Some college psychology programs cannot even attract male applicants, much less students. And at many therapists’ conferences, attendees with salt-and-pepper beards wander the hallways as lonely as peaceniks at a gun fair.Hmmm. I'd like to see more about those studies. We're supposed to believe that the emerging problem is that men who need help won't seek it because they have a prejudiced preference for a male therapist. We're not supposed to think that when the profession is thoroughly dominated by females, it will change in all sorts of subtle ways, conceiving the female norm as the norm. That's funny. When the field was male-dominated, feminists (and others) critiqued it as imposing the male norm on females. But it's always the females who are wronged. First, the female patients were oppressed by male therapists who enforced patriarchy, and now, the female therapists are oppressed by the male patients who discriminate against female psychologists.
The result, many therapists argue, is that the profession is at risk of losing its appeal for a large group of sufferers — most of them men — who would like to receive therapy but prefer to start with a male therapist....
The impact of this gender switch on the value of therapy is negligible, studies suggest. A good therapist is a good therapist, male or female, and a mediocre one is a mediocre one. Shared experience may even be a impediment, in some cases: therapists often caution students against assuming that they have special insight into person’s problems just because they have something in common.
May 22, 2011
In the future, all the therapists will be women. And then what?
As the NYT presents the problem:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
104 comments:
Perhaps it's always the females who are oppressed because that is how they control the big mean men. The Althouse approach, which prefers autonomy to control, is not the feminist preference these days. Many women still seek to control through weakness, even when in a position of strength.
There is also this:
The result, many therapists argue, is that the profession is at risk of losing its appeal for a large group of sufferers — most of them men — who would like to receive therapy but prefer to start with a male therapist....
How much of a problem is this? For whatever little is worth, it doesn't matter to me whether my doctor is a man or a woman. Are there a lot of men out there who don't want a female therapist?
Men go to therapists??
Men want to talk about their problems?
Isn't this another aspect of the higher education bubble? If you can afford college, then get a degree that will help you start a career...engineering, accounting, law, medicine.
Who cares if males suffer from psychological disorders? They're not important, like womyn are.
Males are beasts of burden. If they can't work, they should just FOAD.
Who needs therapy when there is pharmacology.
From the article, it sounds like this is just part of a larger trend of the entire field paying less, thus losing it's appeal to men. I don't see how that's anybody's fault.
FWIW, there are still lots of male therapists where I work, so I'm not sure that this is actually a big problem.
Y aren't men going to college again?
We're becoming a matriarchal society in a patriarchal world.
This will not end well 4 us.
Anyone who doubts the mental health industry's commitment to anti-male values need only to visit the American Psychological Association, Division 51 (Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity) website.
From the SPSMM mission statement: Acknowledges its historical debt to feminist-inspired scholarship on gender, and commits itself to the support of groups such as women, gays, lesbians and people of color that have been uniquely oppressed by the gender/class/race system.
All things masculine are bad.
What masAsHell said. Most guys don't go to therapy at all. It's construed as weakness.
I could see, however, where a woman might be preferable to a man as therapist - all the issues of looking weak in front of another man. so The Gray Lady may well be blowing smoke, as usual.
David is right also. Women have often been able to get their way though guilt.
Off topic...
Help Jonathan Haight's scientific study of morality at YourMorals.org. Fascinating.
I think it would probably be about a 50-50 split. Depending on the problem and the man, some would rather see a female, some a male.
Althouse, is your gyno male or female?
When all the therapists are women will fifty minutes be enough?
When all the therapists are women the sessions will continue down the hall and into the elevator and out onto the street because THERE'S SO MUCH TO SAY!
The profession is bitterly anti-masculine.
Why in hell would any man go near it?
Therapy is kind of like religion. At its core are people trying to get money from you, all while telling you that YOU are the problem.
The best therapy for a man is to have a good job, get married and have domestic bliss. That and a trusty mutt to go duck 'huntin with.
Something the Professor said:
But it's always the females who are wronged.
