Posted by Dinah on March 18, 2009, at 9:56:16
In reply to More women than men on the Psychology board?, posted by SLS on March 18, 2009, at 9:12:03
That's one of the many reasons we're delighted to have you here!
I have a couple of ideas off the top of my head. Maybe more if I think about it.
Some of it is like a snowball. If the Psychology Board has mostly female posters, male posters may not feel comfortable here, or may come and see this fact and not stay around to post. If men who are comfortable enough to stay around do stay around, more men might feel comfortable enough to post here.
Also, there is definitely a bias to relation based therapy on this board. Many of us have had less than happy experiences with CBT, and tend to say so when the topic comes up. Those who aren't familiar with this way of thinking may come to this board and be appalled. They may think it's terrible that clients have been with therapists for so many years, or that clients are so upset when their therapists go on vacation. They may wonder why so much time is spent in therapy on the therapeutic relationship. People from other schools of therapy have commented in the past that they don't feel comfortable on this board. Our therapists may be from many disciplines from analysis to CBT, but to lesser or greater extents, the therapeutic relationship is involved.
I have mixed feelings about that. This is the Psychology Board, not the Therapy relationships board, and everyone should feel welcome here. That being said, I understand the tension involved better than I do between, say SSRI users and MAOI users, though that may be my ignorance about medication talking.
And Psychology is seen by posters on this board as something of a safe haven where people are respectful, work things out in the ways we were taught, and in general behave like the those thoroughly therapized by relation-based therapists. There are group norms that are politely but firmly enforced by posters directly and indirectly. And again, I see both benefits and drawbacks to this.
It's my observation that reflecting on relation-based therapy and group norms arising from relation-based therapy favor the upbringing and possibly genetic tendencies of women in general. But certainly not women in specific or men in specific. Each person is an individual.
I think that the lack of men on the existing board, and the relationship based therapy model prevailing here might combine to escalate the female/male ratio on Psychology.
One possible solution I see is for men who are comfortable doing so to post here, and help other men feel more comfortable.
Another I might see is for CBT discussions to start here where everyone manages to ignore what they don't particularly care for personally, so remain respectful to all. But again, it might take a bit of perseverance to build up a sizable enough poster population to make those discussions lively.
Or, while I hate to add extra boards, I think it might be helpful to have a separate CBT board, so that discussions might possibly become livelier sooner. And where tensions might be less. In practice it could be considered more of a practically oriented rather than theory based board. Focused on DBT or CBT concepts and their application?
Which wouldn't exactly address the problem on this particular board.
So please, stay around and invite your male friends. :)
poster:Dinah
thread:885899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20090227/msgs/885905.html