Set in rural New Zealand, this presentation outlines PhD research that addresses mental health seeking for men. Fairclough's (2015) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), alongside Kendall and Wickham's (1999) Foucauldian Critical Discourse, is used to examine ideology, power, and social relations across divergent social orders within New Zealand. Drawing on Foucault's theory of power, the study questions the power imbalance that may marginalise men and prevent them from seeking help.

In New Zealand, mental health and support services remain a focus for the government and media. Rural locations have unique challenges, including the need to improve the understanding of factors that hinder accessing mental health services. This study highlights the conditions under which mental health services and support exist and, thus, how alternatives may be possible. The research combines people's experiences, backgrounds, and world perspectives as factors influencing the provision of mental health support.

The study aligns with other research that discourses around masculinity in rural areas emphasise stoicism, self-reliance, and toughness. However, it is questioned that rather than being an impediment, lack of meaningful support and services are the main factors for not seeking help rather than from a 'masculine' positionality. This critical discourse study highlights the need for a more nuanced and inclusive approach to mental health support in rural New Zealand. The presentation will address the challenges of accessing and receiving mental health support when the person seeking help is often overlooked by the very services purporting to be the helper.

Three Key Learnings:

1. Whose needs are being met, the system or those seeking help?
2. Shifting the landscape: Why we need to be more creative- more services are not solving the problem. The drive has been to shift from big psychiatric institutional models to community-led ones. Yet the focus remains on significant unwellness to access a service- moving the proverbial deckchairs and expecting a different outcome is naive.
3. Barriers to accessing mental health support are more than men being staunch, or about masculinity - we need to go beyond mental health services and spend capital on reconnecting communities and actual belonging.