It can get quite comical at times. In The Economics of Men, Women, and Work, the authors point to the following reality: on average men marry women younger than themselves. In addition, women live longer. As a result, women tend to spend quite a few years as widows.
This is unfair... to women, because they have to keep their household with just one retirement income, and usually their standard of living drops when the husband dies.
The Patriarchy is so powerful, that, even by dying, men manage to oppress women.
You died Paul? Died? How dare you!
Actually the biggest oppressor of women has always been biology. Cursed with menstrual cycles, less physical strength, pregnancy. But how can you hate God?
Only people with very little regard for scientific evidence would study talk therapy. The is no scientific evidence that it works.
According to a female physchiatry I spoke with, male patients prefere her to a man , specially whith sexual problems. Most men would prefer a woman, you speak freely with your mother not with your father. The conclusion of the study is as amusing as hiring male nurses to attend men. most men would prefer to be bathed by a woman than by a man.
Of course , there is a cultural factor and also the fact that most men see phycology like nursing and teaching at school as female profession and a gay thing
Managed care had a devastating effect on Psychology as a clinical field. Part was financial but even more devastating was the supposed cure, which was the "recovered memories" fraud that was sold at psychology meetings as a potential source of income, sort of like plastic surgery, in which the patients would be self-referring.
It was introduced with my friend, for example, during therapy for alcoholism. She was convinced her father had abused her. None of her family believed her, actually a bit unusual, and a few years later, she never mentioned it.
The psychologists who were selling this had no idea (typically) of how dangerous this concept was. Women, including the one I know, bought into this big time. It resulted in prosecution of men and appalling miscarriages of justice.
Finally, the whole movement collapsed after a few men won lawsuits against therapists who had fostered family members persecuting fathers for imagined abuse. Then, the malpractice insurance companies stopped covering this "therapy" and it just vanished.
The clinical psychology profession destroyed itself with this and especially became seen as anti-male. Which it was.
I think, in the end, one of the results will be that the field will pay less. Maybe a lot less.
Nursing, and to some extent, teaching, can be hard work. Therapy? Hey, its what women do with each other all the time already. And, they can sit down while doing it, drink coffee, etc. And, it is probably harder to get technologically obsolescent than nursing, so it should be fairly easy to enter and exit the field.
Point being that it is a perfect job for many women, and hence probably why psychology majors in schools are booming.
It is pure supply and demand. A lot of women want to do this job, so the pay is being driven down. But, as it is driven down, men flee the field (or, more accurately, don't enter it), making it even more of a pink ghetto.
From my college days, most the women I dated who were in the psyche field were batshit crazy - they were studying it to get a grip on their own problems.
Some college psychology programs cannot even attract male applicants
We have the same problem with a local youth org. Men won't volunteer because its not worth the risk of a false accusation destroying their lives.
I think there was a study or experiment re this. Lost child in the mall or somesuch. Most men refused to get involved, despite the potential harm to the child.
Add that to the PC bigotry of males
Men have determined that "therapy" is bullshit and going to a "therapist" or studying "therapy" is an utter waste of time. The feminization of American males may well have begun with "therapy" and the exultation of feeling over thinking but it will end with"therapy" because of it's domination of the OPrah crowd and the disgust men now have at the thought of puking up every single thing that crosses their minds and conflating that with progress. Men are voting with their feet on this "profession."
The problems with therapists is that there's no way to tell the mediocre ones from the good ones.
Can you imagine buying ground beef this way?
a large group of sufferers — most of them men — who would like to receive therapy but prefer to start with a male therapist
___________________
Beyond the issue of chickification, to use Rush's term, and beyond the highly ambiguous "large group of sufferers," I find it hard to believe that most men would prefer a male therapist.
When one goes to a therapist, he is admitting he has problems, he is admitting that he has weakness. I do not believe that most men would want to appear weak or admit weakness to another man.
On the other hand, I can believe that most men would want to seek comfort from a woman, given that it was a woman (namely, their mothers) who provided such "therapy" to them from their earliest days.
For similar reasons, in the area of physical medicine, I would think that, instead of getting naked in front of a male doctor, most men would actually prefer being seen by a female doctor, not for Oedipal reasons, but for the usual male-female sexual reasons.
