Seeing a therapist for the first time

[VirtuaGrl]

My wife is not handling my crossdressing well. In an effort to save our marriage, I have agreed to counseling. Initially, we planned to do marriage counseling to work through it together, but, for a number of reasons, we have shifted focus to individual counseling for me and joint sessions as needed.

After reaching out to numerous therapists, I have finally gotten responses from two in my area that are not totally booked and accept my insurance. Obviously, there were not my first choices, but they are the choices available to me and now I need to schedule a session, which is where my questions really come into play.

1) Of these two, one is male and one is female. Given a choice, all other things being equal, would you pick/recommend a male or female therapist?

2) In my initial emails to them I indicated I was seeking individual counseling because of marital strife centered on my gender identity and expression. How soon should I dive into the session with, "...so I'm a crossdresser...?" Should I throw that out there the first session or wait until I've built up some rapport with the therapist? I'm leaning towards getting it out of the way immediately because I don't want to, please excuse the expression, pussy-foot around the issue and waste valuable time in therapy when I can get to the heart of the matter more immediately.

3) The last question kind of leads into this one. I don't really know what I want from these sessions. I think I want to be able to better cope without dressing and to better control impulses surrounding it. I know giving it up completely probably isn't going to happen and that I'm going to have to shift into DADT mode in order to save my marriage and intellectually and emotionally my wife and our relationship is of prime importance (more so than my dressing), but I'm a pragmatist at heart and know that I was crossdressing for years before meeting my wife and that it's pretty well an ingrained part of my psyche. And with the recent Szondi Test results (see my other forum post about that), that it may be more than simply gender-bending and may be a form of dissociative disorder. If you've been to see a therapist, what were your treatment goals? Where on the transgender spectrum did you fall?

The last time I saw a shrink was over 20 years ago and was for depression following breaking up with my high school girlfriend (a break up that was in no way related to my crossdressing because I was only in the early stages of my dressing then and had no idea what it meant). I believe I saw her only two or three times and then refused to continue seeing her or taking the medication she prescribed (Lithium which gave me prolonged nosebleeds). I just don't know what to expect or how to approach this which is why I'm seeking your feedback.

Here's a for instance, I've read here about some of you seeing your therapist an femme. How did that come about? Did the therapist suggest it? Was it beneficial to your treatment? What did your SO say or think about it?

Shortly after coming out to my wife, we tried seeing a marriage counselor. I picked her from a list online and scheduled the appointment. The session was a disaster. The therapist said my crossdressing was 100% normal and my wife was totally wrong for being bothered by it and needed to just accept it in me and support me. I know that sounds like exactly what you want your SO to hear and have to be asking why I say it was a disaster, but truthfully, I know that being TG isn't 100% normal. And while I would love for my wife to simply accept it and support me, I know that it has to be presented to her in a much more gentle fashion and that there is a lot of work I need to do to ease her into the idea better. In any event, I'm trying extremely hard to avoid a repeat performance.

I guess in the long run, that's what I want most. I want my wife to accept, support and participate with me, but it is going to take quite a bit of time before that happens and could use some pointers in finding the right path.

I think I have rambled on long enough. I loom forward to your responses. And for the GGs or other SOs hanging out here and that managed to get through all of that, I welcome your thoughts, opinions, and experiences as well.

Thanks!

[Mistyjo]

For me talking to a female therapist is a lot easier than male as for How soon should you dive into the session that is some thing only you can answer for me i did not bring up my crossdressing until i felt i could really answer her questions honestly. if you are open and honest with yourself and your therapist you will get what you need and want from your sessions

[tommi]

I chose a female therapist the second time and found one that I really really have liked she was very open with suggestions I emailed her it upfront and told him what was going on and we dove right into the cross-dressing issues on my first visit
I just was not comfortable talking about my cross-dressing issues with a male counselor I was assigned to the first time I went to counseling
Looks like you might like them and I see a counselor or get a divorce as far as what it's done for my cross-dressing it's help me control the urges it's help me talk through the urges it's also help me talking to my wife about it my wife still insists that it stays deep in the closet but that beats Adivorce

[Annaliese]

I would go into it with, can it help me understand my gender identity, if I understand it better, it might help my wife to accept it, that this is not a chose, but who I am. That is what I would want out of it. To help me understand, that if I am TG then it is normal.

[Stephanie Julianna]

I would prefer a woman as well . I would also not hesitate to tell the therapist about the crossdressing since it really is the underlying issue for why you are there. If the therapist knows what she is talking about she will never suggest that your desire to dress can be cured or supressed. Anyone worth their salt would never suggest that. The approach would be how to manage this gender issue in your life and relationship with others. Good luck and I'll say a prayer.

