Lessons Learned as a Male Therapist
Starting at a new private practice, much like any budding business, takes time, effort, and a lot of patience, and I knew that things would start very slowly as I developed my professional identity but was still hopeful due to my readiness to begin filling the gap that so many mental health providers could not meet because they were at capacity. So this brings me to a reflection about something that I never anticipated in diving into work as a mental health therapist, and it is how my identity as a male therapist has influenced my experience starting my new career in private practice.
I noticed that when folks would call in to inquire about services here at GRCC, some would specify that they preferred to work with a female therapist. Upon hearing this I would think, “Yeah, that makes total sense!” and I would validate and respect it while still feeling disappointed and confused, especially with person after person reiterating the same sentiment. I had figured that with mental health service availability being so limited, folks would be ready to dive into work with me, and honestly, I felt a bit foolish for not even considering what my identity as a male would impact. Furthermore, each time felt like a rejection of me and my identity as a whole due to one aspect of my identity, and with that feeling of rejection came a feeling of guilt because who am I to feel sorry for myself when maleness absolutely brings vast privilege in our society?
Where Does This Come From?
For so many people, the very harm, pain, trauma, or abuse they are seeking support and healing for has been caused by a man in their life, such as at an interpersonal level from a family member, a friend, a partner, or someone you were going out with, a colleague or boss, a teacher, a pastor, or even a previous therapist. Furthermore, there is the societal level where misogyny, sexism, heteronormativity, and inequality are systemically woven into the fabric of our culture and boil down to where we internalize things as self-deprecating thoughts and painful feelings. I want to specifically highlight the medical field because it is alarmingly and infuriatingly easy to identify story after story of women being ignored, disrespected, abused, silenced, and invalidated in the context of their own care by male health providers, and this is the experience of cisgender women and even more so for transgender women and non-binary folks!
So why would anyone who has gone through this expect the mental health field to be any different? All at the same time, I understood the preference for a non-male clinician but still internalized it and felt ashamed for being a male clinician. I am very enthusiastic to talk with my clients about shame, unpack it, and redirect its energy to growth and healing, so I needed to do the same for myself and sit down and explore the shame that I was feeling. And I’m glad I did because doing so taught me a lot about myself, how to be a better therapist and part of this work that I had not considered before. What follows are a few lessons that I have learned from being a male clinician.
The Significance of Cognitive Empathy
I reminded myself that I do not need to discredit myself or be ashamed of an identity I hold, including being a man. I can help people even if I cannot say to them, “I know exactly how you feel” because of the power of cognitive empathy. Affective empathy is where we experience another person’s emotions as our own, and this vicarious feeling is different from cognitive empathy in that cognitive empathy allows me to consider my own experiences so that I can better understand and feel another person’s experience. Brene Brown in Atlas of the Heart defines cognitive empathy as “understanding what someone is feeling, not feeling it for them,” and I have learned so much about this from sitting back and processing my male identity.
I do not know what it is like to be harmed as a woman, but I do know what it is like to be harmed, betrayed, wronged, and mistreated. For many of you, it just does not feel safe to work with a male clinician because therapy calls for vulnerability, sharing intimate details about who you are and your experience, and trust, a trust that was likely betrayed and abused by a male in the past. I cannot ever claim to have experienced this exactly, but I know what it is like to have my trust betrayed. The experience of hurt, pain, confusion, and betrayal are not tied to the constructs of gender, and it can be significantly healing to see that someone who seems entirely different from you has gone through the same feelings or can understand what you are feeling.
The Difference Between Safety and Comfort
Furthermore, I can very much empathize with you and say that I do understand the importance of safety. Therapy is not a safe space just because I say it is or just because it is “supposed to be” by definition, and this is the perspective that I constantly remind myself of and hold in my therapy space. As a therapist, it is my job to create safety. There is a big difference, however, between safety and comfort. No therapist can ever promise that you will always be comfortable in therapy because therapy is about change, and change is uncomfortable and downright scary at times.
To heal and grow is to change, and because effective therapy actively takes you out of what is known and comfortable for you, therapy can be so damn hard and painful at times. It is like going through the pain of resetting a broken bone so that you can heal effectively and fully; you know in your mind how necessary and important it is, but wow, it hurts like hell. And the most important thread that holds this together is that although therapy will be uncomfortable at times, it should never be unsafe.
Part of the privilege that comes from my maleness is that I have felt unsafe far fewer times in my life than others. In any number of various situations, what might make me feel uncomfortable may make another person feel unsafe, and I think about how this can show up in the counseling sphere, such as talking to me about violence, harm, oppression, assault, gaslighting, and invalidation perpetrated by a man. I have learned how important it is to constantly remind myself of this and to actively pursue, create, and check in about safety, and I say “actively” because I believe that safety can never be achieved passively. The necessity and very existence of “safe spaces” inherently points to the existence of “unsafe/dangerous spaces,” and I challenge myself to operate under the assumption that space is unsafe until I actively make it safe.
Some Folks Would Rather Not See a Therapist At All Than See a Male Therapist And that’s ok. Period. That’s it.
You are the expert of your life, and it is in your power to decide who is safe for you. I have known this since my training in graduate school, and I am thankful because processing my male identity in the context of being a therapist has helped me truly understand it. Writing this blog felt good to get my thoughts on a page, and I hope this goes to show that therapists are regular folks as well who are learning, growing, and developing right there alongside clients. Well, I can’t speak for all therapists, but I can assuredly say that it is true for me!
