Family Therapy Training Issues of Male Students in a Gender-Sensitive Doctoral Program

Abstract

Gender bias has been strongly demonstrated in counseling/ therapy services in general and family therapy in particular. The counseling psychology doctoral and master's programs at Texas Woman's University emphasize family therapy and women's/gender issues. As the programs integrated the feminist critique of family therapy theory and practice, it became clear that both women's and men's sex-role stereotyping must be addressed if students were to be effective change agents working with families. This paper describes training issues involved in male student reactions to feminist family therapy perspectives and outlines course content for coverage of male issues in the training program.