West Hollywood barber shop offers men hair cuts and therapy, calling it hairapy

A West Hollywood barbershop saw the need to offer men not only cuts and shaves, but also a trained ear to listen and offer support.

Spike Eldib, a barber at Entourage, said that sometimes the barber's chair feels more like a therapy couch, with regular customers opening up, talking, and asking for advice.

Men are significantly less likely than women to seek mental health help, and the National Institutes of Health says that's partly due to societal norms and the notion that they should handle it on their own.

"Whatever they have on their mind, an issue that they can't tell mom, dad, friend, anything they can say it here in the barber shop," Eldib said.

That's exactly what long-time customer Matthew Berdin does. He's an emergency room nurse, a job that he says is physically and emotionally demanding.

"Holding all that inside is not very good for you overall, just not even like your mental health, but like your overall health," Berdin said.

Eldib recently decided to formalize the supportive conversations that have long been happening in barbershops. He launched Hairapy.

Many barbers at Entourage are now being counseled on intentional listening and supportive conversation. Eldib noted that there are some challenges, such as when questions are too difficult to answer.

This is where Neal Tobisman, a licensed family and marriage therapist, comes into the picture. He sees Hairapy as another tool to support mental health.  

"Sometimes there are barriers in terms of people just not even knowing who to speak to about it or there might be financial or insurance issues," Tobisman said.

He also believes barbers are in a unique position to spot red flags and share information about important resources.

Hairapy joins a larger movement of barbers turned mental health advocates. The Confess Project focuses specifically on connecting Black men with mental health care. During the last decade, it's spread to thousands of barbershops nationwide.

"There is a lot of stigma, and it's resulted in a lot of people just kind of trying to manage these things on their own and just feeling kind of increasingly isolated and unsupported," Tobisman said.

The overriding hope is to help men overcome mental health barriers with support from barbers they trust.