«I’m just thinking about what it means that I’m a woman»

On the gender sensitivity of psychotherapists

Abstract

Patients psychic suffering is often associated with ideas of femininity and masculinity. However, this influence of gender often remains unreflected both on the patients and the psychotherapists side. In a discourse-analytical study, the perspective of seven psychotherapists is therefore examined using the example of agreement in goal-processes. It is worked out whether the interviewed psychotherapists are aware of their own assumptions about gender, whether they tend to reproduce or decrease gender stereotypes and whether they consider their own gender to be relevant in the therapeutic process. The results of the study show that the psychotherapists are sensitive to different gender aspects when they are prompted to reflect. The results thus point to the need to actively promote gender sensitivity in the training and supervision of psychotherapists in order to make such reflection processes an integral part of psychotherapeutic treatment.