[Pantyhose Queen]

I also would and have been to a female therapist. I also went at my wife's urging early on, and after going for a while and hearing from the therapist that "cross-dressing is within the normal range behavior for males" she quickly came to realize that we didn't have to waste any more money on that and now things have greatly improved and has become way more tolerant of it

[VirtuaGrl]

Thank you all for your replies. I was leaning towards the woman therapist because I thought it may be easier to discuss my crossdressing with her. My hesitation with the woman therapist was her availability, but in a contest of availability vs approachability I think going for approachability is probably better.

My biggest fear is a repeat of that last disastrous session. I am hoping that by seeing this therapist alone at first that I will be able to avoid a repeat performance.

I am under no delusions that the urge to dress could ever be "cured" or completely suppressed. In reading about dissociative disorders, even those can only be managed and not ended. Psychotherapy is the recommended treatment for dissociative disorder, but the goal is to integrate the "alter(s)" and not get rid of them. I believe that it's my hope that I can be given ways to cope with not dressing and control the urges to dress and not be sneaking around behind my wife's back.

Ideally, it would be great to integrate "her" (my alter) into my life with the knowledge and support of my wife, but right now my wife is just not ready to share our lives with my alter. So learning how to suppress the need for my alter to be overtly involved in my life is something I will want to explore.

It's a mess for sure.

Again, I appreciate the responses so far and look forward to additional opinions and experiences to help me move forward.

[Alaina R]

"All other things being equal" doesn't exist. Try the female therapist but if It does not feel right don't be afraid to switch. I have not been to a therapist in many years but saw several back in my thirties. The best one, and the most useful/helpful therapist, was a male. He was a very smart guy and understood the human psyche well - thirty years later I am still glad I found him (he was actually recommended by a woman friend who had a PhD in psychology).
That marriage counselor you saw was a disaster - to label one of you right or wrong like that smacks of total incompetence. Frankly, that is a real problem with therapists - IMHO most of them suck; it is hard to find a good one. I'm sure others will disagree but "all things being equal" my bias is to go with a well trained, smart PhD level psychologist. Psychiatrists are too reliant on drugs and your run of the mill Master's level family counselor type is just not trained well enough to deal with really difficult issues. Good luck.

[IamAmy]

I'm seeing a female therapist and it's going really well. I'm going because I have come out to my wife and also myself in the last few months and am struggling to deal with anxiety from it. I'm also trying to find out who this other person is inside me and what she wants from me. Like most I've suppressed my feelings for so long, I'm trying to free myself and accept who I really am.

[Princess29]

I started seeing a therapist last year and after 10 sessions last year and 2 at the start of this year, I hadn't really progressed or learned anything and the icing on the cake was when she kind of rushed through a session in February and also interrupted the session to take a personal call and I didn't feel like going back to her after that. At the time I started trying, I didn't have a point of comparison and I went to see this first therapist (a female as well but I had no preference) on the recommendation of a TS friend and it was worth a try but sometimes you just have to try a few to find one that works for you. I'm about to see a different one next week and hopefully things will progress. I usually don't hold anything back when I go there as the whole idea is to talk about stuff and if I wanted to sit somewhere and not talk about things, I can do that at home and save a whole bunch of money

[MsVal]

The female therapist I an seeing has helped me and my wife understand and accept my crossdressing.

She is the second therapist I've seen. The first one told me during my first session that I was likely to transition, and she would recommend HRT. That scared me more than anything had scared me before. I never went back.

Early in my first session with my current therapist I told her of my crossdressing, the anxiety I felt, and the effect it was having on our marriage.

[Sometimes Steffi]

I personally would prefer a female therapist. Even though they're supposed to be non-judgmental, I would feel that a male is more judgmental. That being said, I would prefer a male with experiencing in CD/TG issues that an inexperienced female.

I think what helped me the most was coming to accept that my wife wouldn't accept, and trying to work my life around that.

I would tell her that I was a crossdresser in the first session. I think I asked if it was OK if I dressed, and I did when I felt like it. But, I would arrive early and dress at her place and then transform back to male mode.

with the last therapist I saw, my goal was to be able to stop the lying and cover stories. If I was going out dressed, I wanted to say that. I wanted to stop saying that i was going out with the guys, even though it was technically true.

[ChrissyW1]

Already discussed it with my wife and she agreed it'd be a good idea for me to see one, so I took the step today of sending a first message to a local therapist. We'll see how and where it goes....

[UNDERDRESSER]

Shortly after coming out to my wife, we tried seeing a marriage counselor. I picked her from a list online and scheduled the appointment. The session was a disaster. The therapist said my crossdressing was 100% normal and my wife was totally wrong for being bothered by it and needed to just accept it in me and support me.

