Are You A Hero, Anti-hero, Villain, or Underdog? How Counselling Can Help Men 18-26 Who Are Looking at Their Identity
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda
If you are a young man between eighteen and twenty six, living in places like Reading, Wokingham, Theale, Henley-on-Thames or Twyford, there is a question that tends to sit quietly in the background of your life. You might not say it out loud. You might not even frame it like that. But it shows up in other ways. It shows up in pressure, in frustration, in feeling behind, in comparing yourself to other men, in wondering if you are doing life right. That question is who am I? What do I want? Where do I want to go? What do I want to do with my life. Well, maybe it is not just one question, but a series of questions.
Identity is more complex than most people realise. It is not just about what you do for work or how confident you feel. It includes your sexuality, your roles in life, the expectations placed on you, your strengths and your weaknesses, your personality, and your capacity across different areas. That includes your mental capacity, your emotional depth, your physical limits, and your ability to connect socially. It also includes things people do not always think about, like your IQ, your EQ which is your emotional intelligence, and your AQ which is your adaptability. That last one matters more than most people think. Life changes quickly. The men who cope are not always the smartest or the strongest. They are often the ones who can adapt.
One way of beginning to explore these questions is to step back and look at the role you feel you are playing in your own life. Not in a literal sense, but in a psychological one. When you think about your life as a story, what kind of character are you? Are you a hero, an anti-hero, a villain, or an underdog?
This is not about putting yourself into a fixed box. It is about understanding the pattern you lean towards, especially under stress. Because when things get difficult, people tend to reveal their default position. I call it the default.
The idea of the hero is one that most men recognise straight away. The hero is the one who steps up, takes responsibility, and tries to do the right thing even when it is uncomfortable. From a psychological perspective, the hero often carries a strong sense of duty. He wants to protect, to provide, to lead, or to fix. On the surface, that can look admirable. And often, it is.
But in therapy, we look a bit deeper. Sometimes the hero role can become heavy. You might feel like you always have to be the strong one. You might struggle to ask for help because you believe you should already have the answers. You might take on too much responsibility for other people’s problems, quietly carrying stress that no one else sees. There can also be a fear underneath it. A fear that if you stop performing, if you stop being useful, then you lose your value. Perfectionism is a big problem with being the hero.
A useful reflection here is not just where you are being strong, but where you are allowed to be human. Even the strongest men need space to not have it all together.
The anti hero is more complicated. This is often the man who does what he needs to do, but not always in the cleanest or most socially accepted way. He might bend rules, challenge authority, or operate in grey areas. From the outside, he can look confident or even fearless. But in therapy, what often emerges is a different picture.
The anti hero can carry a deep mistrust of others. He may have learned, through experience, that playing by the rules does not always protect you. So he creates his own rules. He might rely heavily on himself and struggle to depend on anyone else. There can be a sense of isolation in that. A feeling of being separate from others, even when surrounded by people.
There is also often a tension inside the anti hero. Part of him wants connection, stability, maybe even a straightforward life. Another part resists it, pulls away, or sabotages it. In counselling, this is where the work becomes about integration. Not trying to turn him into someone he is not, but helping him understand why he operates the way he does and what it is costing him. We can look at attachement.
Then there is the villain. This is the role that most people reject straight away. No one wants to see themselves as the villain in their own story. But from a psychotherapeutic perspective, it is important to be honest about this part, because everyone has the capacity to harm, to manipulate, to act out of anger, jealousy, or control.
Being in a villain position does not mean you are an evil person. It means there are parts of your behaviour that may be hurting others or yourself. Sometimes this comes from unresolved anger. Sometimes from feeling disrespected or powerless. Sometimes from a need to regain control in situations where you have felt small.
In therapy, we do not shame this. We explore it. Because underneath behaviours that look destructive, there is usually something that has not been properly understood. There may be pain, rejection, humiliation, or fear that has not been processed. When these experiences are left unexamined, they can come out sideways in ways that damage relationships and self respect.
Facing this part of yourself takes honesty. But it also opens the door to change. You cannot shift what you refuse to look at.
The underdog is a role that many young men quietly relate to. This is the feeling of being behind, overlooked, underestimated, or not quite where you think you should be. You might compare yourself to others your age and feel like they are ahead. More successful, more confident, more sorted.
From a counselling perspective, the underdog position can go in two directions. On one side, it can build resilience. You learn to push, to persist, to keep going even when things are not in your favour. You develop grit. You prove to yourself that you can handle difficulty.