I've had good luck with a female dentist. She doesn't regard pain as some kind of character building experience and doesn't mind pausing to give an extra shot of novicaine. This is perhaps a delusion on my part, but I think of women as being kinder and more sympathetic than men. That said, there are just some things I would not wish to tell a woman....I would rather die than have a woman physician administer a prostate exam. But when you think about it, it is perhaps even more violative to have a man do it...There's a wavy line about which parts of your body and soul you wish a woman to penetrate.
I do worry about Ann's point about female norms. WE are already seeing that in other parts of society, notably the school systems, where this is much advanced. (It has even advanced strongly into the hardest of sciences in colleges, where performance in group projects can be given as much weight as test scores).
For a long time, I bought into the feminist myth that the only difference between men and women is their genitalia. You look back at this, and really laugh. It came to me, I think, because I didn't have any sisters, and so grew up with a strongly male norm, and always viewed women from that perspective.
And, maybe, just like Clinton was the first Black President, Obama is the first female President. For him, process is what is important, and good intentions. Flushing almost a trillion dollars down the toilet because he didn't know that there was no such thing any more of a shovel ready project, is just the cost of learning on the job. And, if militant Islamists are emboldened and in a position to attack us more easily, then that is fine too, because he had the best of intentions.
The point is that the male norm has a lot of value to society. It is how things are built, things accomplished, etc. Not that women cannot build things, but rather, they mostly do it as just a minor part of their lives, not the focus of it, and as a result, most successful companies are built by men, and men still get most of the patents.
I'm not worried. There won't be any therapists under Sharia.
For reasons too numerous to get into, I've had a lot of exposure to the mental health field. Mostly through troubled relatives and in-laws. It's my opinion that about 80 percent of non-MD therapists (or essentially PHD psychologists) have significant mental health issues of their own. I have three close friends and one family member who went into the field of psychology and I suspect that it was really to self diagnose why they were unhappy in life. The good ones are out there but they are hard to find. I've met maybe two over the last two decades one male and one female, who didn't stink. The rest.. feh..
Bob;
Only people with very little regard for scientific evidence would study talk therapy. The is no scientific evidence that it works.
One of many studies regarding cognitive behavioral therapy
and
A meta analysis of the meta analysis's
Not uniformly effective, but clearly has evidence of effectiveness in some behavioral disorders
McCullough says:Who needs therapy when there is pharmacology.
This is the key issue. Drug therapy is the prime form of psychotherapy now, both because it works (a lot of mental health issues are basically neurochemical issues that respond well to drugs) and because health insurance companies don't want to pay for long-term talk therapy. Psychologists can't prescribe drugs, but MDs can. (The article mentions this in passing but this seems like a much bigger point in this discussion.) That's causing that field to wither and become more like a form of social work. Incidentally, a master's degree in social work can get you qualified as a talk-oriented psychotherapist.
Psychology is about as soft as a science can get. There's a lot of room for politics.
The major political philosophy of American academia during the last century was Marxism and early every single field of academics has been injected with an unhealthy dose of it. Modern American feminism is just a derivative form of Marxism.
THe NYT is the hammer that can only see nails that need hammering.
Thurber Psychologist about to phone his wife.
"Therapy? Hey, its what women do with each other all the time already. And, they can sit down while doing it, drink coffee, etc."
Right, and by the 24th century they'll all be empaths.
Jose_K --
"According to a female physchiatry I spoke with, male patients prefere her to a man , specially whith sexual problems."
Consider the source.
"Most men would prefer a woman, you speak freely with your mother not with your father"
Who do you know that does this? I don't know any men who have a detailed emotional or sexual sit-down discussion with their mothers. Fathers sometimes, mother - never heard of one.
@William: "but I think of women as being kinder and more sympathetic than men"
It's highly variable. For some women MDs, a heart of stone would be an upgrade.
One of my female med school classmates argued that medical experimentation should only be done on "prisoners and old people." She thought women complaining about uterine pain were just drug-seeking. She became a psychiatrist.
