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The female approach to psychotherapy should not be confused with female psychotherapy. Women’s psychotherapy is a psychotherapy focused on women and taking into account female characteristics. She touches on topics that are predominantly relevant for women, and speaks the language of women — the language of feelings. The female approach is different, it expresses only some features of female psychotherapy. See →
The female approach to psychotherapy is naturally more characteristic of female psychotherapists, but is not necessarily focused on women. It is suitable for patients with an infantile worldview, reduced locus control, and self-doubt. Lost youths, depressed people.
The main feature of the female approach is the conviction that attempts to intervene, influence only exacerbate problems, and instead of fighting, accept the best that happened. General position: «I’m small, the world is big.»
The female approach to psychotherapy is quite clearly manifested in relation to unwanted emotions. Where the male approach would simply remove fear or resentment, in the female approach it will be proposed to work with fear or resentment. In the women’s approach, it is believed that it is unproductive to deal with unwanted emotions, the thesis “There are no bad emotions” is often broadcast and it is proposed to accept any emotion in the first place, as a living being that cares about the client. Instead of a forceful approach to unwanted emotions, it is proposed here to demonstrate a friendly and respectful approach to them, counting on reciprocity.
A fairly striking example of a female approach to psychotherapy is the article by Pavel Kolesov “How to learn to take money from a man?” The article is controversial. Firstly, not all men and not always need to take money. Secondly, this article wean women to think. A reasonable person, in order to start taking money, will simply think, perhaps discuss it with other reasonable people and say to himself: “When it makes sense, I take money!”. However, the author of the article offers women another way, the way of restructuring their unconscious. He suggests immersing yourself in a world drawn by the imagination, captivating yourself with a picture of a flowing stream of finances and putting your hand on your chest, arranging an affirmation session for yourself. This is an impact on the psyche bypassing the mind. And this is a suggestion to women that it is either useless to use their heads, or they should not.
Psychotherapeutic perspective on male and female support
From the website of the psychologist Polina Gaverdovskaya — http://gaverdovskaya.ru
When someone feels bad, the most common reaction of someone who is nearby is to try to help with something constructive, that is, to come up with something. Practical like that. Well, for example, if a man is grieving — because he had a fight with a girl — then the friends will most likely be divided into those who offer to buy her sweets (“the most chocolate ones, the little ones love sweets”), those who offer to spit (“ you just whistle, they will run in) and those who will try to organize a quick “recovery” for a friend at the expense of other improvised means (familiar Klava, discos, vodka).
Surprisingly, such support does not support much. Why? And what, in fact, drives people who are striving to quickly invent a cure for someone else’s suffering? As a rule — anxiety, it is also the inability to endure his heavy feelings. “Let’s do something quickly” means “stop suffering in front of me, I can’t stand it. Deliver me from your suffering.»
Why doesn’t it usually help? Because a person who suffers receives a signal that his suffering is really unbearable.
Effective support in grief (or adversity, whatever) is something completely different. This is a signal from the outside that his feelings can bear. The message should sound something like this: “Yes, I understand that you feel very bad. I’m here». “I am here” means that I am not destroyed by seeing your grief. So, you will carry it. The proof that grief is bearable is precisely the fact of the presence of another person without his attempts to “run away to the council”.
You will say that, they say, someone else’s grief is not one’s own, it is quite possible to endure. But the facts say otherwise. As a rule, it is the presence in someone else’s grief without action (when actions are meaningless) that is terribly difficult. And that is what support is.
In another way, this is called «sharing grief.» Grief no longer looks so terrible when there is someone to share it with, when it is already one for two (or three or more).
PS And by the way, it’s easier, except for the fact that you have to urgently invent something.
Male and female style in science
Initially, science is a masculine field with all the features of a masculine approach: a desire for certainty, a willingness to confront in the name of truth, a certain indifference to practicality (see fundamental science). However, in science, at least in the field of practical psychology, a female style is also represented: softness, fuzziness, flexibility, avoidance of confrontation of opinions, indifference to truth, and at the same time — practicality. See →
Video from Yana Shchastya: interview with professor of psychology N.I. Kozlov
Topics of conversation: What kind of woman do you need to be in order to successfully marry? How many times do men get married? Why are there so few normal men? Childfree. Parenting. What is love? A story that couldn’t be better. Paying for the opportunity to be close to a beautiful woman.