Why Aren’t Men Becoming Therapists Anymore?

The Modern Therapist's Survival Guide with Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy

Why Aren’t Men Becoming Therapists Anymore?

Curt and Katie chat about the lack of male therapists and the decreasing number of male students in the profession. We look at current statistics and reported experiences of men in the field. We also dig into what needs to change to balance gender representation and increase the number of men becoming therapists.

Transcripts for this episode will be available at mtsgpodcast.com!

In this podcast episode we talk about male therapists

Continuing forward within men’s health month, we are looking at the state of the profession for male therapists.

Statistics on men in the mental health profession

• Depending on license type, mental health professionals are between 60-90% female
• Men and women have fairly equal parity on compensation (especially when looking at similar roles)
• Men are less likely to seek out these jobs as the wages stagnate, the requirements become more onerous, and due to a lack of male representation and role models

What needs to change to balance gender representation within the mental health field?

“Men typically have privilege in other spaces… And yet I recognize in our field, that's not the case. And so, it's this weird, complex understanding of societal privilege, but not privilege within the field.” – Katie Vernoy, LMFT

• Understanding the difference between societal privilege versus professional privilege
• Identifying why the number of men is dramatically decreasing within graduate programs and all stages of licensure
• The impact of feminism on the conversations about the impact of white men on the field
• The perception of “male bashing” and the need to nurture male voices within the profession
• The challenge of identifying when men are being ignored or “soloed out”
• The problem of stereotyping, ignoring, or isolating male therapists and students
• Men being automatically pushed into leadership due to mentorship by male faculty and bias toward men as leaders

How do we get more men into the mental health profession?

“If we're identifying that men need to go and get mental health treatment, and there's no men to get it from, this then has the potential for reaching critical failure as a profession in being able to provide services.” – Curt Widhalm, LMFT

• Reaching critical failure in trying to provide services to men (if men no longer enter the profession)
• Recruitment strategies for graduate programs
• Making the profession sustainable for all individuals
• Pushing back against wage stagnation due to feminization of the profession
• Looking at retention and commitment for male therapists
• The importance of representation across the mental health profession

Resources for Modern Therapists mentioned in this Podcast Episode:

We’ve pulled together resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links. Please note that some of the links below may be affiliate links, so if you purchase after clicking below, we may get a little bit of cash in our pockets. We thank you in advance!

Clinical Therapist Demographics and Statistics In The US

Number of women vs men in grad programs: https://www.apa.org/monitor/2018/12/datapoint

Men’s experiences in the field:

https://www.apa.org/gradpsych/2011/01/cover-men

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-021-01960-9

Faculty experiences of teaching male students: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-015-0473-1

Recruiting men into the field: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259538918_A_Mixed_Methods_Study_of_Male_Recruitment_in_the_Counseling_Profession