(((SecretGarden))) It must be so hard to have lost trust with your T and feel you need to move on. I am so sorry.

My first counselor was a female and that seemed what I wanted as I was having terrible relationship issues and had this feeling that a male would take "his side." She and I turned out not to be a good match, mainly due to her approach, CBT, which I discovered is not a good fit for me. Also, I don't bond as readily with females, so we never really had a close relationship, even though I liked her. Definitely no attachment, no transference.

My current therapist is a male, and when I got his name to call, I was a little reluctant because he was a male, and again, I worried that he would take the male side in my failing marriage. But this has not been a problem. He is able to bring a male perspective to the relationship issue, which has been useful and I have come to appreciate. I was also able to bond immediately and strongly with him, and maybe that would not have been possible with a female. I came to him really beaten down due to my marriage and my husband. Just having this warm, male therapist talk to me for an hour a week, give me his undivided attention, his strong empathy, and his unconditional regard has been so healing to me. It could just be as simple as having a man in my life who is nice to me. I know that sounds trivial, but it has been so important. I didn't know I needed that before I went to see him.

I guess another issue for you is how having to leave your current therapist makes you feel. Maybe you will feel like no male T could replace him, so you would prefer female. Or the opposite.

The other question you will need to answer is what approach you want the T to take: CBT, psychodynamic, psychoanalytical, humanistic, eclectic, etc. But maybe you know that. My T is humanistic but uses a lot of psychodynamic. Another issue is what problems they like to deal with--addiction, trauma, relationship, etc. Some do it all. For example, my T has specialties in trauma, divorce/marriage, and healing relationships between adult children and their parents.

Good luck, SecretGarden.

sunny