Bias in Therapy
Grand Canyon University
PCN 509

Bias in Therapy As competent counselor’s we learn to treat every client as an individual without bias, however there are instances in which certain therapeutic techniques are bias against certain individuals. There are some techniques which may be more affective in working with certain cultures than others. It is our job to give each of our clients, the most effective treatment possible. In order to do this we need to be aware of treatment approaches which may not produce the most successful outcomes for our clients. I never really thought about a therapeutic approach being bias to certain clients, however I have grown to understand that certain techniques may deliver successful outcomes in certain clients and set other clients up to fail. I found it interesting that some therapeutic are bias to male clients as a whole regardless of culture. Therapy in general is thought of by many as something that women do. Men are more likely to believe that therapy is for people who are weak, and men do not like to be thought of as weak bodied or weak minded. This may not be the fault of men but rather society for creating a bias that therapy is for women. Most therapeutic approaches with the exception of behavioral approaches, and approaches such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) focus on talking and communication, which is often believed to be a weakness for men and strength for women (Golden, 2007). Another reason that therapy often tends to be bias against men is because issues, such as substance use, violence, aggression, and sex crimes, tend to be stereotyped as primarily male crimes (APA 2007). This makes many therapists automatically develop a stereotype about men, and may also cause men to not want to seek help for these types of issues. A male may be embarrassed to seek help on issues such as verbal, emotional, physical or sexual abuse, even though they are equally capable of being victims to these crimes as women. Domestic violence often goes unreported when the male is the victim because men may become embarrassed to admit that they fell victim to a woman offender. They may also feel that if they do seek help that the therapist will not believe them, which in some instances is the case. In therapy we as the clinicians are responsible for learning, understanding and applying the most appropriate method of treatment, which will produce the most successful outcome for each client. Although men are seeking therapy more so than in the past, there are still stereotypes, which make some therapeutic techniques bias against men regardless of culture. It is often assumed that the men are the offenders and females are the victims, when that may not always be the case. We are responsible for completing the most thorough intake assessments as possible in order to provide each and every one of our clients with the most productive therapy as possible without stereotyping or bias.

References

August 3, 2007 American Psychiatric Association article pointing out that among violent couples women were more often the aggressors than men .http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a

Golden, T. (2007). Anti-Male Bias.