The differences between men and women are usually subtle and often don’t follow a stereotyped pattern. Then again, there’s a reason for the stereotypes and a reason for counselors to know them.
—Jim Smith
He gave her a pair of shock absorbers for her birthday. She wasn’t happy. She came to see me, dragging her husband behind.
“He’s so insensitive,” she complained about her husband. “He doesn’t really care about me. He never thinks about what I want. What made him think I would want shock absorbers for my birthday? I sometimes wonder if he even loves me.”
He couldn’t understand the problem. “Heck, she’s been complaining about the bouncy ride in the car. And our car was unsafe with the old shock absorbers. I thought she’d appreciate the fact that I’m watching out for her comfort and safety.”
This brief, somewhat humorous composite of countless counseling experiences displays many of the dynamics that take place in counseling men and women. These dynamics are essential for me to understand. If I know how men usually act and how women usually act, I know better what to listen for and how to respond effectively.
Identifying the differences between men and women can help in many counseling situations. The differences are subtle, and not always do they follow a stereotyped pattern. Then again, there’s a reason for the stereotypes and a reason for us to know them.
It’s like Jose Canseco’s knowing that Nolan Ryan usually throws a fastball on a three-and-two count. It’s helpful in most of those situations, although Canseco also needs to be prepared for a hard curve.
Most men and most women fall into certain psychological patterns. Although many will throw us hard curves, understanding their usual patterns of behavior can enhance our ability to successfully counsel them.
Differences that Make a Difference
First, we need to explore some of the usual differences that men and women bring into our offices.
• Talking heads and silent Sams. Women usually volunteer more information than you need, men less than you would like.
In fact, we may find ourselves feeling verbally overwhelmed by a woman who elaborates in great detail about her troubles.
For example, one woman who came to me started out like a machine gun. She didn’t cease from the moment she walked in. I thought. This woman has to breathe some time. I’m going to catch her when she does! But I never spotted a pause during the fifty minutes. She unloaded so many details, I lost track of what she was saying.
Some women will run down a rabbit trail of thought, and then another, and then another, before finally getting back on course. Others will burst in with, “Oh, you just wouldn’t believe what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m so disappointed in myself. I know the Lord’s mad at me and never going to love me again. I don’t know how I let myself …” talking for ten minutes about I-don’t-know-what.
At that point I’ll often say, “Time out. Hold on. Tell me what you’re talking about.” But I usually don’t have to say much more than that to get them to talk in detail about what’s going on.
On the other hand, with men I often have to prime the pump in order to get a clear idea of what’s going on.
A man will sit down and say, “I don’t know how to get started … I don’t know where to begin … I’m embarrassed to be here … I don’t know why I came … This is hard for me … I’m involved with a woman.”
“Well, tell me about it.”
“Well, I just did.”
With men I often have to probe with specific questions to find out the scope of their problem: “What’s this woman’s name? Where did you meet her? What attracted you to her?”
• Careers and relationships. Men tend to wrestle more with problems in their career and less with problems at home. In fact, a man can tolerate a fairly low degree of marital happiness if his career is moving forward.
Women cannot. They tend to struggle more with relationships. And that’s why women seek marital counseling much more often than men. They’ve got more eggs in the relational basket.
Many women today grapple with dual career issues, especially how much time they should give the family. They feel they neglect the family if they pursue an outside job.
A typical man says, “My job is to earn the bread, and my wife’s is to run the home.” A typical woman, even if she’s pursuing a career, still feels she’s primarily responsible for relationships at home.
I counsel many single women who avidly pursue their careers and who are simply miserable. They say, “If I can just get married, it would solve all my problems,” or “My relationships with men don’t go well. I date a guy for six months, and then he just drops off the face of the earth.”
Even single women, then, are more concerned about relationships. I have very few women who say to me, “I’ve got a financial crisis” or “My business is about to go under; can we talk?”
• Expectations of counseling. Women tend to come for counseling earlier in their problem. They seek help more quickly. Men don’t like to admit they need help. Just as men balk at stopping and asking for directions—we hate to admit we don’t have control of a situation—men are more prideful and therefore more reluctant to come for counseling.
But when men do come in, they expect a solution, a report: “Give me a game plan to address this. I want to leave here having a better grasp on my options.”
Women usually come in wanting support: “I want somebody to understand me.” So the ministry of presence is a lot more important with women. The ministry of providing options is more important for men.
• Fears in counseling. Many men are afraid they’re going to break down emotionally during counseling. When men cry in sessions, they usually apologize. Every man who has cried in my office has been embarrassed about it.
We go through a lot more boxes of Kleenex with women than with men. And although women often cry, they seldom apologize for it. They may begin by saying, “Well, I was determined not to cry when I came in here” but conclude, “but I’m going to cry.”
