Effect of Client-Therapist Gender Match on the Therapeutic Relationship: An Exploratory Analysis

Matching clients and counselors on the basis of heuristics, such as gender, is common in clinical practice. Considerable research has examined the effect of gender matching on the therapeutic alliance with equivocal results. Researchers have offered various hypotheses to explain these findings without consensus. This study sought to examine gender matching in a naturalistic setting and proposed that gender matching varies in importance depending upon the stage of the therapeutic relationship. It was hypothesized that gender matching affects the therapeutic alliance initially and then becomes less important as other factors come into play. Results did not support the hypothesis but showed a general “female effect.” Across all stages of therapy, female clients matched with female therapists reported therapeutic alliance ratings higher than dyads with a male therapist. Dyads with a female therapist and male client also reported alliance higher than male gender matched dyads. Implications of these results, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

With(out) pleasure: Desexualization, gender and sexuality at work

This article explores desexualization in massage therapy as a complex interaction between therapists and clients wherein sexual subjectivities are co-constructed, reified and in one case revised to highlight how workers can create a professional sexual identity in the spaces between desexualization and re-eroticization. Findings suggest that organizational mandates for desexualization as well as therapists’ own framing maintains gendered subjectivities that paint men as aggressors and women as victims. It also offers, through the philosophy of one female therapist, an alternative to desexualization that seeks to encourage sexuality based on professionalism, respect and choice. A key implication of this study is that a more holistic and context-dependent view of work and workers is necessary for scholars and practitioners to understand the promise and perils of organizational desexualization.