Considering Therapy

My son is currently going through puberty and I am afraid he may come to me soon wanting advice on how to approach and handle girls. I am very aware that my own behavior is regarded by many to be sexist. I love my son and want to give him the best advice I can but I am torn between speaking from my own experience, or towing the p.c. line which I think is bullshit. So in an effort to clarify things for myself, I'm wondering if a relationship counselor could help. Secondly, if I do this should I go with male or female? A female obviously understands women better, but would she be antagonized by my views and therefore unable to help? A male would be empathetic to a fatherly predicament, but not as potentially insightful. Yes I am aware that thinking women are incapable of impartiality is indicative of my sexist viewpoint.

There would be a number of places I could point towards, but these would be in Germany, where I live.

However, yes, I guess that a sexist opinion might come from earlier traumata, for example.
So, if this was the case, then yes, I'd advice for a therapy. Beware the costs, however.

Since I've begun looking at persons *individually* , I've found out that many things just don't fit in into individual persons. If you hold a cliché over a person, then it's most likely wrong, because clichés are almost *always* wrong when looking at individual persons.

The herd, however, is a different thing.

But even cows can be dangerous when it comes to defend their children, a behaviour few people have in mind when approaching them.

In my opinion, it might be better for you if you'd find a male therapist, because a talk between men is something different than the talk between a man and a women, even on a therapy-only relationship. A man could rebuke your views, so to say, better, because he's a man. My guess is that men trust each other more than a man and a woman - except within real love relationships - the same as women trust other women more than a woman and a man - except within real love relationships. It's a bit like members of a football team trust rather each other than members of another football team. At least just before a match.

Instead, I'd rather send your son to a female counselor, if that's possible. I think it's important that he learns the point of view of women as early as possible. But that's just my personal opinion.

Since I do not know where you live, however, I'm unable to give you better advices.
As I wrote above, if you were living in Germany, I'd be able to point you and your son to several places.

Edit : And be carefuil with all this gangsta rap. It's quite sexistic these days. At least talk with him about *why* these songs are so much sexist (because the rappers want to display themselves as a cliché of manliness). Seriously analysing these songs could give you an insight on how clichés of manliness function these days, too.

Kudos to you for being aware that there may be "issues" that you do not wish to pass down to the next generation. Indeed it is fascinating how certain anxieties and behavioural patterns can be traced within a family for generations. Almost like a "family curse"; the quite excellent game "What remains of Edith Finch" examined this subject… but I digress.

But a very urgent piece of advice: the point of leverage to "break the curse", so to speak, is not your son, but yourself. If your son is a healthy individual and not exhibiting any signs of distress or anxieties, what good would counselling do him? Attempting to "steer" him one way or another through some sort of well-intentioned, but misguided counselling effort or behavioural therapy might even do more harm than good.

However, you yourself are saying that you are "torn", i.e., ambivalent with regard to your behaviour; this might be worth exploring, i.e., figuring out how you came to be who you are, and as a result, being able to decide for yourself whether you are indeed who you wish to be. A classically trained psychoanalyst might be able to assist, but it sounds like you have already started some of the work yourself. I'm talking about understanding, not about judging or altering yourself. "Gnothi seauton", that's what it is about.

Regardless of the outcome, just being aware of where our behavioural patterns, our anxieties, all the facettes of our personalities come from, WILL affect those around us as well, and will enable them to seek their own way more confidently, as children inevitably do. Drag the "curse" out into the open, i.e. from the sub-concious into the conscious, and it will start to lose its power.

The best you can do for your son directly is to make him feel secure that he will always have his parents' love and support regardless of what path he chooses for himself. Sounds cheesy, yes, but for a healthy development, children need to arrive at a point where they can feel free to diverge from their parents' worldview (Freud put it more drastically: to "murder the father"), instead of being bound to behavioural patterns traded down for generations for fear of losing their parents' love.

Thank you for your considered replies. I'm sorry
I was vague before but indeed I am considering therapy for myself, not my son. I want to be confident that the advice I give him is as healthy and real as possible. My concern has always been that what women say they want in public is almost the opposite of what women tell me in private. This leads me to have little faith in what a female therapist may suggest if she is using her 'public' voice.

Ah, I see - all the more reason to respect your efforts!

In that case, though, I would definitely reinforce the suggestion to look at the possibility of doing a proper analysis, if at all financially possible (if you live in a place with good public health insurance, they might cover it). Behavioural therapy and counselling do have their place, but they stay near the surface - and children are capable of picking up on things brewing far below. "Dad is telling me one thing, but I think he's actually feeling something else inside", is NOT the impression that you want to give your son.

As for selecting the right person to work with - this is of course trickier. I am not an expert on psychoanalytical theory myself, but an important aspect of classical therapy is the concept of "transference", where you transfer feelings towards a significant person (usually a childhood figure) onto the therapist. Possibly working with a female therapist would provide some particularly interesting insight?

But my guess is that it actually depends more on the training and experience the person has than the gender. The therapist I worked with for a while had a classical Freudian background, but was also trained in Lacanian analysis, and really got my gears in motion within a few sessions. Maybe you can pick someone with similar credentials and then get an initial session covered by health insurance to obtain a first-hand impression?

I've had success with a mixture of schema therapy +behaviourtherapy.
If you are really curious and interested in learning how things work inside of you, then this might become an interesting approach, because you might learn that.
But that's also my personal opinion.

Besides, my (male) psychotherapist (is this the right word ?) kind of debunked some prejudices I've had because of a certain, very deep trauma. That's whxy I wrote that thing above.

Philistine said:

My son is currently going through puberty and I am afraid he may come to me soon wanting advice on how to approach and handle girls.

Click to expand...

What the…
Man, give him some privacy and something capable of google search. That's it. If there is something not clear, he'll ask. But that certainly won't be how exactly to tell jokes, how to be noticed, or what to think - in your way. He'll want to do things his way.

I mean, what therapist? It's not like he went through a turbulent relationship and now has a strong chance of death caused by broken heart syndrome.

If he does ask questions I want to be ready, if he does not, then I think it would help me understand women better myself. The kind of questions I have don't have answers on the internet!

You will never be ready.
Noone can.

About understanding women… Forgeddit. Not possible. Concentrate on just one you care about (if), all are different.

I'm sorry joxer, I DO appreciate you wanting to help, but you have no idea what I'm talking about. For example, take a look at what I have said in the P&R forum about sexual contact in the past.