Inside The Privileged Man, the support group for men who have it all

‘It’s like that whole #MeToo thing,’ says Esmond Baring, 44, scion of the famous banking family and founder of The Privileged Man, a support group for, er, privileged men. ‘Once you’ve realised you’re not alone, you can ask for help.’

Baring is rakishly handsome and talks with the zeal and articulacy of the true convert. He met co-founder Pete Hunt, 40, in 2011 on the island of Bali after he’d experienced a fairly vigorous nervous breakdown. Ten years later, both having left the corporate world to which they felt ill-suited, they established The Privileged Man.

Baring says his breakdown caused him to participate in a 12-step programme during which he realised almost everything he’d been expensively conditioned to believe – at schools such as Ludgrove and Eton – was wrong. ‘I discovered I was racist, sexist, bigoted and entitled,’ he explains. ‘I had to feel all of the disgust associated with holding those beliefs, that disconnected me from society, and then I grieved. Once I’d come through the disgust and the grief, my heart burst open. I’m no different from any other man. Yes, I may have this particular accent and this colour skin, but I’m the same as every man.’

The Privileged Man is a support community for men who experience guilt as a result of their social status, or who feel damaged by childhoods during which they learned to repress emotions in order to survive being sent to boarding school at a young age, or living in dysfunctional – if outwardly luxurious – homes.

‘I’m speaking from the place of the middle- or upper-class white, privileged man and giving him a voice for mental and emotional health,’ says Baring. ‘What I’ve come to realise is that for most of my life I’ve walked with my head held down in shame by virtue of the privilege I was given in my upbringing.