And women MDs get very very tired of seeing mainly women, especially female patients who demand to see only women providers. I won't risk getting into why.
Male compassion is a different animal, I think, involving toughness. Marcus Aurelius is a good therapist.
Women are more caring:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-saMXpmp0Ls&feature=player_embedded
IRRC Marcus Aurelius thought he should steel is soul against the enjoyment of music.
Women. A majority that has been able to secure a position as a disadvantaged minority.
Women complain because that's what they do to test men for reliability.
Complaining can also go off on its own.
Say a woman seldom or never showing her man that she's satisfied with him (nagging); or aimed at men in general (feminism).
That should bring theaverage rates for therapy down, no? I hear that women are still paid less on average than men.
With the left (which arguably includes ALL "feministas" in all walks of life) it's ALWAYS a one-way street..
So all the men go into plumbing?
Sometimes, when there's a drop off, what drops off first, are the clients.
Or as Mort Sahl said, when he was asked a few years ago, if he had been psychoanalyzed back in the 1960's, when it was popular. He said, "NO. And, if I had been, I'd ask for a refund."
Besides,what a lot of people want, now, are drugs. Psychologists can't give them. You need an MD's license to write a prescription.
"And women MDs get very very tired of seeing mainly women, especially female patients who demand to see only women providers.".
I'd prefer a female doctor but I'd feel like a perv when the only thing I get is an annual prostrate exam.
What is a "gun fair"? NYT cannot even speak english in common use west of the Hudson. I suppose they meant a "gun show."
I have a female doctor. I like her. I certainly don't mind her checking out my prostate.
"Allen, I do not have to check your prostate every half an hour."
I got a job-related physical once from a petite young MD. I had a little crush on her for awhile after that. The poor woman's job was to give military flight physicals, day in and day out.
Pogo nails it. Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, the stoics are the opposite of what modern "therapy" is all about.
IRRC Marcus Aurelius thought he should steel is soul against the enjoyment of music.
Good advice. It clouds judgement.
Hey! It worked for Tony Soprano, didn't it?
I've been to a lot of therapy over the years. Started in 1988 I guess and did it weekly for quite a few years in a couple different cities and with several different therapists.
The better therapists in my opinion have *all* been women. Women are better listeners than men IMO, generally speaking. And I've seen a couple of male therapists that were absolutely awful. Liars, over-bearing, interrupting.
I could imagine that some men might want to see a male therapist though, depending on what they thought their problem was. It not necessarily be prejudice though, which seems the default Althouse answer to every question of this type. You go to therapy with someone you're comfortable with, and if that's a guy fine.
I think if I was female I'd want a female OB/GYN, and I don't think that would be prejudice. I just think I'd be more comfortable with that. As a heart patient I have 3 doctors I see regularly, all male, but the truth is I like their female PAs more than the male doctors for most of my needs. And it was a female PA that discovered they had prescribed me 2 drugs that were in comflict (Plavix and Nexium) and the FDA had issued warnings over - the docs all missed it for almost a year. Females can be a lot more detail oriented and disciplined, or so I've experienced. If I have a big problem I want the (male) doc, but for routine stuff I definitely prefer the female PAs.
And for what it's worth, at least in Texas, the field has never been "male dominated", at least not in the last 30 odd years. I'd say it has always been at least 2/3 female during that time.
By the way, if you want to see real prejudice, as in see pre-judging in real time, take a man to therapy at a therapist that specializes in "women's issues". Just make sure he has a way to escape.
Jose_K - a little funny and sad but true.
I've been familiar with psychology/therapy all my life since my father was a clinical psychologist and a professor. In my experience, psychiatrists tended to be the most whacko. I assume it was because they believe all behavior has some underlying sexual motivation. They refuse to believe that a drink of water is a drink or water.
All other therapists follow close behind. I've found clinical social workers have a bimodal distribution, really bad or pretty good. The really bad ones are dangerous but the good ones are virtually normal. The bad social workers are more biased and over rate their abilities tremendously. (My sister is a clinical social worker and a social work professor.)
