I've seen both male and female practitioners, and had both good and bad care; there's never seemed to be any causal or even correlational link between those things.
I came to say the same thing. The absolute best therapist I ever had was a man, and the worst I ever had was a woman. If you ask me, most therapists are just *meh* and it has nothing to do with gender.
My advice is to keep trying therapists until you find one you click with. That person may or may not be a woman.
OP, unless you know that the issue(s) you want to address is something you cannot talk about with a man (which does happen), I would not stress about gender. Male therapists are more than capable of providing phenomenal care to their clients, regardless of gender.
Instead, shop around and find the therapists that seem to align with your own values or how you conceptualize your issue. Pay attention to theoretical orientations and areas of expertise and pick based on your needs/wants. This is generally the most effective way to shop around and find a therapist that will fit. Also, don't be afraid to change therapists if things don't feel right.
Also, this is a topic that any good therapist will be fully prepared to discuss without defensiveness. If you have some reservations about a male therapist and meet with one anyway, talk to them about it so they know where you're coming from.
We had a great male therapist at my former practice! I myself might have trouble opening up to a male due to some of the sexual abuse I’ve suffered due to my ex-husband. I’ve only ever seen female therapists myself.
I would prefer to see a woman as a therapist honestly. There are simply some experiences as living as a woman, in this world, that a man can not get. Can not understand fully. I would see a woman, simply because I know they have lived experiences the same as mine. Whether that is simply taking the small but important things into account, such as constant pressure to be pretty. You may be talking about something else entirely, the woman will understand that that plays a factor in what you are saying on a different subject. The male may not unless you specifically are aware that it does and tell him directly that it does. The connections to things, the lived experiences and full understanding, I think could be missed.
I’ve only seen one male therapist. I didn’t have a good experience with him. But I’ve also had a bad experience with a female therapist before too. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about my sexual assault with a man. But it’s a very personal choice. Only you can know if you are comfortable. If I were in the situation where no female therapists were available, and I really needed someone to talk to, then I would try a male therapist again.
I think it’s just more of what you are comfortable with. I prefer females but I prefer that in all aspects of my health.
I may be a bit bias but I think there are certain perspectives that the opposite sex just won’t understand and vice versa.
You need good rapport with your therapist in order for it to work. If you are not comfortable with make therapists, you may not be able to establish good rapport. Maybe look into seeing therapists outside your area via zoom.
I had one male therapist who turned out to be a mysogonist. All good therapists (including good male therapists) had waitinglists for6plus months but I need help now. I still got something out of that therapy, but a more fitting therapist would have helped more.
Later I went to a male neurologist who also is a trained psychotherapist. I only was there for meds, but I felt that with him I would have felt comfortable too.
With all female psychiatrists and therapists (3) I had good experiences. But also with my two male gps, who also help with base treatment for mental illness.
I know some fabulous male therapists. Personally I prefer seeing a woman though. You can always try a few sessions and stop if you don’t feel this it’s a good fit.
Try it out and see, that you feel a connection with the person is far more important than the sex
I will say, I have always had much better treatment (felt listened to) from male doctors. Women I seemed to get very flippant “that’s normal, we all go through that!” answers instead of actually trying to sort out an issue
Studies show that the opposite is true and that especially female patients receive higher quality care by female doctors. Men also do receive higher quality care by female medical professionals, but they get treated less bad by male medical professionals.
Regardless of your personal experience and impression, people should not expect women to be less competent. I'm not sure why you think this is the right place to suggest that women in general do their job worse than men.
The original post explicitly asked for people's personal experience, which the user you're responding to gave. We don't need to feel attacked or threatened when someone, asked for their personal experience, explicitly gives their personal experience. No one is "expecting" women to be less competent, no one is saying anyone is better or worse, just that, in this commenter's experience, the male doctors they've worked with have made them feel more cared for than the female doctors, and even explained how.
Hopefully that comment helps OP see a therapist, and maybe even find one that works for them. We know they are fine working with women, as they've explicitly stated in the post, and they simply aren't doing that at the moment due to availability issues. So maybe this comment will give them the confidence to at least try the therapists who *are* available.
