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This is a continuation of the comment I made here:
Multiple other queens also shared their negative experiences on that thread.
There are so many men out there that get sexually aroused from hearing about women's trauma. Male psych graduates can be especially skilled at being manipulative. Who are men usually seeking to manipulate the majority of the time? Women and young girls.
Some people find security in a "professional" relationship with a man that has "qualifications and credentials" but theres a major power dynamic going on. Sometimes these nvm will deliberately choose work locations near women's shelters or places that take low income insurances so they can get access to vulnerable women that have limited options. I mean how many males would take less income to help female strangers out of the "goodness of their hearts" not many.
You're better off talking to yourself in the mirror or reading self help books than you would be with a lv male therapist. It's also much harder to vet a man that's studied for years on all kinds of effective psychological manipulation tactics. These are not your average manipulative scrotes. Especially if your recovery requires you to be emotionally vulnerable from the beginning.
A male therapist also has a position of authority and can label you crazy, paranoid or a narcissistic liar if you ever try to report him for something. Because of his medical authority over you it'll be MUCH harder to prove what happened especially since therapy sessions are usually one on one so there would be no witnesses.
Even if you end up lucky and find a high value male therapist you still won't get as much progress done as you would with a female therapist because he very likely doesn't know what it's like to be in your shoes. There are many female therapists out there that chose that line of work because they experienced and overcame similar situations that you went through. If you have any sexual/domestic violence related trauma its also a lot more emotionally easy to open up to a strange woman than a strange male.
A hv female therapist is the way to go.
Over 75% of therapists are women, we should never settle for less. When we have a majority female choice. If the office claims theres "no female therapists available right now" then ask to get set an appointment further in advance or go to another location. If you need immediate help call suicide hotlines, womens shelters or the rainn hotlines instead.
This might be an unpopular opinion on FDS, but I would extend OP’s line of reasoning and say don’t see a therapist period.
Too many female therapists are not FDS-aligned, and most female therapists, at least in the U.S., are proponents of liberal feminist 50/50 culture. Unless you get very lucky and find a female therapist who espouses FDS values, you’re better off on your own.
I’ve had 2 female therapists and 1 male therapist. One female therapist listened carefully to everything I said, was very reassuring and validated my feelings, and helped me get out of my abusive relationship. The other was my very first therapist and she immediately put me at ease and made me feel heard and seen. I looked forward to seeing her…but sadly she left and I got assigned to a male therapist.
I had 2 sessions with him. On the first session, he immediately wanted to put me on medication (I was going to therapy to work on my codependency issues and establishing boundaries and trust issues). The second session, I had to run to my appointment while it was raining in the city, and started coughing because I felt cold. He decided to yell at me for a good 5 min straight for “coming in when I was sick” and then cut our session 15 minutes short. Needless to say, I never went back to him again. I even made an appointment at the same practice some years later, hoping to be assigned to a different therapist…only to be assigned to him again. I cancelled my appointment immediately.
Based on that experience alone, I would never return to a male therapist…even more so after reading your post.
This. I made sure to only get a female therapist and I lucked out with my first one who called out problematic male behavior often and helped raised my standards. Like any other person, vet your therapist
Your relationship with your therapist is exactly that—a relationship. So, it requires a degree of vetting.
I’ve had good and bad therapists. I have seen my current therapist for 4+ years, before I discovered FDS in 2020 and throughout my entire level up journey. She listens to me without judgment and validates my feelings. I have so much respect and appreciation for her.
In the past, I saw a male psychiatrist and a female therapist who quickly attempted to diagnose me and medicate me for a serious psychiatric condition that I simply don’t have. Indeed, at that time, I was struggling because I was in a toxic relationship, I didn’t have much self esteem, and I was abusing alcohol. But, that’s not the same as having a major psychiatric disorder. Never was it suggested that, perhaps, I had some power to change my life and circumstances—that I didn’t just have to let myself be used and abused by men, employers, or friends. I still feel angry when I think about this.
Think about the root of the word “hysterical.” Women have the odds stacked against them when they seek mental healthcare. This is why it’s so important to vet your therapist and find someone who is an advocate, not someone who is looking to slap a label on you and wash their hands of doing the real work.
To that end, I would never see a male therapist, and I try to see female doctors whenever I can. Men, however, benefit from seeing male therapists IMO because it helps to break down the toxic patriarchal conditioning that says men can’t have feelings (besides anger) or open up to one another.
I struggle with therapists in general because most of them give off kind of a patronizing and condescending vibe which is a no go for me. If they want my respect and for me to take their advice seriously I just need a little bit more than generic advice I could have found (and already found) within the first 5 minutes of googling my condition and an approach that takes me as an individual into account.
It's not just men, either. I went to a female grief counsellor once after the death of a loved one and she kept pushing her religion on me depsite me telling her that I wasn't interested and uncomfortable with that (I specifically looked for a grief-counsellor who is not affiliated with a religion or church and confirmed this with the receptionist... turns out it was a big lie). Her solution to me feeling a little lonely and isolated because my friends were trying their best but none of them really knew what I was going through and I felt like I was ruining the mood because their lives obviously continued unchanged... was to tell me to go to a dating event organized by her church "to meet a nice man who will take my mind off it". And then she berated me for "not taking the therapy seriously enough" the next week because she hadn't seen me there. That was our last appointment.
I had 2 female therapists over the years who helped me tremendously with eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. I do think therapy is helpful for mental illness. But I would not lean on therapists for issues within a romantic relationship. Typically when you are dating a man and feel the need to get a therapist involved in the relationship, you’d be better served by simply dumping the man.
This really is a very valuable topic!
I already posted to here, but to sum up what I said, the reason I will never go back to therapy is based on the very last experience I had. Others who have had the opposite experience and therapy made a difference? Great.
With me, I learned that a person in the profession of mental health can certainly weaponize their services against you. Be it your disclosed trauma, financial means to pay for their services, they are the person in power to say if you step into their office.
It's one thing to disclose your trauma to a guy you are dating, which we all know is one of the worst things a woman can do in a relationship. Let's apply this principle to this subject and not pour out our trauma to a complete stranger who can hold it over our head. I don't know about you, but I refuse to give someone, anyone that power.
I read an article years ago about a Black woman who finally decided to choose only Black women therapists. The white men were dismissive of her experiences as a woman, and she thought the white women would be better but they just couldn't grasp racism. The chilling thing though, is that the white therapists always seemed to imply she had a mental disorder for complaining about being followed around stores by employees. Very scary. M