On the other hand, women are afraid that I’m not going to think well of them if they tell me some dark fantasy or secret or urge. They feel they will be considered unworthy of my ministry: “You’re going to reject me if I tell you this,” they’ll say.
Men aren’t so concerned about sharing their transgressions or fantasies. They’ll typically say, “I’m not proud of this, but I think about my friend’s wife a lot.”
Then again, men are more embarrassed by failures, particularly in business or in supporting their families. That bothers them more than sexual infidelity. It would be the opposite for most women.
• Personality tendencies. I like to think of mental health as a continuum: to the left are people who feel excessively responsible for others (neurotics) and to the right people who are too wrapped up in themselves (narcissists). On this continuum, women tend to fall on the left and men to the right.
People on the extreme left are excessively guilty. They take far more responsibility for things than they ought to take. They step on an ant and can’t sleep at night.
One woman came in and told me she was feeling guilty because she had hung up the phone when her mother called. In the course of the conversation, I discovered that it had been the tenth time that day that her mother had called.
The woman said, “You know, I really ought to be more sensitive to my mother. She gave her life for me and risked life bringing me into the world, and yet I got so mad at her and hung up. I’m so embarrassed and ashamed.”
Or, take a woman whose husband has had half a dozen affairs who says, “I know I’m doing something wrong in the marriage. I’m just not meeting his needs.”
That’s excessively neurotic.
A milder version of excessive neurosis is co-dependency, which I also see in many more women than men.
On the right of the continuum we find most men. They are, in general, narcissists: people who believe the world exists to serve them. They are self-absorbed. Narcissus was a figure in Greek mythology who was always looking at his own reflection. Men are not necessarily vain, just self-absorbed.
In the extreme, this type of man thinks of his wife as something he hangs on his arm to show off in the business world. Or, he might reason, the kids can’t have new shoes, but he’s going to have a Rolex watch, because, after all, in the business world you’ve got to dress for success.
A married couple who were in debt $100,000 to credit cards came to see me. After the first session I asked them to draw up a budget. The next week they returned, but the wife was sheepish.
“I’m embarrassed,” she said.
“I understand that,” I replied. “But we need to look at the figures to come up with a financial plan for you.”
After we worked through one year’s budget, there was still $40,000 unaccounted for. When I asked about it, they became even more sheepish.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Well, we took a few vacations.”
“How many is a few?”
“Four.”
“You blew $40,000 on vacations when you had $100,000 debt to credit cards?” I said.
“Well, you know, I’ve been busting my tail,” the man said, “and I thought we deserved it.”
That’s narcissism.
Narcissists also tend to be more insensitive to their own sins and their own collusion in events. When he is caught, lets say stealing money from his employer, he will be more embarrassed that he got caught than that he committed a sin against society: “This will ruin my reputation!” When the narcissist has an affair, he thinks less about betrayal of his marriage vows and how he’s hurt his wife and more about what people will think if it gets out.
Of course, most men are not this extreme, but their tendency toward narcissism is clear.
These are but a few of the generalizations about men and women that hold true. To nuance this a bit, let me draw out one aspect of working with men and one with women that will help us understand our relationship with each of them a little better still.
Men: Occupation Isn’t Always Everything
What I’ve said about men doesn’t hold true for all, nor does it hold true forever. There comes a time when their preoccupation with occupation and their own reflection shifts dramatically. Counselors are wise to note it.
Up to age 40, men focus on their careers. They’re nearly consumed with long-term goals, career achievement. Men under 40 who come to see me are usually struggling with work-related issues: they’ve not gotten a promotion, been transferred, or been laid off. Much of their self-esteem is wrapped up in their work.
When a man hits his mid-forties, a shift takes place. By the time we’re 45 we’ve either attained our occupational goals or, usually, we haven’t and are not going to. And men have to come to terms with that. This, of course, is the classic mid-life crisis when many men decide to shape their lives differently.
One shift is that men in their forties start to get in touch with their emotions and their relationships. They are ready to give themselves to their kids. The problem is that just when the father has more time and energy to give to his kids, the kids are in their late teens, saying “Hey, I’m out of here” or “Where were you when I really needed you?”
The man may also try to build new bridges to his wife, with varying degrees of success, depending on how stable their marriage has been.
This is also a time when men get in touch with their mortality. A 20-year-old man thinks he’s bulletproof. By the time men hit their forties, they start hearing about friends and business acquaintances who have had heart attacks or contracted fatal diseases. So men will come in to deal with the fact that they are not going to live forever, and often that puts them on a spiritual quest.
This period in a man’s life is critical for the counselor to be aware of.