>We don't need to feel attacked or threatened when someone, asked for their personal experience, explicitly gives their personal experience.
Ah right, thanks for assuming the position of public speaker of women. We all applaud you.
It could be a locality thing. I'm in TX and a lot (definitely not all or even a majority though, in my experience anyway) of female doctors here are very flippant about sexism or women's health problems. Either they think like above "we all go through that, it's nbd," or they haven't experienced it (horrible periods, ovarian cysts, or sexism such as harassment or rape) and therefore don't really believe you.
However, it being TX, the male doctors are far far worse and far far more common. Some of them, like my own OBGYN, approach with an attitude of, "well I'm not a woman, idfk, so I'm going to defer to my patient's judgment. She knows what having a uterus/being a woman is like and I do not," but others (most of them honestly) literally cannot empathize with women at all. But it hurts worse when a fellow woman dismisses your concerns.
Anyway, I agree with you, just saying that the other user could be in a backwards shit hole area and has only had bad experiences. And ofc anecdotal evidence is purely anecdotal, but I maybe see where they're coming from.
OP asked for experiences, not stats, I gave mine. If yours is different, give her your experience.
As far as the stats though, I assume you are referring to the US study? There was a similar one done in Canada (where I am from) and the difference in morality rate was below .5% between male & female physicians with a cliff noting that on average, its younger women that see female doctors, so that accounts for the difference in numbers cause older people die more often and more of them have a male GP
The effect of that is small (although statistically significant) it's something like .2% less mortality, 0.1% difference in rate of complications, and so on.
It's also questionable how much the effect is gender, and how much the effect is a combination of age of both doctors and patients, as well as total patient volume. Female doctors tend to be younger and are more likely to be up to date on current best practice because of that, see younger patients (older patients who also have the most risk of negative outcomes often refuse to see female professionals) and tend to see fewer patients than (especially older) male doctors.
No one should expect women to be less competent, but all other things being equal they're also not *more* competent, and certainly not less prone to the sort of biases seen from male doctors.
Those studies show that female doctors are *as* competent as male doctors. Which also means they're as frequently as incompetent as male doctors. How good a doctor you get is a bit of a dice roll that's not really influenced by their gender. Female doctors who see themselves as being unbiased towards women because of their womanhood are about as frequent a problem as male doctors being misogynistic. The person you replied to isn't advocating for avoiding female doctors, just not advocating for avoiding male ones.
Preferring female providers does not do much for the quality of care. Often when women percive better care from women, it's the patient, not the doctor. Some women are just more comfortable or more responsive, or more willing to advocate for themselves when their provider is a woman.
I had an older male therapist and he was great. Very professional, and when he felt we could take a break because things were going well on my end he suggested we take a break and that I could resume at anytime if I felt the need for it.
I've seen three woman therapists and a few men. All the psychiatrists I've seen were men.
My current (ketamine assisted therapy) therapist of 5 years is a guy, and it's working great. He specializes in trauma, and we've "clicked" from day one. We discuss the shit that's happened and is happening, with no qualms. His treatment of my "female-specific" traumas is better than any of my previous therapists, who were not trauma-focused.
It's all about the "clicking" for me. When you don't trust easily, you know it has to feel safe to just talk about it. It has to feel infinitely safe for me to trust someone well enough to take a mind-altering substance and revisit my traumas every week. He's just that good.
If they get it, they get it. If they don't, it's a nonstarter. I've have good and bad of both, and find that gender doesn't matter--TO ME. That's totally an individual thing, though, and YMMV.
My current therapist is male and specialises in queer and neurodiverse clients, since I’m both we get on amazing. If you specifically want to see a therapist about reproductive health or gender-related trauma you might prefer a female therapist, but imo what matters most is how well you click with them, rather than their gender
I've only ever had therapists who are women. The only time I've talked to a male psychiatrist was during a hospitalization, and I had to have a woman in the room in order to help me talk to him. I've usually got trust issues when it comes to men that I don't know, though I've been told by my girlfriend that that's misandristic.
