The Different Way Of Counseling Men & Women

Introduction

Gender refers to Sex of the person. Counseling is a professional relationship that empowers diverse individual, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals. So Gender Based Counseling tells us that Counseling based on the gender (Sex) of the person. Is there a difference in counseling according to the gender of the person? The answer is yes. So in this literature review we will see gender based counseling, what are the differences in counseling men and women and also let’s look at the research that shows the counseling process based on gender.

Effective counseling requires special knowledge and insight that focuses on particular and common aspects of sexuality and sexual orientation of people. According to Nelson, women and men experience different developmental challenges. They may need different styles of interaction from professionals. Also women are not allowed to show/express their anger that is why may be they suffer from mood, anxiety, eating disorder than men. Also compare to employed men, employed women have great responsibility of household work etc. Thus, working with women in mental health and career realm may differ from working with men.

Counseling Women

Women are the primary consumer in counseling because the socialization pattern and the biological differences. That requires different way of counseling which makes difference in counseling men. Also women have very different way of dealing with the life. According to our collectivist culture women are not mostly allow to show their anger in front of people, they should be very polite. There are some restriction pose on women. Here culture also plays an important role. Therefore sometimes dealing with women requires some characteristics that may not use in counseling men. Also study shows that women’s preference for counselor and their comfort level of self-discloser with counselors of different sexes.

Women's Preference of Therapist Based on Sex of Therapist and Presenting Problem

An analogue study was conducted to examine differences in women's preference for and anticipated comfort self-disclosing to hypothetical therapists of different sexes based on the type of hypothetical presenting problem. The impact of general level of self-disclosure was also examined. Participants included female college students (n=187). Anticipated comfort self-disclosing to male or female therapist was rated by subjects when presented with therapists of each sex with the same qualifications. Women preferred and reported higher levels of anticipated comfort self-disclosing to a female therapist.

Type of hypothetical presenting problem and general level of self-disclosure also impacted anticipated comfort self-disclosing. There was an interaction between general level self-disclosure and the sex of therapist on anticipated comfort self-disclosing. General level of self-disclosure only impacted anticipated comfort self-disclosing when the therapist was male. This information is relevant for therapists or organizations that provide psycho-social services to women. Organizations may want to inquire about a client's preferences about sex of therapist beforehand and, if possible, cater to the client's preference.

The Hanna et al [1998] suggested that the professionals who counsel women should be highly empathic, warm, understanding, and sufficiently well developed as a person to appreciate the unpleasant in which women find themselves. Unfortunately, evidence shows that some counselors and health professionals still hold sex-role stereotypes of women and some counselors are simply uninformed about particular difficulties that women face in general or at different stages of their lives. Mollen [2006 ] stresses the importance of acceptance and empowerment of these women as well as helping them manage the stigma they may face in society because of their choices or lifestyle.

False assumptions, inaccurate beliefs, and lack of counselor understanding may all contribute to the problems of women clients. Committees and task forces within professional counseling organization have been formed to address issues related to counseling women .For Instance, there is a National Commission on women within ACA.

Concern, issues and theories in counseling women

Concern

The one of concern in counseling women involve the inaccurate and wrong information about women lives. There are theories that state that women are innately passive, dependent, and morally inferior to men. Also as mention in the book of Health Psychology of SY, women are only tested for the part that makes different from men. That means most of the study or the outcome of the study is based on the men. Women are only studied for the different part ex. Breast. However, the literature in the field of women’s studies and female psychology has grown from only three textbooks in the early 1970’s to a plethora of texts and articles today.

Many of these publication have been written by women, for women, often from a feminist and feminist therapy perspective to correct some older theoretical views generated by men without firsthand knowledge of women’s issues. Some theorists have proposed that women’s development is in marked contrast to E|rikson’s psychological stages of development. These theorists stress the uniqueness of women and connectedness rather than separation. They outline female identity development from several points of view and compare and contrast it to ethnic identity models.

Second concerns in counseling involve Sexism. Which is define as the belief that females should be treated on the basis of their sex without regard to other criteria, such as interests and abilities. Sexism is also described as more deep rooted than racism. In the 1990s, Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske coined the term benevolent sexism to refer to subjectively favorable but patronizing attitudes toward women (e.g., that women, though wonderful, are weak and need men’s helped). Sexists tend to endorse both benevolent sexism and hostile sexism (negative attitudes toward women who seek equality or powerful roles in society).

