Depression in Teenage son

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I suppose it'll also help for a teenage patient to have a therapist of the same sex. Two women, even decades apart in age, have a natural female camaraderie. So a girl patient will have a relatively easy time fine-tuning her answers to the therapist's demands, and the therapist will be more lenient with a girl. Plus, even little girls are more emotionally attuned than boys; they know most emotion words by heart, which therapists love. And when you please a therapist, they treat you a whole lot better than when you annoy them.

A male therapist, conversely, will be less focused on emotions or might not care entirely, making it easier for a boy to find "right" answers, or he may even accept "damn if I know!" as a "correct". Men also tend to be more direct: if a minor patient talks about emotional abuse by their parents, a woman will make "cute" cooing noises to subtly hint to the patient to stop complaining, while a man will be blunt and plainly tell the patient that their statements are unacceptable. And the latter is way easier for an aspie to adapt to.

Did you miss the part where I noted I fully waived my rights to be informed upfront? That we, as parents, told the therapist she was not to share anything with us without our daughter's permission? My daughter knew this. It was a contract.

With respect to your later post, there is something to be said for working with therapists of the same gender. It is extremely important to my daughter, because of the nature of some of her issues, only to talk to women. I do believe it will vary by individual, however.

Funny that you said this. As a child, I strongly preferred to see male doctors, even for non-gendered areas like bone-and-joint or ENT, let alone urologists. My parents usually obliged. I found male doctors to be more laid-back and easier to deal with. Female doctors, on the ther hand, tended to be either patronizing or emotionally violating. (For instance, it was women who got me in trouble with my parents by saying out loud how scared I looked; men didn't notice my fears, or knew better than to inadvertently shame me by mentioning it.) And with most pediatric doctors being women, well, that didn't bode well for me.

This is probably why my therapist was so bad: she was therapy'ing me as if I were a girl, and got angry when I didn't act like one.

This might be the first time you've written anything that indicates your parents were actually, at least on a rare occasion, listening to you and trying meet your needs.

My family was receiving nearly-free healthcare under state and county programs at the time, due to being poor, and the laws allow patients to request same-sex practitioners, regardless of the body part being examined. So this required no extra effort on their part. Plus, this was about my "health" (notice the quotes), which they were very gung-ho about, like limiting my water intake.

Today, I don't really care if my doctor is a man or a woman; if they can do the job and they're in my insurance network, I will see them. Unless it's a urologist; then I'd definitely insist on a male doctor.