Gender-fair psychotherapy in the United States: A possible dream?

Abstract

Since Freud's era, women have been counseling and psychotherapy's largest consumers. White Freud talked and wrote almost exclusively about men, his patients were primarily women. This practice of treating women as patients, while perceiving men as the prevailing standard for percept and practice has resulted in the largely androcentric or mate-determined psychology of human behavior which we have today (Denmark, 1980;Hare-Mustin, 1983).

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Counseling Women Competencies Scale (CWCS)

“…Earlier research demonstrated the existence of gender-role stereotyping by therapists and counselors in training (Aslin, 1977;Broverman, Broverman, Clarkson, Rosenkrantz, & Vogel 1970;Dreman, 1978;Hampton, Lambert, & Snell, 1986). Both male and female therapists have been found to associate unique beliefs with women's and men's mental health (Maslin & Davis, 1975;Tanney & Birk, 1976) and perpetuate traditional gender-role socialization in therapy (APA, 1975;Nickerson & Kremgold-Barrett, 1990). Analogue studies (Abramowitz et al, 1975;Crosby & Sprock, 2004;Seem & Johnson, 1998;Thomas & Stewart, 1971) as well as studies of actual therapists and patients (Bingham & House, 1973;Pietrofesa & Schlossberg, 1970), demonstrate counselor bias against female clients entering nontraditional careers, displaying nontraditional gender-role behavior, or displaying problem behaviors (e.g., antisocial symptoms) that are inconsistent with traditional gender-role expectations.…”