Podcast episode 7: Men in therapy, with Angela Caldwell

Psychotherapy Notes podcastThe overwhelming majority of therapists are women. So are most clients. Men are often reluctant to attend therapy voluntarily. As we discussed in the last episode, even well-intentioned therapists and counselors can make men feel unwelcome simply by how they frame men’s presence in the room. Sometimes, changing how you work to better respond to men’s needs and expectations of therapy can make the process a lot more effective.

In this episode, we talk with Angela Caldwell (yes, relation) about her work with men, and how it has shifted over the course of her career. She tells the story of one particular client for whom therapy was working pretty much as usual — and it wasn’t helping him. (Some details are changed to protect confidentiality.) So she changed her work in a way that she thought would help him more, even as she wondered whether what she was doing still fell under the umbrella of “therapy.”

Angela runs the Self-Injury Institute in Los Angeles, specializing in family-based work for cutters and other self-injurers. That work isn’t the focus of this episode’s discussion, though if you’re interested in hearing more about it, she discussed it in much more detail on the Talking Therapy podcast a while back.

You can download our entire first season now on iTunes and Stitcher, and read about (and listen to) previous episodes here:

Episode 1: How licensing exams are like the TSA
Episode 2: Licensing exams with Kim Madsen, California BBS
Episode 3: Student debt
Episode 4: Student debt: Two stories
Episode 5: Public Service Loan Forgiveness: Not dead yet
Episode 6: Psychotherapy’s gender gap