A snapshot of women

As a therapist you meet all kinds of people and learn about their experiences. The problems I see with women are very similar to those that I see with men. The only difference is the ways the different genders deal with those problems. I don’t want this article to include stereotypes of women, so I will simply describe my experience of working with women with mental health and drug problems. I choose to work with people of all ages with anxiety, depression, bipolar, borderline personality disorder, PTSD, psychosis, drug addiction, eating disorders, intermittent explosive disorder, and ADHD. I have the most compassion for individuals struggling with these problems, which makes me effective with them as their therapist. Other therapists will choose different diagnoses to work with so their populations of people will present very differently. I am letting you know this first so that you can see where I am coming from in this discussion of women. The diagnoses I choose to work with are seen in both genders equally but there are different ways that women tend to deal with these issues when compared/contrasted with men. In general, the women I see most often present with issues managing their emotions and experience trauma in much higher percentages than men. Trauma refers to any type of abuse – either physical, emotional, or sexual. Many of the women I work with present in therapy as a result of being a victim of trauma. They learn to deal with their lives by restricting their emotions, which causes the emotions to come out in their behaviors because they can’t keep them secret anymore. Women also experience issues with self-esteem in higher rates than men in my experience. Women seem to follow their emotions more than men in making decisions. Women seem to put higher stock in how they look to the public and their weight. Women are objectified more than men, and women report lower self-esteem in my experience. Women with low self-esteem in therapy don’t have much confidence that they will reach recovery. The positives that I see in women in therapy are their abilities to discuss problems and come up with solutions. Women are more open to discuss their problems, and some are less guarded than men. Women are better at taking care of their children and are more focused on family issues than the men I see in therapy. Women seem to have a resiliency that I do not see as often in the men I work with. Some women I see have been through terrible trauma and abuse but they are still willing to seek help and look foward to a positive future. My thoughts for women to keep in mind include looking at the positives we possess. We are the caretakers traditionally; we can multitask, work full-time and raise children. We can bear incredible pain and still carry on. We can use our emotions to listen to others and help them. We as women have been disadvantaged since the very beginning of time but we have brought life into the world and raised future generations. We have made mistakes and been in bad situations, but we still live to tell our stories. Women are blessed that we can describe emotions and learn to deal with the most difficult ones such as anger and sadness. The women I see in therapy are so brave to tell me their stories, and I thank them for that. Even though so many people in their lives have told them that their concerns don’t mean anything, they still strive to recover and move on from their traumas. We as women have thought our voices weren’t important for so long, but brave women from this past century have fought for our rights. We need to continue their work and teach the future women of the world that we are not going to stand for anything less than equal. We need to fight against the stereotypes of women and remember all of the positives we do have. There are so many things we are more skilled at but we don’t see it. We don’t need to be protected; we need to be treated as equals. This starts with us seeing ourselves as equals. We can do anything men can, and we aren’t much different from them. We were given great gifts and talents; we just need to think we are worthy to share them with the world. Resiliency is something that is in all of us, and we just need to nurture it and allow it to grow. (This article was originally seen in The Women’s Issue – a digital magazine we create in celebration of Women’s History Month.) Our guest author Hayley Miller, MS, RD, LDN is a psychotherapist and registered dietitian working for Rehab After School and Seeds of Hope programs. She runs intensive outpatient programs for adults with eating disorders and adolescents with drug addictions in the northeast section of Philadelphia. If you or someone you know lives in the Philadelphia area and is looking for an eating disorder or drug addiction outpatient program, please visit Seeds of Hope or Rehab After Work.

About The Author

Patricia Colli, Editor of Beutiful Magazine, is a human rights activist, equality advocate, and promoter of health, acceptance and wellbeing. Having experienced disordered eating, unhealthy exercise patterns and poor body image, she is especially passionate about shedding light on eating disorders and the power of body acceptance.