Women: Emotional Seduction
It’s not unusual for a woman client to become sexually attracted to her pastor/counselor. What many pastors fail to see, however, is that they, the pastors, often encourage this, albeit unintentionally.
The pastor is always understanding towards the woman: he is present when she needs him, seems to understand everything she feels, and never confronts her. It doesn’t take long before she starts comparing him with her husband: “Why am I married to this clod when I have a wonderful, sensitive, caring, loving, concerned person like my pastor?”
That’s when the woman becomes emotionally seduced. There’s nothing sexual about it yet. The problem is, once a woman is emotionally seduced, she is subject to falling in love and then being sexually attracted to the pastor.
In the meantime, the pastor has simply been doing a good job at counseling, and this is the result.
The way to avoid emotional seduction is first to be aware of the power our caring demeanor has over women. It’s the very thing that many of them crave in a man. When we give our care, as we should, we need to be aware of what it can do to a woman.
Second, we need to make sure that emotional expressions on our part are not subject to misinterpretation.
Take touching, for instance. I rarely do it. About the only time I ever touch a woman is when I pray with her; I may take her hand while I pray. Also, when a woman looks horribly in the dumps, I might say, “You look like you could use a hug. Would you like a hug?” And if she agrees, and only then, I’ll do it. But even then, I won’t do a full frontal embrace or a long squeeze—just a gentle hug, one arm around the shoulder. I want to offer comfort, but I don’t want even to imply anything else.
When a woman client asks me for a hug, I have to make a judgment. If I’m at all concerned that it would be inappropriate, I’ll defer, but so as not to offend: “Tell me what’s happening. Why is that important to you right now?”
During a session, some women try to get physically closer to me than I’m comfortable with. In such cases I’ll say, “I sense that you prefer to be closer to me than the chairs are normally arranged. I wonder if we can talk about why that is important to you.”
Such phrases are powerful at diffusing potentially troubling situations. I use them often.
Often the borderline personalities are those who can be the most troublesome in this regard. A pastor should be able to recognize such a person, especially a female borderline. Here are a few of the more recognizable traits:
- Alternates between extremes of idolizing the counselor and then despising him.
- Impulsive in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging, i.e., spending, sex, substance use, shoplifting, reckless driving, binge eating.
- Frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights.
- Recurrent suicidal threats or gestures, or self-mutilating behavior.
- Chronic feelings of emptiness or boredom.
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
Almost all borderline women were abandoned early in their lives, have emotionally distant fathers, or were sexually abused by fathers.
The problem is that most pastors, as males, tend toward narcissism. And it’s the combination of the borderline (“Pastor, you’re great; you’re the one who can really help me”) and the narcissist (“Finally, somebody sees how gifted I am; here’s someone whom I can really help”) that can be explosive. A lot of the sexual indiscretion in the pastorate has its source in this combination.
At the same time, the pastor who refuses to be manipulated by the borderline can find himself in deep trouble as well. If the borderline feels rejected, she lashes back, perhaps starting false rumors that the pastor is cold and aloof, or worse, that the pastor has committed adultery. Or she’ll approach the pastor after the service and give him a suggestive squeeze, as one did to me. Borderlines can be extremely sinister.
That’s all the more reason to establish clear safeguards and boundaries in the counseling session. Never go to a woman’s home or apartment alone. Never counsel in your office without another person being in the building.
And if I hear about rumors, I try to deal with them as quickly and gently as I can. One borderline whom I had been seeing said she thought I was having an affair with a female staff member of the church. I responded, “Let’s talk about that. What makes you think that? Why do you feel that way?” That often settles things down quickly.
But working with borderlines is a tricky business. It’s a minefield for pastors, as it is for doctors, politicians, and lawyers.
Temporary Father
One more important difference to note: To many men and women I become the father they lost at an early age or the loving person their father wasn’t. To a limited extent that’s a legitimate transference. And how specifically that works itself out with women and with men is different.
• Male authority figure. Many women come to me to experience some of the parental strokes they did not get or can no longer get from their fathers.
A woman came in recently, and she cried and cried. “My father died,” she sobbed, “and you’re the only man I can talk to.” So I became a replacement figure for her father.
And that was okay for a while. I eventually had to deal with the transference; I didn’t want to get hooked into becoming the answer man for her for the rest of her life. I wanted to help her have enough confidence in her own ability to deal with life without a male authority figure. But first I had to make sure her immediate emotional needs were met. Only then would she be able to step back and get a new perspective.
In such a situation, when the right moment comes, perhaps two or three sessions later, I’ll say, “Are you aware of the power you’ve given me, over how I feel about what you do and think? Is that something you want to continue to do all of your life?” Or I’ll say, “It seems to me that how you feel about your decisions is based on whether I approve of them or not.”
