My therapist seems politically opposed to my feminist views

[idontknowhowtodreamyourdreams]

I didn't know where else to post this and could do with a sense check/ideas as to how to deal with this.

I've been seeing a therapist for about a year for a range of issues, including substance misuse and recovering from abuse during my childhood and teens (sexual, violence). We've spoken about some really difficult and personal things that I have never discussed before and I have felt that the therapy has been useful. I thought I trusted him and trust is not an easy thing for me.

I'm a GC feminist. I'm also a lawyer and so I tend to have a legal lens on some of the debates around issues of trans rights and the rights of women and girls. I have talked in therapy about how I have found the tone of the debate around trans rights increasingly upsetting and hostile (on one side) and I had been upset over the discussion re the Supreme Court and the Equality Act. I've talked about both this and how hard it can be to feel like there's no space for women to express certain views without being dismissed or labelled.

My error (I totally accept I shouldn't have looked, but he should have locked down his settings) - I looked and saw a pic on SM of him at a protest. I don't want to out myself or him but he was holding a banner basically slagging off the Supreme Court.

And now I feel . . . the trust has gone. Has he been quietly judging me while I shared some frankly painful stuff? Does he respect my perspective? As I don't know if I can work with someone who doesn't. It's not a difference in political views, I feel like my views on these issues are fundamentally part of who I am as a person.

I know I crossed a boundary and shouldn't have looked, but would appreciate any thoughts as to whether I am being overly sensitive and/or whether it's something I should bring up.

Or maybe I am just wrong to care? Thoughts welcome!

OMG that is balderdash.
a client can look up a therapist. It’s the other way around that is unethical.
he was careless to leave his SM open to the public- and for me that carelessness is not up to a standard of behaviour that I would expect from a decent therapist. publicising that he was on that protest is also a way of virtue signalling his support for a loathsome movement.
the OP has knowledge now that she didn’t have when she met him. she must act on that. She owes him nothing except the courtesy of notice of ending and can raise any issues surrounding possible other motives for ending therapy with her new therapist.
Good night all!

Definitely not, unless it's made him feel uncomfortable- I've known support workers and a counsellor who have experienced stalking behaviour from clients in the past and would therefore find something like this difficult as it may be triggering for them, but that's clearly not what this is in this case and my guess is he'll just talk to you about it, maybe discuss why you felt the need to look/ what you were looking for etc and agree some boundaries around this for moving forward. Then it'll be up to you if you feel safe moving forward with him or not.

He has every right to leave his sm open. Its not something I would do, but he probably assumed most people would agree with him. He was wrong in this case. I think the OP should bring it up.

Also it may be helpful for the OP to begin to accept that his gender views doesn't make him a bad therapist and how she feels about that.

Of course he wouldn't end the therapy! All clients look up their therapists on social media. Every now and again I ask my dcs friends to try and find out what they can about me on the internet and shut things down if they appear. But of course many therapists have a huge social media presence and are often trans affirming.

But that's not always true, some people do well with a male therapist after experiencing such trauma because it can be repair work in having a trusting relationship with men. Obviously preferences matter, if someone doesn't want a male therapist that's fine, but some people find it can be helpful and I don't think it's fair to say male therapists cannot be effective with people who have sexual trauma. Some male therapists may not be (whether that be modality or training or even just the vibe isn't their between you and them) but some can be amazing and vice versa for female therapists. I get why you wouldn't want one (perfectly understable and you should choose someone you trust) but I don't think that as a whole male therapists cannot work with such cases. Though i agree preferences in therapy matter - some people want a Black therapist etc, but other therapists can still be effective. Again it's like male gynaecologists, some people wouldn't want that but others are fine with it.

Totally agree.

I am a female therapist but have always had lots of male clients.

@TheLivelyViper I agree. It's not the fact that he's a man that's the issue here.

I think the idea that you can't be trans supporting and also supporting of women and girls is wrong.

I agree (as a GC feminist), BUT one of the key issues where needs are not reconcilable is that in the TWAW view of the world women have no right to sex-based specific spaces but must be inclusive in terms of gender. I.e no recognition that a safe space for women means no male bodied people. In Rape Survivor services for example.

The main protests against the SC ruling were aiming to press this TWAW point and deny any need for sex specific safe spaces.

So in this matter, between an abuse survivor and a therapist, how can she trust this as a safe space when they may not have a shared understanding of what a safe space is? For women. And doesn’t respect what women say about the need for a single sex space.

You have expressed this more articulately than me @RantzNotBantz, thank you! I may screenshot so e of these responses and show them to my therapist (am joking, but they are really helping me gain some clarity on how I feel).

@idontknowhowtodreamyourdreams this is tough but I think you’re right to raise it in therapy. I had therapy a couple of years ago with a practitioner who turned out to have a trans identity, in part to talk about some bullying I experienced as a result of GC views - they were very professional, containing and reduced my anxiety really well. It was actually really helpful to have such a supportive and healing experience with someone who was clearly politically on the ‘other side’ as it got me out of a paranoid state where I assumed everyone with pronouns in their email was about to cancel me. Not saying that will definitely happen here of course but it might be worth giving him a chance to redeem your trust. Especially if it feels like a therapeutic relationship thats been helpful for you so far.