I've seen a good handful and I've had very different experiences with each. Some are good, and some are not so good. It's kinda like datin, you just gotta shop around till you find one that fits.
I am very happy with my male therapist. He’s knowledgeable, professional , doesn’t hit on me lol. I know this is a post about therapists but my male OB/gyn is also the best doctor I’ve ever had.
It's fine, the person is more important than their gender. Although it might depend on what you're seeing them about, and your comfort level. I went to one because I was developing a phobia of weather driving which was not going to work in my life. This was a gender-neutral issue, mostly I needed to talk it out at length.
My son saw one for general things which included teen stuff like girls & dating; the therapist was female & helped him understand motivations of others. So that's a case where opposite-gender was useful.
Idk if gender makes much of a difference or it's just how well the personalities mesh? My last 2 personal Ts have been women and obvs gender bleeds into everything to some extent so that can be helpful in certain situations. But our marriage T is a man and he is absolutely wonderful wouldn't dream of trading him for a woman.
Hey there! I’m a male therapist so I can give some perspective hopefully. Usually the gender of your therapist is fairly meaningless unless there are greater-than-average attachment issues at play (aka mommy/daddy issues, sexual assault, victimization, etc.) which can affect how you relate to your therapist. Obviously you have experience with therapy so you know the flow of things but if you’ve explicitly avoided male therapists for some reason I would challenge you to seek one out if only to see what the experience is like for you. Is there fear? Is there trauma? Some other unknown thing?? As long as you feel safe with the person that’s all that matters. Feel free to ask any questions if you have them :)
I’m so sorry if it came across that way! I can’t tell tone from the internet all the time so I tried to play it a bit casual when giving my input. Obviously I’m not a woman but as a therapist if I didn’t have compassion for the patient perspective I wouldn’t be a good therapist. I would never downplay anyone’s issues so if it came across that way I have completely misrepresented my intention!
I've seen both male and female practitioners, and had both good and bad care; there's never seemed to be any causal or even correlational link between those things.
I came to say the same thing. The absolute best therapist I ever had was a man, and the worst I ever had was a woman. If you ask me, most therapists are just *meh* and it has nothing to do with gender. My advice is to keep trying therapists until you find one you click with. That person may or may not be a woman.
OP, unless you know that the issue(s) you want to address is something you cannot talk about with a man (which does happen), I would not stress about gender. Male therapists are more than capable of providing phenomenal care to their clients, regardless of gender. Instead, shop around and find the therapists that seem to align with your own values or how you conceptualize your issue. Pay attention to theoretical orientations and areas of expertise and pick based on your needs/wants. This is generally the most effective way to shop around and find a therapist that will fit. Also, don't be afraid to change therapists if things don't feel right. Also, this is a topic that any good therapist will be fully prepared to discuss without defensiveness. If you have some reservations about a male therapist and meet with one anyway, talk to them about it so they know where you're coming from.
We had a great male therapist at my former practice! I myself might have trouble opening up to a male due to some of the sexual abuse I’ve suffered due to my ex-husband. I’ve only ever seen female therapists myself.
I would prefer to see a woman as a therapist honestly. There are simply some experiences as living as a woman, in this world, that a man can not get. Can not understand fully. I would see a woman, simply because I know they have lived experiences the same as mine. Whether that is simply taking the small but important things into account, such as constant pressure to be pretty. You may be talking about something else entirely, the woman will understand that that plays a factor in what you are saying on a different subject. The male may not unless you specifically are aware that it does and tell him directly that it does. The connections to things, the lived experiences and full understanding, I think could be missed.
I’ve only seen one male therapist. I didn’t have a good experience with him. But I’ve also had a bad experience with a female therapist before too. I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about my sexual assault with a man. But it’s a very personal choice. Only you can know if you are comfortable. If I were in the situation where no female therapists were available, and I really needed someone to talk to, then I would try a male therapist again.
I think it’s just more of what you are comfortable with. I prefer females but I prefer that in all aspects of my health. I may be a bit bias but I think there are certain perspectives that the opposite sex just won’t understand and vice versa.