In my book, you're taking a risk that may well out weight the potential benefits when you go into therapy. Don't be afraid to shop around although many therapists will tell you that you're uncommitted to change when you do that.
"First, the female patients were oppressed by male therapists who enforced patriarchy, and now, the female therapists are oppressed by the male patients who discriminate against female psychologists."
I didn't read it this way. At all. I read it that the male patients (if anyone - truly, must we, all of us, always look for victims?) are the victims.
I think therapy might be on the way down, relieved here and there by mini-comebacks. And it is better than psychiatry, just because psychiatry believes in the medical model of mental illness and psychotherapy as yet, not so much. But they're moving that way, and you better believe the male therapists, those that remain, are pushing for prescribing rights. It's a status thing. But at least, as yet, they are not really HARMING by and large, unlike psychopharmacology.
This therapist nonsense started to decline with the introduction of Oprah and Dr. Phil.
WV: chrome
"Good advice. It clouds judgement."
And you look damn silly when you're dancing in the cereal aisle.
There are many dry holes, but, as a general rule, if you want succor go for the tits.....Many men here show an alarming willingness to allow female doctors to conduct their prostate exams. Consider this: male ob gyn doctors used to prescribe hysterectomies at a much higher rate than their women counterparts. I'm sure that same phenemonenon applies to urologic disorders. "Your PSA is a little high and your prostate feels enlarged. Why don't we just whack all that junk off to be on the safe side." With women urologists, proceed with caution.....My superego is already overrepresented with DI's telling me to toughen up and get my act together. I would love to have some soft femine voice in my head, telling me to chill out and get a little more sleep. My major objection is that if you went to a female therapist for, say, the stress that accompanies an entanglemnt with the nanny, the therapesse would take a harsh, judgemental stand that would only add to your difficulties. In such a situation, you want a male therapist who will give you a high five and congratulate you on your virility.
Psychology for men is different from psychology for women. There is no common field of "human psychology", especially in the clinical setting.
Men need psychology for men. They tacitly see through the illusion of "human psychology" and know, implicitly, that the psychological help they seek must come from a male psychologist.
I think that male psychology can be helpful for women. But feminine psychology will do nothing but emasculate a man.
Dead Julius - the basic difference between men & women is men believe in action and women just keep on talking.
William said...
There are many dry holes, but, as a general rule, if you want succor go for the tits.....Many men here show an alarming willingness to allow female doctors to conduct their prostate exams.
Wait a minute, William.
I just thought of something. Shouldn't men be checking their own prostates? Kind of like women are supposed to check their own breasts for lumps.
How difficult can detection be? It's not like there is a lot of fancy instruments involved.
But it's always the females who are wronged. First, the female patients were oppressed by male therapists who enforced patriarchy...
Sean Connery: It looks like this is my lucky day! I'll take "The Rapists" for $200.
Alex Trebek: That's "Therapists." That's "Therapists," not "The Rapists."
I'll tell you who's being discriminated against: Fat male doctors. Women won't go to him because they want a female MD. Men won't go because of those big sausage fingers.
I actually have a marked preference for female therapists.
"Talk Therapy" works for gypsies. And, Tarot Card Readers. One is dominated by females. The other gives men a shot.
and because health insurance companies don't want to pay for long-term talk therapy.
It was only about 40 years ago when therapists and psychiatrists didn't expect to be paid by insurance. The problem with US health care is that far too many treatments became eligible for payment by the insurance company.
My first three kids were born in the era when insurance didn't pay for normal delivery. The hospital bill was about $275 for each kid, mother and child. I was a medical student so the OB and pediatrician wouldn't charge us. That was 1965- 69. In 1980, my next child was born and the insurance paid. The bill was much much more.
William, men ob gyn guys were ASKED by catholic women to "give them" hysterectomies so as not to worry themselves with pregnancies.
I blame the catholic church!
Then women got smart and learned the hysterectomies gave them menopause.
Heck, even the Pill was introduced by a male physician at Harvard ... who added a week of placebos. Because he was hoping to get the pope's approval.