As a therapist you believe and trust in what the client needs as a safe space.

@Pairue I am so glad to read that you had a healing experience. It's made me feel quite emotional! I guess the key thing is that you felt able to trust and be vulnerable with your therapist with the issues you wanted to work through - you could trust the space. I am no longer sure I can. But I won't know until I try to bring it up.

Because in order for therapy to be useful, you explore the things you can change (yourself), not things you can’t.

@Wolfpinkola I get where you're coming from, but you have to be able to express how the things you can't change have made you feel and continue to make you feel, in order to then make progress and change the things you can change - yourself, your responses to these things. And to do all of that you have to trust the therapist, the relationship, the space.

Sure, processing past trauma is important, but in the here and now, a good therapist would help you turn your focus inward. The external world shifts shape depending on how you feel about it anyway doesn’t it?

I think male therapists can be useful with men who have sexual trauma, but I am skeptical when it comes to them treating women effectively in this area. I also think male therapists can definitely be great with women with other issues and I think men are perfectly capable in physical health settings regarding women e.g gynaecology. I could be wrong but personally I just wouldn’t risk it in a psycho therapeutic setting when sex, sexual politics and sexual violence by men against women are amongst the key issues at play.

This particular male therapist has attended a protest waving a banner where the rights of women and girls to privacy and dignity with regards to men are being questioned. So if I were going to choose a male therapist (for whatever reason) to discuss sexual abuse related trauma with, it would not be this one.

Yes definitely I did trust them - but also I would have assumed beforehand that I couldn’t trust someone with their views and identity to create that healing space for me when I specifically talked about my experience of being gender critical. I guess I just mean that someone can act very differently politically to therapeutically and you won’t know unless you raise it explicitly whether your therapist is able to do that. But equally I completely get how it’s disrupted the trust you feel for him, and made you feel vulnerable. Really hope it works out.

Really helpful, thanks @Pairue

I confessed to snooping on my therapist (and found nothing!) and she said she expected everyone to do this! I don't think your therapist should have SM accounts under their trading name/real name. Change your therapist if your trust has gone - nothing wrong with that at all.

Sure. OP is having a very strong reaction to material that her therapist has posted about himself in the public domain and she wants to discuss and express those feelings in therapy.

@idontknowhowtodreamyourdreams thank you!! I knew I knew it but couldn’t get it in my head. I loved that song as a child thanks for putting it back in my head again!
“so I’m all caught up in the superstitioooon…” Adding it to a playlist as I type. Also your therapist won’t end therapy with you so please don’t worry about that at all, if they’re worth their salt they’ll give you the space to explore what came up for you. Also you’re sounding more confident in each reply so I really think you will handle it well in your next session.

@Wolfpinkola What I hadn't appreciated until I started therapy is how v much the past trauma affects the here and now - my relationships, my relation with myself, my body, how I react to the world, coping strategies. I really had v little idea, having never done therapy before. I genuinely thought yeah, bad shit happened to me as a kid and a teen but I got out and put all that stuff behind me when I went to uni at 18.

But these things don't go away when you're physically away from a situation, they live on in the present unless you take steps to address them. I was abused from a young age, then groomed by a much older family friend who started having sex with me when I was 13 and became increasingly violent. That stuff does not just go away, however much I hoped it might.

The trust has gone and there’s probably no chance of fixing it.
I have had a childhood destroyed by SA and I know exactly what you mean when you say your beliefs about women’s spaces and rights are a core part of your personality.
I am passionate about it too and it’s a hill I’m willing to die on, I get really offended by the trans rights movement and even though I know it’s not personal my past can make it feel like a personal attack.
I’ve also had a therapist who I thought was getting me but then made a comment that was against my own beliefs and because of the topic I couldn’t let it go, I found a different therapist, you sound like you need to do the same.

OP - I’m quite surprised that more posts haven’t suggested you change to a female therapist.

As a feminist I’d never personally give my money to or suggest a woman has therapy from a man. Similar to how I think girls should always have a female driving instructor. 🤷‍♀️

I’ve never come across a man who has ever given the slightest inclination they properly understand what it’s like to be a woman living in a patriarchy!

As an aside you might find it useful to see what the BACP say to their members about use of social media https://www.bacp.co.uk/membership/membership-policies/social-media/

With the greatest of respect, (and I genuinely don’t mean that in a sarcastic way), BACP guidelines are only relevant if the therapist is a member of BACP. Keep in mind BACP membership is voluntary and many therapist aren’t comfortable with some of their ethics and therefore do not join. The therapist could be a member of COSCA, BABCP, UKCP, NCPS… People tend to go straight to BACP for examples of what rules we have to follow but it is entirely up to each therapist which governing body (or bodies) they wish to pay their money to.
That being said, it is unwise to have a public profile for so many reasons and definitely blurs boundaries at best.