing concerned her. “I tried to find a back door by suggesting couple’s therapy, but he said it would be pointless and that I was the problem.”

Meanwhile, Leo* took offence when his boyfriend asked him to go to couples therapy. “I felt [his] view of me was ‘you’re not good enough to be in this relationship’ and I was slighted by that stance.”

This dynamic is exacerbated down gender lines. “When a woman tells a man to go to therapy, he will likely feel criticised,” says Dr Karen Lewis, a psychologist in New York. “Men tend to deflect the blame – if they knock a vase over on a table, they’ll say, ‘Who put it there?’”

Yet, men are also less likely to see such ruptures in the first place. “For women, there is a little crack and they see there is a problem,” Lewis says. “They want to fix it before it gets bad. Men typically think: ‘If it ain’t broke don’t fix it – if we talk about it, it will only get worse.’”

As anyone who has been overzealously recommended a TV series or podcast will know, telling someone to do something can make them even less likely to do it. “My wife lent me a book years ago and it just sat in a pile,” says Mr Matt Davies, a London-based relationship therapist. “She kept asking me if I’d read it. I finally did after 10 years, and it was great. Sometimes you just have to wait for the right time. There is a paradoxical theory of change. When you push for change, you get resistance. When you let go, the other person can step back and see things for themselves.”

Whether it’s therapy or a Netflix show, people generally like to come to realisations themselves. “You can come in with a two per cent desire for change,” Lewis says. “But if this doesn’t change after a few sessions, it’s a total waste.”

Dr Zac Seidler, a Melbourne-based clinical psychologist and expert in men’s mental health, agrees. “The fundamental way that you gain progress in therapy is through a desire for change,” he says. “As therapists that’s what we leverage to our advantage – the hope they can see things can be different.”

Gentler forms of rhetoric are the most effective. Lewis suggests asking questions: “Are you concerned about the fact that your anger gets out of hand? Are you concerned about your drinking? You can set the scene, so they realise it is a problem. Then add: ‘I wonder if a therapist could be helpful.’ But if they don’t recognise an issue, it’s a total waste of time.”

Mr Christopher Lynn-Logue, a New York-based therapist believes “encourage” rather than “persuade” should be the operative word. “Mention that you think it could work for them. Say: ‘I see the toll this is taking on you,’ and that they might benefit from professional support to help them get to the other side.”

Despite being in the middle of psychotherapy training himself, Mr Tom M Ford decided it was better not to tell his struggling friend to get help. “Everyone had been telling him to try it,” he recalls. “And he was like: ‘Shut up!’ Although therapy worked for me – and I was belligerently against it at first – I don’t know what he needs because I’m not him. He has clearly signalled he doesn’t want help. If you assume what someone needs, it can close them up more – they might not come to you when they really need help. All you can do is say this is what has worked for me – if you want any more options, let me know. The best thing I can be is a loving friend.”

If you go to therapy, simply being open about it can be powerful. “No one wants to be that guy at the party going on about his therapist,” Ford says. “But when it’s appropriate, I’ll talk about it. Someone may feel a resonance and that’s way more powerful than saying, ‘You need to do this.’ If they take themselves, it will be far more meaningful.”

Lynn-Logue agrees. “Make everyone at work know you go to therapy on Monday evenings,” he says. “I like to make it part of my daily routine: I go to the gym. I went to Starbucks. I went to therapy.”

Among men, the normalisation of therapy has even greater significance. “We have historically been told to hold it all in, not to let emotions rule us,” Lynn-Logue says. “For men of colour, this is only magnified.”

Lynn-Logue explains that many of his clients are Black and Latino, and they come to him via partners who have seen his page and think he would be a good fit. “They think I look like someone my partner would engage with – that they’d feel safer working with a Black man. Conversations around race and gender can be heavy things to discuss with someone who isn’t the same race as you. Therapy is about trust. It’s like a dance. And you’ve got to find the right dance partner.”

But Seidler similarly believes therapy needs to be reframed for many men before they can believe in its utility. “I’ll sit down with men and do the maths – the amount of days of work they’re missing, the impact a relationship breakdown will have on them because their wife has told them to fix themselves or it’s divorce and how much that will cost them.”

Seidler suggests therapy be reframed as developing skills or tools of self-actualisation. “It’s an upskilling-based environment where you get the tools to help you live life and the capacity to be a better man,” he says. “And who doesn’t want that?”

Therapy is not the only answer, Ford says. “It can feel like a luxury. There is other stuff you can do – men’s groups, or 12-step programmes [regardless of whether you have substance-abuse issues or not]. A lot of men don’t want to go into their past. But what they need is community and connection and love – you can even get this through a five-a-side football team.”

“Men prefer much more informal support,” Seidler says. ‘There needs to be a collective of guys looking out for one another – who understand how to talk about this stuff with their friends.”

Seidler’s Conversations platform gives men the vocabulary and a space to practise difficult conversations around mental health, however awkward they may find it. “It’s a full-on statement, but one uncomfortable conversation is better than going to your friend’s funeral,” Seidler says. “Given the rates of suicide among men, we shouldn’t underestimate the amount of suffering. A conversation can open things up – shine a light into the darkness.”

*Names have been changed