Pastors have to be especially careful with sexually abused women. A lot of them have been abused by their fathers or important male figures. So we need to build relationships without being exploitive or abusive.
I once counseled a woman whose father repeatedly told her how ugly she was. Actually, she’s a very attractive woman. And yet all her life she has been hearing that other message. As a counselor, I had to act as a “new father,” not so she could become dependent on me, but so she could hear some affirmation from a male authority figure.
Naturally, I had to be careful how I did that—I didn’t want it to appear as a come on. So at a socially safe physical distance and in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, I said something like, “You know, as a man, I don’t experience you that way. I don’t see you as ugly. I see you as an attractive woman.”
I didn’t move close to her at that time. I didn’t say, “Boy, you really look good today. Wow, you’ve really got a nice figure!” All that would have been suggestive.
And once she began to have some emotional equilibrium, I tried to get her to see that she could feel good about herself regardless of what her father or I said.
• Male confidant. For many men, I become the father whom they could never talk with. Perhaps their father was never emotionally available, either too busy or too cold. Perhaps their father never gave them permission to fail, or perhaps their father deserted them. In any case, the best thing I can do for such men is to become a non-threatening, safe confidant.
In fact, I’ve had dozens of men over the years tell me, “You’re the only man I can talk to about this.” It’s a disturbing truth.
Naturally, I try to help these men learn to confide in other men. But first, they need to build up some confidence and trust by confiding in me, treating me as a father figure.
There are some men, of course, who need to deal with a mother figure for a while. Perhaps their mother was domineering and controlling, and it’s affecting them still. They need to experience an affirming relationship with a woman therapist. So I’ll refer such men.
Counseling Each
If men and women have these differences, it only makes sense that in many instances I will counsel them differently. Here is one way I approach each.
• Women: feelings before thoughts. Many women cannot think about their options, about what they ought to do, until they have first worked through their feelings about a matter. For women, it’s feelings first, thoughts second.
An airline attendant and her husband were having difficulties—in fact, he had had an affair, and the mistress had killed herself. If that wasn’t bad enough, without telling his wife, he had quit his job and taken a new position in Alaska, and he expected her to quit the airlines to come along.
When she came in to see me, she was livid, and I just let her rage about all that her husband had done to her: “You just can’t believe what my husband has done to me. I hate the bastard!” When she had fumed and ranted for some time, she started to settle down.
After discussing her feelings for a while, I finally said, “I sure understand how you feel. So, what are your thoughts about the marriage?”
“Well, I want to make it work,” she said. And we proceeded to reframe the issue. For example, when we talked about the job move, I said, “I can certainly see how you feel about the unexpected move. But it’s possible that he simply wants to be a more conscientious provider, and here was an opportunity to provide almost triple what he was making. It may not have occurred to him that you would not agree with his decision. There may be no malice on his part, just thoughtlessness.”
At that point, she was ready to see things from another perspective, beyond her hurt. If I had confronted her at the beginning of the session with “Are you going to make this work or not?” we wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. I had to hold off from analysis until I fully understood the complexity and depth of the woman’s feelings. Once she felt supported and affirmed, then she was ready to deal with solutions.
• Men: thoughts before feelings. As I mentioned, men come expecting a solution or game plan as a result of counseling. They’re ready to analyze as soon as they step in the door. But for a healthy solution to come about, they too need to process their feelings. But with men, I have to put feelings on hold until we’ve had a chance to get their thoughts on the table.
When this man who had committed adultery and changed jobs came in to talk, we spent the first part of the session just talking about what had happened. I asked him questions like, “Tell me about how you met her. What did she mean to you? What were your experiences with her? Tell me about the last time you were with her.”
Then we talked about what he planned to do.
“Well, the woman’s family is coming to town to claim the body, and I’m going to meet them at the apartment. I’ve got to tell my wife, because she’s not going to understand. …”
All this talk about what had happened and what he was going to do was his systematic way of avoiding the pain. But after he had talked for a while, I said, “My guess is this has been pretty painful to you. How do you feel about her killing herself?”
And then the gusher opened up, and he was able to talk about that: “I’m feeling pretty guilty. I feel I was responsible. …”
My guess is he would not have immediately revealed that. First, we had to talk about thoughts.
The depth of the differences between men and women is profound. I’ve just sketched a few fundamental differences here and how I deal with them. Counselees, of course, constantly throw me curveballs: a woman will come in consumed with her career, a man will want to immediately explore his own feelings.
But most of the time I see the fastballs I expect. And knowing that they’ll be coming has helped me be a better counselor for men and for women.
Copyright © 1992 by Christianity Today
