Gender Specific Dangers in the Female Dyad in Treatment*

There is no substantiated evidence that the gender of the therapist determines the outcome of treatment, whether it be brief, goal-oriented, or long-term classical psychoanalysis. There are many impressions and convictions regarding this topic, and a few traditions. The classical analytic position is that there is no difference; in an analysis, all significant transferences will emerge if the analyst permits and facilitates their emergence.

In general, women have been thought of as more patient, more able to deal with preoedipal material, with sicker patients; male colleagues have often in the past referred unsuccessful or stalemated cases to women, in the belief that their more “nurturant” capacities might bring more success. There have always been women who would seek treatment only with a female therapist, manifestly because they felt they could not reveal embarrassing secrets to a man, or, that a woman would automatically understand them. Some have felt they would successfully deceive a man, a variation of “faking it” (Person, 1983). There has been a theoretical stance that all patients who seek women therapists are attempting to work out unresolved problems with their mothers (Goz, 1973). (For more in-depth discussion of these positions, see Kalinich, 1981; Mogul, 1982; Person, 1983.)

In today's world, women patients seem to be seeking women therapists in increasing numbers. This is very different from only a decade ago. The reasons given by these women are familiar to most