How do male child psychotherapists manage and experience perceptions of them as potentially sexually harmful? An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis

This study explores how male child and adolescent psychotherapists experience and manage being perceived as potentially sexually harmful. Drawing on five semi-structured interviews with four ACP-registered male clinicians, it uses Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to examine how these perceptions emerge within the transference and in wider professional contexts. My study also seeks to explore how such perceptions are influenced by wider cultural and societal narratives linking maleness with potential harm. Moreover, it considers these narratives as rooted in the fact that most sexual violence is perpetrated by men and explores how the self-perception and clinical work of male child psychotherapist is influenced by this reality. The findings suggest that male therapists’ gender cannot be treated as neutral but that it is an important element within psychoanalytic work, evoking complex questions of safety, guilt, and responsibility as well as psychoanalytic technique.