I don't know re: male therapist. He is a bit younger than me (well, going by his undergrad graduation date), which I'm hoping would help. And I initially thought he was gay, so figured less of an issue, but then found something (a public article about his artwork--he's also an artist and art therapist) that shows he's not. I had initially contacted 3 female T's, then added him as well--he was first to get back to me.

I have mixed feelings about the "can you commit to a month with me?" thing. He said it can generally take that long to learn how we work together and see if it's a good fit. I understand he may be reluctant to spend time cultivating a relationship while I'm also seeing another T or two. And I think he wanted to know I wasn't immediately going back to ex-DrT. Like, give him a chance.

At the same time, it feels slightly controlling. Like he seemed reluctant when I said I already had the session with K scheduled for this past Thursday, that she's more someone I'm consulting with vs. someone I'm trying as a regular T. And that it would be barely 24 hours notice if I canceled right that minute (like 24.5 hours). And that I wanted to be able to talk through some stuff about ex-DrT with her to help process it before really working with new T. So then he seemed fine with it. I think T's tend to be taught that clients shouldn't see two T's at once, based on what some have told me. So I don't know.

I do still have a phone consult scheduled (for maybe the 24th?) with a female who does Internal Family Systems, which K said she thinks would be a good fit for me (she has a bit of training in it, but not to the level that the woman I'm talking to does--she's familiar with her). I know in her initial email reply, she said she wouldn't have availability for a session till October, so I could probably get through the month with M first, or just have slight overlap that he doesn't need to know about (not telling him about the phone consult, it's like 15 minutes).

He said he wants to spend part of next session (Monday) talking more about his approach to therapy--we didn't really get to that with all the intake stuff and my history last week. So I'm hoping that will give me a better sense of whether he'd be a good fit for me.

As for male vs. female in general, it's usually easier for me to open up to males. And I had some issues with my older female ex-T. I've also seen a couple male T's in the more distant past and didn't have this issue with them. So, we'll see.