Benevolent sexism rewards women for staying in traditional (e.g., domestic) roles, whereas hostile sexism punishes women who attempt to break out of those roles. The two forms of sexism work together to maintain gender inequality. Cross-cultural comparisons reveal that nations in which people most strongly endorse benevolent sexism also exhibit the most hostile sexism and the least gender equality (e.g., lower living standards for women relative to men). Many acts of omission result from a lack of information or a failure to change beliefs in light of new fact. In either case, sexism hurts not only women but society in general.

Concern in counseling women in india

Health-care expenditure on females was systematically lower than on males across all demographic and socio-economic groups. Multivariate analysis confirms that female HCE is significantly lower than male HCE even after controlling demographic and socio-economic factors (β = -0.148, p = 0.000, CI:-0.206–0.091). For both short-term and major morbidity, a female disadvantage on HCE increased from IHDS I to IHDS II. For instance, the male–female gap in major morbidity related expenditure increased from INR 1298 to INR 4172.

A decomposition analysis of gender gap in HCE demonstrates that about 48% of the gap is attributable to differences in demographic and socio-economic factors (endowment effect), whereas 50% of the gap is due to the differential effect of the determinants conclude on the base of their study that multi-tasking amongst women is taking a toll on their health. The worst part is that most of the affected women are in the age group from 32 to 58 years and the sufferings include obesity, depression, chronic backache, diabetes etc. Many women don’t want to take promotions and want to remain in traditional or cool jobs because they are shirkers but only due to overburden of household management and child rearing.

Arab,Bharati, and Masoumi [2005] have identified mental harassment, sexual harassment, discrimination at work place, lack of family support regarding household management, insufficient maternity leave etc. as the major factors preventing women employees from asprining for higher posts in india. Varsha [2014] found in her research that 53% of the females in the sample undertaken agreed that sometimes they felt hesitant to work with male colleagues and 47% said that they are not comfortable with male colleague.

Almost 67% women were uncomfortable because people drew conclusion about their character. Indian women do suffer from easy character assassination and much more. Another concern is the passivity amongst women which has been passing through generations, and their sheer lack of life skills. The restriction laid down by mothers pertaining to mixing up of boys and girls has generated gap.

Issues and theories on counseling women

The issues involving counseling women is the counselor’s knowledge about the women and proven ways of responding to women as individuals and in groups One should be aware about the women’s life ex. How they behave in particular way, their biological aspect, emotional aspect etc. while dealing with women it is necessary to look at them without holding any bias about their gender, sexism. After having knowledge about the women the counselor is much able to deal with their client’s problem. Also able to make decision that which treatment is best suited to their client. So the knowledge about the women is very important while dealing with women.

Feminist theory

Focuses on empowering women and helping them discover how to break the stereotypes and molds of some traditional roles that women play that may be blocking their development and growth. Here are four major approaches that are unique to feminist therapy which include consciousness-raising, social and gender role analysis, resocialization, and social activism. Consciousness-raising is sometimes held in small groups in a leaderless manner involving the discussion of women’s individual and shared experiences. Women in these groups do not have to feel that they are alone and they could listen and support others. These individuals examine how oppression and socialization contributes to personal distress and dysfunction and they talk about ways in which solutions for creating individual and social changes can be made. Consciousness-raising helps women feel more powerful to take steps against oppression by participating in social action.

Social and gender role analysis involves the evaluation of the client’s psychological distress and methods of coping. First clients will learn about the impact and affects of social and cultural norms and expectations and how negatively these issues affect society. This helps the client become aware and identify his or her own experiences in regards to social and gender role norms. The therapist helps the individual become aware of both implicit and explicit sex roles that the client may have experienced over his or her lifetime. This helps the client explore possible origins of psychological distress. Together the therapist and the client come up with ways to implement change and gain self knowledge.

Resocialization follows social and gender role analysis and involves reorganizing the client’s belief system. They learn to view things differently and they develop new coping skills and strategies. Methods are taught that increase self esteem, assertiveness, and self views. A main goal of resocialization is an overall increase in well being. Social activism is rather controversial and not practiced by all therapists. It is embedded in the notion that “personal is political”, which is one of the basic tenets of feminist therapy. This means that there are underlying roots of client’s problems that stem from society and politics. Feminist therapy should not only help the individual but it should help all individuals. Social activism may involve participation by both the therapist and the client. This can be accomplished by speaking out, organized protests, and letter writing campaigns. Feminists agree that social change is crucial and advantageous to the mental health of all individuals.

Counseling Men

According to a recent Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) survey, the number of men who seek treatment for mental health concerns is significantly lower than the number of women with mental health concerns who seek out and use available resources. Research also shows that over 14% of American men experience some type of mental health challenge and more than 3% of men face serious mental health challenges.

