Do you have a gender preference when picking a therapist?

Curious if other folks have a gender preference for their therapists. When I decided to try therapy, a friend of mine who is a psychologist offered to help me pick a therapist. I specified that the therapist had to be male. For some reason I find it easier to talk to men than to women and was actually repulsed by the thought of talking to a female. (No doubt that's due to some psychological reason involving my overbearing mother or something like that. ). But I didn't mind the idea of trying to talk about my problems to a male.

I'm curious if other people also have a gender preference and whether you prefer the same gender or the opposite (?).

Just curious,
Sidony

I prefer a woman, though saying that, when I first got into recovery 4yr ago, I would have said a man. I had no previous healthy experience of female relationships but now I feel a woman safer to understand the issues another woman has. I could well be wrong though.

I definitely have a gender preference for my T. With events in my life I can not imagine talking to a male T. Interesting how everyone is different.

Yes. Definitely F. Have problems discussing personal matters w/ a M.

nope - I had a male T for 9 years (and am still in touch with him) and female Ts for the last 5

I prefer a female T, and like you, I feel this has to do with the abuse I suffered at the hands of my father.

I just feel more comforted and understood. My last T was more then I could have ever hoped for. She specialized in Anxiety and Depression and she always had the knack for making me feel like I wasn't alone.

Interesting thread.

I have a male pdoc, and I have done therapy with him, but when the therapy did not progess very far, perhaps because I wasn't stablized on medication at the time, I started seeing a female T. I think there are good and bad to each.

DM

When I first started seeing a T, about a year and a half ago, I wanted a woman, because I was experiencing bad stuff with a male in my life and I felt a male T might somehow take "his side." I saw her about 9 months, stopped for 6 months, and now have a new T, who is male. I never would have thought I would want to see a male therapist for my original reason. But this guy has been just great and I have totally bonded with him. I think I've always bonded better with males than females, so this now makes sense to me. I really don't ever want to see another T, because my current guy is just right for me, but if someday I have to, I would pick another male.

Well, I used to choose males..also because I was not close to my mother at all.

However, not only was she abusive but so were men. So, hard to choose. I decided on males before because I am/was somewhat close to a brother.

Now that I am realizing the mothering I missed, still miss,and crave, I choose a female. I want to feel cared about and guided by a female. I think that since I haven't worked out my feelings and history with my mother, it is/will be helpful to work with a female.

Thanks for an interesting post!!

Best wishes for you in your therapy!

Yes, I want my therapist and pdoc to be male. Men simply understand men better and women understand women better.

Hey hey matter of opinion! :-)

For me personally I always feel better understood by men and bond much better with the opposite gender than the same. But I think I'm mostly in the minority, and there's no right answer!!!

Sidony

I definitely prefer female. A big part of my treatment with my t of 6-7 years was the warmth and caring and nurturing she doled out so generously. (I wonder whether a man could have been so nurturing.) I once read an interesting thought on this: that both males and females can benefit from a female therapist, as she can provide the 'mothering', 'nurturing' that we all need....

I'm female and would not open up to a male. I have had too many negative experiences with men, and plenty of good experiences with females. So I guess that explains my choice of gender when it comes to therapists.

Definitely female as I was sexually assaulted by a male pdoc.
Okie

prefer m because my mother was overbearing too. and that being said i had one female t who i got on really very well with. actually, a few of them who i got on well with. mostly because they were like older sisters to me than mothers. i think i find guys to be more soothing. guess it is more of a father figure thing... i'm not sure. i find different transference issues come up. i hope i can have a healthy relationship with a guy one day. not sure whether this is true or not but i think it is more likely that working with a male will be more likely to help me with that. not sure though.

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9874 said:
I once read an interesting thought on this: that both males and females can benefit from a female therapist, as she can provide the 'mothering', 'nurturing' that we all need....

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Interesting how different we all are! I can't stand the thought of being mothered or nurtured, yuk! I guess I need my therapist to be a father-figure.

Who knows why we all are the way we are.....

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alexandra_k said:
prefer m because my mother was overbearing too.....
guess it is more of a father figure thing.....
not sure whether this is true or not but i think it is more likely that working with a male will be more likely to help me with that.

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I feel the same way! Glad to find someone else with a similar feeling as I was starting to think as I was the only one like that. But this has definitely been interesting to find out about. People are so different!!!

Sidony

My T is male. When I had called for the first time to set up an appointment, I said to the receptionist, "Just make sure the T you give me is a male." (I'm female). I did the same thing with my pdoc. I also choose only male doctors.

Issues with my mother, sigh.

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pinksoil said:
My T is male. When I had called for the first time to set up an appointment, I said to the receptionist, "Just make sure the T you give me is a male." (I'm female). I did the same thing with my pdoc. I also choose only male doctors.

Issues with my mother, sigh.

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Yep, I noticed a while back that I always choose males for eye doctors, primary docs, etc. I skip right over the female names when I'm reading lists of doctors. And it's not like my mom was evil or anything. Just the overbearing bit made me want to be closer to males. At least I guess that's what it is!

Sidony

Whether people in general prefer a same sex therapeutic dyad or a mixed sex dyad is a question I'd been thinking about for a while, because I see my T's clients in the waiting room before me and after me. There were often solo men, or couples, sometimes a parent and older child, or sometimes two parents and a teen, sometimes just a male teen, and I began to wonder, am I the only solo female who sees this guy? Is it weird I am seeing a male T? Do most females choose female T's? I was always kind of pondering this as I would see the other clients. Then for my last session, the person before me came out and it was a woman! And I felt kind of unhappy about that, like I wasn't "special" anymore. That is so dumb, I know. Plus, this woman was younger and more attractive than me, with long blonde hair. I didn't like that at all. She reminded me of this woman I was forced to deal with daily for a month last Fall and I could not stand her. LOL, how's that for transference!

Anyway, it is good to read here that there are other women who prefer men for T's, like me. I actually didn't know that, since my first T was a woman, and at that time, I had wanted that. Then I started with the male T almost by accident and found that was a much better fit, not only because of his therapy orientation, but because of his gender. Maybe it is good to try both genders to see what works best for you, since you may not know unless you try.