It's actually beneficial ... if you're gonna avoid pregnancies in teenagers ... to use the Pill method. But not the 28-day cycle thing.
Carol, I hope you don't think it's all the Catholic church. Lots and lots of women from other religions got and get them. Nowadays a lot of poor women still get them.
"But it's always the females who are wronged."
This is the number one experience leading to conservatism. When you're a kid you fall for the line of the week. As you age you start to realize the prescription is always the same no matter the disease. Eventually those with intelligence realize they're dealing with quacks.
Economics works exactly the same. We're in a boom? We can afford more government spending. We're in a recession? We must have more government spending.
A few decades ago treating everyone equally was enlightened. Now treating everyone equally is supposed to be racist.
Liberals are quacks no matter the subject.
All I have to do is watch a couple of hours of the "Housewives of..." whatever city and then fall to my knees and thank God I'm a man. No matter how debased I am in the culture at large, I find true solace in my otherness.
I have a male doctor and a female doctor. They are both excellent, and both treat men and women very successfully.
The Former Spouse and I went to more than one male therapist. FS did not like their maleness or what they had to say. So we got a female therapist. I figured I was a big enough boy to deal with two females in the room.
The female therapist did not say much that FS liked either. Once FS became actually former, the need for therapy diminished, then disappeared.
There are nutjob therapists male and female. Avoid the nutjobs.
Allen, men are supposed to do testicular self-exams:
http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/common/cancer/types/387.html
http://familydoctor.org/
online/famdocen/home/common
/cancer/types/387.html
Most guys don't go to therapy at all. It's construed as weakness.
Not true. PTSD, anyone? There is a war on.
Sometimes therapy is useful, sometimes meds are useful, sometimes you need the combination. I think some people's idea of what therapy is entirely learned from movies from the 80's.
Most people I've encountered have been to a counselor or therapist of one kind or another. I'm not sure people really get their views of therapists from 1980s movies.
Long-term, meds don't really work to move out of negative patterns. They are part of lots of people's journeys I understand, but real meaningful progress takes guts, hard work, (in my experience) some prayer or spiritual work, friends, and so on. Meds tend to loop people into a negative circle. Especially the benzos. Yikes.
You mean Bob Newhart isn't being replaced?
Probably unrelated except chronographically, check out http://search.twitter.com/search?q=tammycamp
wv: kelycoc
MadisonMan --
"You mean Bob Newhart isn't being replaced?"
Newhart's view on therapy.
This is why I read Althouse. Makes me feel like there's still sanity in the world somewhere. If it can survive in Mad City, it can survive anywhere.
Perhaps men will reject female therapists because female therapists are sexists.
I've had therapy with both male and female therapists. Gender matters, but there are trade-offs and the ways in which it matters aren't always obvious.
"In the future, all the therapists will be women. And then what?"
Whew, sounds oppressive, even to me. ha ha
And then!
Some skinny, scrawny guy with an eye to his future will bravely enter the fray to change it all.
The ladies will admire his newly acquired swagger. All the while pretending he has no dagger...so to speak.
Good times to follow.
Duh. Women are weak.
And the biggest proponents of women's weakness are women.
The p-word applies to many women.
Part of the problem is that so many people are even ALLOWED to call themselves therapists.
If you want therapy, go to someone who actually is dedicated enough to have done the work to obtain a doctorate degree in the field. There's a WORLD of difference in experience and training between someone who has done the couple of years required to get a Master's and someone who has spent 5 (or more) to get a doctorate.
And that doesn't even get into the number of people who are social workers calling themselves therapists. I don't care what the LAW says: they're SOCIAL WORKERS. Not THERAPISTS.
Yes a social worker is trained to recognize dysfunctional behavior. But they don't have the training and experience required to actually know what to do about it.
You know who gets a Master's in Clinical Social Work? The ones who didn't get accepted into doctoral programs or never even bothered to apply.
Do we allow Physician Assistants to perform surgery? No. For a reason. They don't have the training or experience to do it. They can handle routine problems, but anything really serious requires an ACTUAL M.D.
