Gender and conversational behaviour in family therapy and live supervision

The association between supervisors' and therapists' gender and the conversational behaviour of 4 supervisors, 19 trainee family therapists and 20 clients before, during and after 88 live supervisory phone-in events were examined in this study. Clients' co-operation was not directly related to the genders of therapists and supervisors. The quality of supervisors' collaborative behaviour was highest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising male therapists and lowest for events in systems where male supervisors were supervising female therapists. In systems containing female supervisors and male therapists, therapists engaged in frequent collaborative behaviour and less frequent teaching behaviour with their clients. The quality of therapists’ collaborative and supportive behaviour was highest in these systems. The
unexpected results of this study suggest the way supervisors interact with therapists and therapists interact with clients does not conform to gender stereotypic conversational behaviour in which males are directive and females affiliative. It may be that individuals whose conversational behaviour does not conform to gender stereotypes decide to become family therapists or that family therapy training helps people develop alternatives to gender-stereotypical conversational behaviour.