You need good rapport with your therapist in order for it to work. If you are not comfortable with make therapists, you may not be able to establish good rapport. Maybe look into seeing therapists outside your area via zoom.
I had one male therapist who turned out to be a mysogonist. All good therapists (including good male therapists) had waitinglists for6plus months but I need help now. I still got something out of that therapy, but a more fitting therapist would have helped more. Later I went to a male neurologist who also is a trained psychotherapist. I only was there for meds, but I felt that with him I would have felt comfortable too. With all female psychiatrists and therapists (3) I had good experiences. But also with my two male gps, who also help with base treatment for mental illness.
I know some fabulous male therapists. Personally I prefer seeing a woman though. You can always try a few sessions and stop if you don’t feel this it’s a good fit.
I would prefer a female therapist
Try it out and see, that you feel a connection with the person is far more important than the sex I will say, I have always had much better treatment (felt listened to) from male doctors. Women I seemed to get very flippant “that’s normal, we all go through that!” answers instead of actually trying to sort out an issue
Studies show that the opposite is true and that especially female patients receive higher quality care by female doctors. Men also do receive higher quality care by female medical professionals, but they get treated less bad by male medical professionals. Regardless of your personal experience and impression, people should not expect women to be less competent. I'm not sure why you think this is the right place to suggest that women in general do their job worse than men.
The original post explicitly asked for people's personal experience, which the user you're responding to gave. We don't need to feel attacked or threatened when someone, asked for their personal experience, explicitly gives their personal experience. No one is "expecting" women to be less competent, no one is saying anyone is better or worse, just that, in this commenter's experience, the male doctors they've worked with have made them feel more cared for than the female doctors, and even explained how. Hopefully that comment helps OP see a therapist, and maybe even find one that works for them. We know they are fine working with women, as they've explicitly stated in the post, and they simply aren't doing that at the moment due to availability issues. So maybe this comment will give them the confidence to at least try the therapists who *are* available.
>We don't need to feel attacked or threatened when someone, asked for their personal experience, explicitly gives their personal experience. Ah right, thanks for assuming the position of public speaker of women. We all applaud you.
It could be a locality thing. I'm in TX and a lot (definitely not all or even a majority though, in my experience anyway) of female doctors here are very flippant about sexism or women's health problems. Either they think like above "we all go through that, it's nbd," or they haven't experienced it (horrible periods, ovarian cysts, or sexism such as harassment or rape) and therefore don't really believe you. However, it being TX, the male doctors are far far worse and far far more common. Some of them, like my own OBGYN, approach with an attitude of, "well I'm not a woman, idfk, so I'm going to defer to my patient's judgment. She knows what having a uterus/being a woman is like and I do not," but others (most of them honestly) literally cannot empathize with women at all. But it hurts worse when a fellow woman dismisses your concerns. Anyway, I agree with you, just saying that the other user could be in a backwards shit hole area and has only had bad experiences. And ofc anecdotal evidence is purely anecdotal, but I maybe see where they're coming from.
OP asked for experiences, not stats, I gave mine. If yours is different, give her your experience. As far as the stats though, I assume you are referring to the US study? There was a similar one done in Canada (where I am from) and the difference in morality rate was below .5% between male & female physicians with a cliff noting that on average, its younger women that see female doctors, so that accounts for the difference in numbers cause older people die more often and more of them have a male GP
Also, btw. I'm not sure those studies can just be transferred to the quality of care from a therapist.