In 2012, American men were less likely than American women to utilize outpatient mental health services (5% vs. 9%) and less likely to use prescription medication (9% vs. 16%) for mental health issues experienced in the past 12 months. African American men are more likely to experience a violent crime than white men, which may increase their likelihood of developing posttraumatic stress (PTSD). Men over 50 years of age are more likely to seek help for mental health issues than men between the ages of 18 and 25.

Some mental health professionals believe certain social and cultural norms as well as rigid beliefs about masculinity may prevent men from seeking help. Men may also have a more difficult time trusting or opening up to a therapist, a process which is necessary in order to discuss personal issues. S tigma surrounding men asking for help may also make men more reluctant to seek mental health treatment. Men may not come forward when they are victims of intimate partner violence or sexual assault because they are afraid of not being believed, having their experience downplayed, or being shamed for what happened to them.

Concerns in counseling men

Men who experience negative consequences of their socialized gender roles--that is, have greater gender role conflict-report less positive attitudes and willingness to seeking counseling. Using structural equation modeling with data from 575 undergraduate men, the authors examined 3 mediators (self-stigma associated with seeking counseling, tendency to disclose distressing information, and attitudes toward seeking counseling) regarding the link between gender role conflict and willingness to seek counseling for psychological and interpersonal concerns. Results indicated that this link was partially mediated by these 3 factors. Men experiencing greater gender role conflict were more likely to self-stigmatize and less likely to self-disclose.

High self-stigma and less disclosure then led to less positive attitudes and subsequently to less willingness to seek counseling. Men show fighter behaviour rather than kind behaviour. This also lead them to think if they go to counselor than what might society will think about me. They are the one who enter the counselling when they face any major issues in their life. In such a situation it’s the counsellor responsibility to help the client to understand what is going in their life through using various method like male - friendly attitude, interactive way of doing things etc. which will help them to overcome with their problem and also help them to understand that the process that help them to develop in their life.

Issues and theories in counselling men

The exploration of men’s problems and potentials has been a struggle over the last four decades. Six excellent books have been published over the last 15 years on how to counsel men (Brooks, 2010; Brooks & Good, 2001; Englar-Carlson & Stevens, 2006; Horne & Kiselica, 1999; Pollack & Levant, 1998; Rabinowitz & Cochran, 2002), but evidence-based counseling interventions with men remain in the earliest stages of development. The lack of research and case studies on counseling men has hindered our accurate understanding of men’s emotional and psychological development. For example, the first two published books on men’s depression in psychology were published in 1999 and 2000 (Cochran & Rabinowitz, 2000; Lynch & Kilmartin, 2013). Psychologists did not acknowledge male depression as a scholarly area of inquiry or defined clinical symptom for the first 80 years of psychology.

Overall, psychologists avoided studying men’s gender-role problems over the first eight decades of psychology. In many ways, the counseling profession was first exposed to men’s issues when Murray Scher edited a special issue of the Personnel and Guidance Journal (the precursor to the Journal of Counseling & Development [JCD]) on “Counseling Men” (Scher, 1981). During the next 30 years, there were scattered articles on men published in JCD, but no overall effort has existed to develop therapeutic ideas about how to counsel men Gestalt Therapy Developed by Fritz Perls, gestalt therapy helps the individual to become more aware of self and others. Emphasis is on both bodily and psychological awareness.

Therapeutic approaches deal with being responsible for one self, being attuned to one's language, nonverbal behaviors, emotional feelings, and conflicts within oneself and with others. Therapeutic techniques include the development of creative experiments and exercises to facilitate self-awareness. Belief systems and thinking are seen as important in determining and affecting behavior and feelings. By asking clients to record dysfunctional thoughts and using questionnaires to determine maladaptive thinking, counselor are then able to make use of a wide variety of techniques to change beliefs that interfere with successful functioning. They also make use of affective and behavioral strategies.

Conclusion

To conclude that, gender based counseling is helpful to understand what the different way through which we counselor treat the different gender client. Also, it has been observed that women are more prone for counseling than men. False assumptions, inaccurate beliefs, and lack of counselor understanding may all contribute to the problems of women clients. There are some issues and concern with counseling women and men. Also there are some theories used to help the client to understand process that help them to develop in their life.

References:

1. Samuel T. Gladding: Counseling A Comprehensive Profession Seventh Edition https://www.counseling.org/.../
2. Counseling_Theories https://www.counseling.org/Publications https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232480148_
3. Gender_issues_in_counseling Samuel T. Gladding, Promila Batra: Counseling A Comprehensive Profession 8TH edition RE Fassinger - Journal of counseling psychology, 2005 - psycnet.apa.org [EL Pederson, DL Vogel - Journal of Counseling Psychology, 2007