Source: Photo by Sebastiaan Stam on Unsplash

As news stories about incels, or involuntarily celibates, proliferate, if you're a parent, you may be asking yourself what makes someone become an incel?

This subset of society is comprised mainly of young men who feel entitled to sex with women and in the most extreme cases believe violence is a solution for their relational and sexual frustrations.

How does someone become an incel? What characteristics make one vulnerable to it? As a psychotherapist who works with many men, (incel or otherwise), I believe we need to stop thinking, "What's wrong with them?" and take a stance of "What happened to them?"

These young men are disillusioned, angry, and are looking for relational and/or sexual validation to temper all their past insecurities, hurts, and deep wounds. Some have experienced abuse, neglect, or humiliation from loved ones. Some have been bullied and teased mercilessly for their looks, interests, and even ethnic heritage.

In the end, what they feel is a sense of rejection: They have no one to confide in about their physical, emotional, or relational traumas growing up. Without a human being to give them a sense of security, emotional attachment, and bonding, they are left to fend for themselves.

In my generation growing up, we had "latchkey kids," where kids were left unsupervised for much of their upbringing due to parental neglect either by choice or by necessity (parents working long hours). But these kids usually found solace and friendship with other children to play with in their respective neighborhoods.

With the current Generation Z era and the earlier millennial generation, however, this population sometimes becomes "latched to the internet" kids. They look for validation via online forums, websites, and social media. But with few real relationships, their emotional growth is stunted. Instead of taking ownership and responsibility for their hurts, they are stuck in a perpetual cycle of shame and blame.

They feel the weight of inadequacy, defectiveness, and abject self-hatred that can eventually lead them to blame attractive members of society for their lot in life. A May article in New York Magazine profiled incels doling out thousands of dollars for plastic surgery in an attempt to turn themselves into "Chads," physically attractive men whom they believe society views as masculine, desired, and accepted.

But despite the physical changes, the story concludes that these men have not healed from the internal scars that drove them to plastic surgery in the first place.

These young men are often also devoid of true, male role models. Instead, they turn to authors of books who "teach" them how to pick-up women using tactics that hinge on targeting a woman's insecurities. These are their mentors into adulthood.

In addition, toxic masculinity has often taught these men to never show weakness, to degrade women, and to objectify them. Consequently, they detach from themselves and others. They struggle with connection, vulnerability, and authenticity. They are challenged to find their core, their true self, and their sense of purpose, instead fantasizing that a sexual relationship will cure what ails them, not realizing it's a mirage: The tonic for their souls can not be found externally but must be found internally.