I don't think saying "this person" necessarily implies gender neutrality that the therapist should have picked up on. It can also be used as a way to avoid saying "my father" or "my uncle" or "my male teacher" etc. The therapist may very well have noticed the use of non-identifying information but perhaps chose not to address it immediately since this was the first time Precious Things offered details and she was having a very difficult time talking about it. I think it's unfair to assume that he should have noticed but didn't, or that he should have used the same non-identifying words Precious Things used, because without asking him why, we have no way to know what he was thinking or what his reason may have been for assigning gender to the abuser. If he thought that Precious Things was being relationship neutral rather than gender neutral, maybe he assigned a gender to help her feel more comfortable talking about details. There could be many reasons for his use of the word "he" and I think, like Stormyangels said, it's hardly fair to blame him for getting it wrong when he wasn't given enough information in the first place.