| Abstract [eng] |
It is believed that the sex of the client and the psychotherapist is a significant factor of the therapeutic relationship, and male clients are faced with the lack of help that meets the needs of men in psychotherapy. The thesis examines the subjective male clients' experience of a therapeutic relationship with a female psychotherapist. The aim of the research is to reveal this experience by distinguishing and describing the needs and difficulties of the therapeutic relationship reflected by the research participants and the aspects of the therapeutic relationship that are associated with the psychotherapist's gender. The study included eight men aged 22 - 39 with the experience of at least 20 individual psychotherapeutic sessions (on average ~ 175 sessions) and intending to continue psychotherapy. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data analysis is based on the thematic analysis method. 4 themes describing the experience of the therapeutic relationship of the study participants were formulated: "Closeness with a psychotherapist", "The need for a sense of autonomy and power", "The need for male communion" and "Exploration of sexuality". They reveal the needs of the psychotherapist's empathic engagement, acceptance, disclosure and the sense of autonomy and power of the research participants. The most striking difficulties of the therapeutic relationship are related to the inner conflict between the need for closeness and the fear of it, the lack of psychotherapist's proactivity in the exploration of sexuality. The psychotherapist's authority restricts the research participants from exploring themselves and increases the need for relationship and process control. The aspects of a relationship related to the psychotherapist's gender are associations of psychotherapist with mother, shame and insecurity in the exploration of sexuality. Examining male identity issues only seems to be possible with a male psychotherapist. |
