Greek Female Clients’ Experience of the Gendered Therapeutic Relationship: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

Abstract

The present research addresses the role of gender in the therapeutic relationship. It focuses on the experience of female counselling and psychotherapy clients in Greece, and its main goal is to explore the way that gender and the gendered self intervene in the relationship between clients and their counsellors. The participants of the study were 27 female counselling and psychotherapy clients. The data were gathered using individual, semi-structured interviews and were analysed with the use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The results indicate the gendered dimension of the therapeutic relationship and support the view that clients’ experience of their counsellors’ gender is a factor that shapes the therapeutic relationship as well as their experience of their own self as a gendered person in therapy.