On the other side, it can turn into something heavier. You might start to believe that you are always going to be behind. That no matter what you do, it is not enough. This can lead to self doubt, avoidance, or even giving up before you have properly tried. There can also be a quiet shame that you carry, especially if you feel like you are not meeting expectations placed on you by family, society, or even yourself.
In therapy, we often work on separating your situation from your identity. Being behind in one area of life does not mean you are behind as a person. It also involves challenging the comparisons you are making and understanding where those standards have come from. This is where we might work on shame.
What is important to understand is that you are not just one of these roles. You can move between them depending on the situation, the people around you, and what you are dealing with internally. A man might be a hero at work, an underdog in his social life, and show anti-hero or even villain traits in his relationships when he feels threatened or misunderstood.
This is why counselling can be useful. It gives you the space to step back and notice these patterns properly. Not in a rushed or surface-level way, but in a way that allows you to understand what is driving them.
It also links back to how you see yourself, which shapes how you act. If you see yourself as the underdog, you might hold back or expect to struggle. If you see yourself as the hero, you might take on too much. If you see yourself as someone who cannot trust others, you might keep people at a distance even when you want a connection.
And this is where change becomes possible. Not by forcing yourself into a different role, but by becoming aware of the one you are already playing and asking yourself whether it is still working for you.
To take this further, one of the first things we often explore is how you see your life. Do you experience your life in the first person, where you feel present and involved. Or does it feel more like you are watching yourself from the outside, almost like you are in the third person, disconnected and going through the motions. Some men live their lives as if they are observers rather than participants. That can be linked to anxiety, depression, or even past experiences where switching off was the safest option.
We also look at the lens you use to interpret the world. Some men see everything through a moral lens of right and wrong. Others see it through loyalty and betrayal. Some through success and failure. Others through power, respect, or fear. There are men who view life through religion, politics, social identity, or relationships. None of these are wrong in themselves. But if you are not aware of the lens you are using, it will quietly shape your decisions without you even realising.
And this is where that quote from Yoda becomes more than just a line from a film. From a counselling and psychotherapeutic perspective, fear is often at the root of many of the struggles men bring into the room. Fear of not being enough. Fear of being rejected. Fear of being disrespected. Fear of failure. Fear of being exposed.
When fear is not acknowledged, it rarely stays as fear. It turns into anger. That anger can be directed outward at other people or inward at yourself. Over time, that anger can harden into resentment or even hatred. And underneath all of that is suffering. Not always visible, not always spoken about, but there.
Part of the work in therapy is helping you recognise what is actually underneath your reactions. A man might say he is just angry. But when you slow it down, there is often something else there. Something more vulnerable. Something he has not had the space or permission to look at properly.
Another important part of this journey is understanding your values. Not the ones you think you should have. The ones you actually live by.
Here is a question that can be uncomfortable but revealing. What would you not do for your family or to become successful. Where is your line. Some men will cut family off quickly if they feel disrespected or held back. Others will stay loyal no matter what, even if it is costing them their mental health. Some will chase success at any cost. Others will sacrifice opportunities to protect relationships.
These are not simple questions. And what you say in theory is not always what you do in reality. That gap between what you believe and how you act is often where a lot of internal conflict sits.
You may also come to realise something else. There are parts of your life that you can change, and there are parts that you cannot. A lot of men spend years trying to change things that are outside of their control. Trying to get approval from people who are not capable of giving it. Trying to fix relationships where the other person is not willing or able to meet them halfway. Trying to become someone else in order to be accepted.
At some point, there can be a shift. You begin to see that it is not always that the other person does not want to give you what you need. Sometimes they cannot. And if they cannot, no amount of effort on your part will change that.
That is a difficult realisation. But it can also be a freeing one. Because it brings you back to the question that matters most. Given what I cannot change, what can I choose.
You do have choice. More than you might think. Not total control, but meaningful choice. You can choose how you respond. You can choose what you value. You can choose who you spend time with. You can choose whether you face something or avoid it.
Therapy is a place where these conversations can happen properly. Not rushed. Not judged. Not filtered through what you think you are supposed to say.
If you are reading this and something in it resonates, then maybe part of you is already asking the question. Who am I, really.
You are allowed to question it. You are allowed to adjust it. You are allowed to grow beyond it.
If you are looking for a counsellor in Reading to explore this properly, my name is Cassim. I have a counselling practice on Castle Street, opposite Sweeney Todd.
Send me an email and we can have a free 30 min zoom call to see if we are right to work together.