Reflections on Gender in Psychotherapeutic Practice

financed by IPU seed funding

Principal Investigators IPU

Prof. Phil C. Langer 
Alina Brehm
Niclas O'Donnokoé

Project Description

In this research project, we explore – in an exploratively open manner – the meanings of gender in psychotherapists' clinical work. These meanings will be examined on different levels: the subjective meaning (affective, symbolic and social representations of gender in the therapist's biography), the clinical dynamics (manifest and latent meanings of gender in the therapeutic setting) and the interactions (interdependence between representations of one's own identity and the therapeutic relationship). We start from an intersubjective understanding of the transference relationship that assigns relevance to the analyst's subjectivity for the phenomena occurring in the countertransference.  

During the first six-month start-up phase, we aim to transfer the study into a longer research project. The research project is part of a larger collaborative project on the significance of gender and sexuality in psychotherapy, psychosomatics and sexual medicine.  


Original Language: German and English

Participating Researchers

IPU Berlin:
Dr. Charlie Kaufhold
Adrian Turan
Christopher Steffen
Philip Jammermann 
Anton Anders
Rahel Barra
Maike Beißner 
Liliane Dursun 
Lovis Ellhöft
Andrés González Axthammer 
Carolin Ingwersen
Zoe Karamanoglou
Thil Kinyua
Laura Klein
Johanna Volpers

Members of External Steering Comitee: 
Ulrike Auge
Mascha Germeyer
Annette Güldenring 
Martina Stang

Duration

Projekt Start: 04/2025
Projekt End: 03/2026