But we let the psychology equivalent just go messing around in people's heads with nothing more than the barest knowledge of what they're doing. And we're SURPRISED that the overall results are poor?
I'm not.
There is no credible research about therapist matching in terms of gender, orientation, or training. None.
There is considerable research regarding people knowing after the third session if they want to work with their therapist. And that impression does not change.
So go see someone, if you like them and can talk to them, stick with them. If not, move along after three sessions and find someone you can work with.
And less men means less competition for me. In Nashville, I am basically the only male psychologist who works with children.
Trey
While the vanity in me appreciates what Jim just wrote, the research says that degree does not matter. Empathy, genuineness, and unconditional positive regard really are the three factors that help a therapist the most.
It does not hurt to know what you are doing, but without those three, the research says you are wasting your time.
Trey
"In Nashville, I am basically the only male psychologist who works with children."
Man that must be a whole nother kettle of worms. I worry about letting kids pet my dog if my wife isn't with me. Strange new world.
If I'm going to pay a woman for therapy, then she better be wearing a G-string, and dancing at my table!!
One of the local hospitals has been advertising their new breast cancer treatment facilities. The TV spot has the female patient turning a "comfort dial" which morphs the typical exam room, with a male doctor, into something more like a spa. And, of course, the male doctor disappears, replaced by a female doctor. Yet men who have trouble baring their souls to female therapists are being irrational.
I was once at a Farmer's market when I saw a young boy (4-5 years old) crying and wandering around, unaccompanied by an adult.
He started walking towards me, mistaking me for his father. I had to turn away, despite me being the best bet to calm him down and keep him in one place until his actual father found him.
His father, who did roughly resemble me, found him quickly and it ended happily.
I felt bad that, despite being what nature intended as the protector, I could not risk helping because it could go so bad so fast for me.
Feminism stole my right to be the hero, it stole right to be the good guy. It paints me, as a white heterosexual unattached male, as the villain.
I suffer from multiple mental problems that prevent me from having a happy life. I would not trust a female psych. There are some things that I just cannot talk about with women (I am painfully shy)
But, I am a man. I will suffer in silence and do nothing to protect the innocent. Best that way.
"Not true. PTSD, anyone? There is a war on."
Tell me about it... the folks the VA has doing this convinced me to always seek help on my own, out in the private sector...
As a "Male" (well, at least the last time I was in the shower and checked) therapist, I've never had any problems with serving either males or females (or should that be "fe-persons?")
I have had a few females prefer a female therapist when the subject is sex, sexual abuse and other problems of a similar nature but those are few and far between.
Tony and Dr Melfi...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSJ4IDOcT-k
I got a job-related physical once from a petite young MD. I had a little crush on her for awhile after that. The poor woman's job was to give military flight physicals, day in and day out.
Was this at Langley AFB around 1990? Because we had the same situation. Opinion among us fliers was divided. I thought it was great, especially since I'd just turned 40 and had an annual requirement for a prostate check.
My good friend hated going to her because he didn't like the idea of a woman doing a cough check and prostate check. In those pre-DADT days I was like 'Dude, don't let the OSI hear that!'.
The women are actually the oppressors as if men listen to them and their therapy they will turn into ball shriveled whipped metrosexuals.
I'm not sure that therapy is equally effective when administered by one's buddies over a six-pack. Cheaper, for one thing.
Psychology: guesswork masquerading as science.
For years, Freud was the be-all and end-all; now, we've discovered that it's mostly bullshit (as most men, I think, suspected all along). Ditto Adler, Jung and all the other deep thinkers.
Here's the issue, and it's no different from the bigger issue. As psychology becomes increasingly a game played for and by women, with feminized rules, men are going to walk away from it. We may not be aware (psychologically speaking), but we do know how to recognize when a game is rigged against us.
I thought women were the reason men needed therapy?
"The impact of this gender switch on the value of therapy is negligible, studies suggest."
That raises the question, "Specifically how effective IS therapy?" Is it above the level of the placebo effect 10% or so)?
wv: chant
Post a Comment