Why have you specialised in men’s issues and counselling men?
A. Gender plays a hugely important part in all our lives. I was struck when training to be a therapist that most of the trainees were women, and it was sometimes difficult getting a man’s perspective heard or valued. This is not to say that individual female therapists should not counsel men, more to indicate an institutional bias in the practices of training therapists. As a result of this, I became interested in men’s specific issues, such as male rape and HIV (which in the early 1990’s was a mainly gay mans disease). This interest then broadened with my clinical practice. I believe it is best to be a specialist in one area, and have continued to find this particular area to be interesting and challenging.
