Tuesday, November 06, 2012

Psychotherapy has been feminized

Forensic psychologist Stephen Diamond writes:
A New York Times article by Benedict Carey (May 21, 2011) titled "Need Therapy? A Good Man Is Hard to Find," highlights the fact that men have been abandoning the psychotherapy field in droves for decades. So much so that the profession has now become almost totally dominated by female practitioners. According to Carey, less than 20% of Master's degrees in psychology, clinical social work or counseling are being sought by men today. Women outnumber men in doctoral psychology programs by a ratio of at least 3 to 1. (See an article published by the American Psychological Association on this remarkable development.) But this has not always been so. Certainly not when I was a graduate student back in the mid-1970s. What's happening to the psychotherapy profession? Why have men gradually deserted the field? And does gender really matter in psychotherapists?

I personally witnessed this insidious shift to a predominantly female demographic during my twenty years of teaching psychotherapy to graduate students.

A blogger adds:
Among the men who do go into counseling, at least from what I have seen here in Tucson, it seems a pretty large percentage of them are gay or bisexual. This should not even be an issue, but for traditionally masculine men it can be a serious issue, not to mention for those who are fundamentalist in their religious beliefs.
I mentioned the NY Times article last year.

If psychotherapy were a real profession with established standards and procedures like orthopedic surgery, then maybe it would not matter if they were all female, gay, effeminate, neurotic, or Jewish. But it does matter. Psychotherapists cannot relate to a real man. They cannot empathize with him, and they have no evidence-based methodologies for advising him.

4 comments:

Greg said...

Part of the problem is that patients don't trust men.

I talked to one woman who worked in a psychotherapy practice. They had 7 women and 1 man working as therapists. Anti-male bias was sufficient to ensure the man still didn't get a fair share of patients.

Basically, she said that every new patient was initially suggested to see the male therapist. If they objected, which most of them did, they would be assigned to a female therapist. In fact, even those who were getting therapy because they were abused by women usually wanted a female therapist.

An example of misandry in our culture.

Mage said...

Men who prefer a female councelor are just fools, taking advice form a woman who is subject to her hamster is never a good idea. But it is precisily this foolishness that has put them into the situation that they need a person who would show them how to live.

These people know they have a problem but since they don't know how to solve it they use the wrong methods. The catch is that if they would know the right solutions or the right people who can help then thwy wouldn't be having those problems. This is vicious circle of staying in darkness.

In times of patriarchy a person with a problem would be ridiculed and ashamed until they would start to see the light, even if at first unwillingly until they would accept it and then understad and start to see its value. In modern times when society pampers everyone and tells white lies to everyones face the person may spend a whole life time never understanding his problems, never ascending beyond himself.

Anonymous said...

have a look at this article: empathy vs analytical reasoning and how they cancel each other out:

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-10-empathy-represses-analytic-thought-vice.html

George said...

Good comments. I just watched the newest epispode (147) of Bones. The manly FBI agent was annoyed when his psychologist houseguest did his laundry. "A man does not fold another man's underwear", the agent protested.

I'm with the FBI agent. Going to a male psychologist is a little like letting him fold my underwear. Creepy.

But I also agree that taking advice from a female counselor is foolish.