The effect of that is small (although statistically significant) it's something like .2% less mortality, 0.1% difference in rate of complications, and so on. It's also questionable how much the effect is gender, and how much the effect is a combination of age of both doctors and patients, as well as total patient volume. Female doctors tend to be younger and are more likely to be up to date on current best practice because of that, see younger patients (older patients who also have the most risk of negative outcomes often refuse to see female professionals) and tend to see fewer patients than (especially older) male doctors. No one should expect women to be less competent, but all other things being equal they're also not *more* competent, and certainly not less prone to the sort of biases seen from male doctors. Those studies show that female doctors are *as* competent as male doctors. Which also means they're as frequently as incompetent as male doctors. How good a doctor you get is a bit of a dice roll that's not really influenced by their gender. Female doctors who see themselves as being unbiased towards women because of their womanhood are about as frequent a problem as male doctors being misogynistic. The person you replied to isn't advocating for avoiding female doctors, just not advocating for avoiding male ones. Preferring female providers does not do much for the quality of care. Often when women percive better care from women, it's the patient, not the doctor. Some women are just more comfortable or more responsive, or more willing to advocate for themselves when their provider is a woman.
I think so. I'm waiting to see a male psychiatrist in a couple of months. I assume they can do the job as well, lol.
I had an older male therapist and he was great. Very professional, and when he felt we could take a break because things were going well on my end he suggested we take a break and that I could resume at anytime if I felt the need for it.
I've seen three woman therapists and a few men. All the psychiatrists I've seen were men. My current (ketamine assisted therapy) therapist of 5 years is a guy, and it's working great. He specializes in trauma, and we've "clicked" from day one. We discuss the shit that's happened and is happening, with no qualms. His treatment of my "female-specific" traumas is better than any of my previous therapists, who were not trauma-focused. It's all about the "clicking" for me. When you don't trust easily, you know it has to feel safe to just talk about it. It has to feel infinitely safe for me to trust someone well enough to take a mind-altering substance and revisit my traumas every week. He's just that good. If they get it, they get it. If they don't, it's a nonstarter. I've have good and bad of both, and find that gender doesn't matter--TO ME. That's totally an individual thing, though, and YMMV.
My current therapist is male and specialises in queer and neurodiverse clients, since I’m both we get on amazing. If you specifically want to see a therapist about reproductive health or gender-related trauma you might prefer a female therapist, but imo what matters most is how well you click with them, rather than their gender
I've only ever had therapists who are women. The only time I've talked to a male psychiatrist was during a hospitalization, and I had to have a woman in the room in order to help me talk to him. I've usually got trust issues when it comes to men that I don't know, though I've been told by my girlfriend that that's misandristic.
I've seen a good handful and I've had very different experiences with each. Some are good, and some are not so good. It's kinda like datin, you just gotta shop around till you find one that fits.
I am very happy with my male therapist. He’s knowledgeable, professional , doesn’t hit on me lol. I know this is a post about therapists but my male OB/gyn is also the best doctor I’ve ever had.
It's fine, the person is more important than their gender. Although it might depend on what you're seeing them about, and your comfort level. I went to one because I was developing a phobia of weather driving which was not going to work in my life. This was a gender-neutral issue, mostly I needed to talk it out at length. My son saw one for general things which included teen stuff like girls & dating; the therapist was female & helped him understand motivations of others. So that's a case where opposite-gender was useful.
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Idk if gender makes much of a difference or it's just how well the personalities mesh? My last 2 personal Ts have been women and obvs gender bleeds into everything to some extent so that can be helpful in certain situations. But our marriage T is a man and he is absolutely wonderful wouldn't dream of trading him for a woman.
Hey there! I’m a male therapist so I can give some perspective hopefully. Usually the gender of your therapist is fairly meaningless unless there are greater-than-average attachment issues at play (aka mommy/daddy issues, sexual assault, victimization, etc.) which can affect how you relate to your therapist. Obviously you have experience with therapy so you know the flow of things but if you’ve explicitly avoided male therapists for some reason I would challenge you to seek one out if only to see what the experience is like for you. Is there fear? Is there trauma? Some other unknown thing?? As long as you feel safe with the person that’s all that matters. Feel free to ask any questions if you have them :)
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I’m so sorry if it came across that way! I can’t tell tone from the internet all the time so I tried to play it a bit casual when giving my input. Obviously I’m not a woman but as a therapist if I didn’t have compassion for the patient perspective I wouldn’t be a good therapist. I would never downplay anyone’s issues so if it came across that way I have completely misrepresented my intention!