Using Stories to Treat the “Boy Crisis of 2025”
Image: Snap the Whip (1872) by Winslow Homer Butler Institute of American Art / Public Domain
Part two of a conversation with therapist Tyler Schueffner, LCP-IT
You can read part one of this two-part conversation here.
In a guest essay featured on the front page of the Opinion section of the NYT on Sunday, August 17, 2025, “Boy Crisis of 2025, Meet the ‘Boy Problem’ of the 1900s,” the social theorists Robert D. Putnam and Richard V. Reeves described how the problems boys and young men in the united States face today—technological change, immigration, growing socioeconomic inequality, and increasing detachment from civic, familiar, and social life—mirror those of the 1900s, yet how our response today is not matching how society rallied to address these issues then. “In short,” they concluded, “today’s boy crisis demands a new call to men—and for men to answer that call.”
Tyler Schueffner, LPC-IT, is a trauma-informed, existentially grounded therapist who has been deeply engaged in dealing with the crisis Putnam and Reeves describe. He has spent the past twenty years working with at-risk youth and men in Madison, WI. In our first interview, we explored the broader issues facing boys and men today. Here, we discuss in more detail his uniquely varied and in-depth approach to working with men and boys, especially those from working-class and marginalized communities.
Dale Kushner: Why are narrative therapy and therapeutic storytelling so important in your work, especially with traumatized clients?
Tyler Schueffner: In my experience, men connect with stories more naturally than speaking directly to their feelings. In a sense myth, folktales, poems, and music provide an access point to the emotions that often remain stuck below the surface.
In another way, stories may function as “exposure” with a measure of emotional safety. We may be able to listen to someone else's story, draw parallels to our own and strengthen the adaptive neural networks that eventually guide us as we confront the wounds we live with.
Narrative, storytelling, and creativity invite individuals into symbolic dialogue with their inner world. They awaken the imagination through metaphor, deepening insight beyond diagnosis. Storytelling is cathartic, it’s often communal, and when guided by responsible teachers, it’s deeply healing.
DK: Why does telling our stories help people heal?
TS: Humans are storytellers; it’s how our intellectual system creates meaning; the way we experience, organize, recall, craft, and share stories shapes our identity and worldview. These stories are not mere entertainment—they carry wisdom about our values, morality, and purpose.
Everyone carries stories of hardship that were overwhelmingly uncomfortable, causing stress, fear, sadness, anger, regret. These events often become pivotal to our identity and personality, they can aid or stunt our growth, becoming “core” memories. We naturally attach meaning based on our beliefs and experience at the time of the event… but what if we are not the same person now as we were then? Can we reimagine those memories and shape a new story with new insight?
Close your eyes and recall any story from your life. Notice the themes, details, lighting, scent. Feel into the memory, explore it, experience it, then breathe out, and notice your feet on the ground, your heart rate, the vividness of being aware. Why that memory? That story? Now feed it, unpack it, and see what else that memory has to share. Did it change? Did it reveal something new? Would you be open to feedback? Who is protecting that memory/story?
I often draw from Arthurian myths, especially Percival’s journey—from naïve ambition to humbled wisdom. Raised in fear and ignorance, Percival seeks glory but instead finds hardship, grief, and humility. His transformation teaches that true growth comes not from strength or intellect, but from failure, reflection, and service. Myth helps us reframe the past and reclaim the self with meaning.
The mythopoetic approach in therapy draws on myth, archetype, symbol, and story to explore the deeper layers of identity, purpose, and meaning. Stories shape how we understand ourselves and the world—not as entertainment, but as carriers of moral and psychological wisdom.
DK: What is trauma-informed, existentially grounded therapy?
TS: At its core, a trauma-informed and existential framework for therapy honors both the physiological imprint of trauma and the deeper human longing for meaning, purpose, and belonging.
A trauma-informed approach starts with understanding that trauma is not just remembered—it’s lived in the body. Healing, therefore, must include the body and spirit, not just the mind.
Trauma fractures our existential awareness. Viktor Frankl[i] and Irvin Yalom[ii] highlight how suffering often emerges when we confront death, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness. Both writers stress the importance of choice and participation in all of life’s experiences. These aren’t simply abstract ideas—they’re felt realities, especially for clients navigating profound grief, loss, or identity rupture. These existential explorations require mentorship, guidance, and meaningful space for processing.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) aligns beautifully with existential work by helping clients encounter their pain without collapsing into it. IFS removes the culturally reinforced strategies of shaming as a means towards change. We learn to lean into compassion for all our parts, especially the parts that work hard to keep us safe and can harm us. When we increase our capacity for self-compassion and empathy, we begin to apply that to our external relationships as well.
Ultimately, I see this work not as problem-solving medical intervention to “fix illness” but as soul-tending—holding space for people to remember who they are beneath their wounds, helping clients rediscover wholeness, purpose, and a deeper connection to self, others, and the world around them.
As poet Mary Oliver asks, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”[iii] That question, to me, is at the heart of existential trauma-informed therapy.
DK: You use EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) with clients. How do you integrate them into a holistic treatment plan?
TS: Healing begins with self-awareness and non-judgmental curiosity, allowing us to notice patterns, insights, and strengths. From this foundation, we build adaptive resources.
We may decide to integrate EMDR into the memory processing experience, specifically to address the somatic experiences of traumatic/activating memory. That said, EMDR is most effective when AIP resourcing has been reinforced and strengthened, and for some this can take a long time depending on the severity of trauma and the weight of our negative thoughts and beliefs.
I think of it as an editing process. We start with a passionate or pervasive idea; we sit with it and then reflect on it. When we review it, we may find that we have missed some critical details, connections, or identify obvious errors. Each time we review the content we reflect on it and find new threads or perhaps recognize that some parts don’t fit.
The key is that we are working with it, listening to it, we participate and realize we can make choices about our lives. We decide what we want to keep and what we want to let go of. Through reflection and participation, we realize we have agency—to revise, reframe, and choose how we move forward with purpose.
[i] Frankl, Victor E., Man’s Search for Meaning (1946). Beacon Press.
[ii] Yalom, Irvin D., Existential Psychotherapy (1980). Basic Books
[iii] Oliver, Mary, “Poem 133: The Summer Day,” New and Selected Poems (1992). Beacon Press.
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