The therapist was somewhat correct. Is crossdressing "normal"? Depends on exactly how you define "normal" Is it wrong? No. Not at all. It can be a problem, which it obviously is to your wife. If I was the counsellor, I would have tried to get this through to your wife, but at the same time, I wouldn't have tried to push her into accepting it fully. I would have suggested to her that she should try to view it dispassionately, and make what accommodations she was able to, but if she couldn't, then if she wanted to continue the marriage, set up some fairly definite rules and limitations in a DADT way.

Basically, it isn't curable as such, and trying to suppress it can lead to some very unhealthy outcomes down the road.

I would dispute that being TG is not normal. You could make the argument that a fairly large proportion of the population is TG, to some degree, you just happen to be somewhat more so than average.

[Beverley Sims]

I feel that youwould tell about your dressing almost first off, that is the root cause of your problem.

I also feel that your going by yourself is to appeaseyour wife, that is okay as well but I feel joint therapy would be more beneficial.

I don't think you need therapy to cope with dressing, it is your wife and that is why further down the track a subtle change to joint therapy may work better.

[jenacd]

My wife is talking to a man from the crossdressers wives website.she is like yours not handling it to well. At first I was worried that she would be told to leave me but she is changing and calmer now. At somepoint I will talk to this peson bit she is not pushing me to so I am waiting. I see a change in her for the good. So my hopes of a good ending will are better. The person she is talking to does online session and phone session so I wouldn't have to face them. THATs a good thing about this. I wish you luck

[Kate Simmons]

I'm a bit confused because you said this is the first time you are going for therapy. Then you said the last time you had therapy was 20 years ago albeit not for CDing. If you have previously seen a therapist you should know how it works more or less already. How much you accomplish depends on how much you are willing to talk about. Choosing a male or female therapist is really a personal preference and both will act as sounding boards for you. Good luck with your sessions.

[VirtuaGrl]

Welcome to my head, Kate. It is a bit confusing.

I try very hard to forget about the break up with my high school girlfriend and the months that followed. Suffice it to say, I did not handle it well and was a bit messed up for quite some time afterwards. I don't really have much memory of those two or three sessions and I certainly was not interested in fixing anything then. So this upcoming session, for me, is the first time I have been in an individual counseling session for largely XD related issues and I am both a willing participant and hoping to gain something of value from them.

Actually, Beverly, I don't even think of it as going to appease my wife. I think of it as I need some assistance in being a better husband to my wife and figuring out how to incorporate my alter into my life and maybe my wife's life as well. I agree, some joint sessions will be of value, but I really need to get a better handle on me.

Good luck Chrissy! Maybe we can share notes later?

[Melanie B]

FWW, most counsellors rounds here offer free "introductory" sessions. I drew up a shortlist of three.None of my shortlist were male. At the time, I felt I really needed to see someone urgently, so one of the three ruled herself out by offering an appointment next month. I told both of the others that CDing was one of the issues during our very first telephone conversations -- before we even made the first appointment.
And they were both wonderful!
Wishing you well whatever you decide.

[genevie]

Advice from previous counselors: Seeing a counselor by yourself usually leads to a pulling away from the relationship. That counselor only sees your side. Not fair. Couples counseling works on your relationship and your personal issues. Yes. Both. In a setting where you are both learning about yourselves as individuals as well as partners. Counselors are not in charge of your life. If a counselor says something out of line or you have an issue with it, discuss that. Part of the process is also developing a relationship with your counselor. If they are not willing to do that, then maybe they are not the right one. So you have the interpersonal relationship between you and your partner and each of you with the counselor. If anyone doesn't want to participate, issues are definitely there. Make sense?

[sometimes_miss]

The longer you wait to tell your therapist about yourself, the longer it will take for them to help you. My ex chastized me for immediately telling our therapist about my life and the crossdressing because she felt that it was opening up too much, too soon, and she felt that indicated a personality flaw.
Me, I was abused by males early in life, so I don't trust men at all. Hence, I only see female therapists, as well as most doctors.
My goals were to get my wife to understand more about why I crossdress, as well as how it fits into the culture we live in, and how I could make it easier for her to deal with it, and how she could help me stop doing it; I had spent the last about 8 years without crossdressing up to that point, at which I didn't feel that I could stop myself from doing it. Sadly, she threw all the responsibility for everything wrong in our relationship back on me, just making the desire to crossdress even more intense.
Our therapist suggested that I come to a session en femme, but I was and am still not out, and did not feel it necessary. Perhaps it would have strengthened my ex wife's argument to herself that I looked ridiculous and why would I want to do that to myself, but I didn't feel that to be a convincing argument that it would be productive. Our therapist considered whether I was ashamed about it, but I argued back that being out could potentially cause more problems, so why make life worse for myself?
Initially, my wife tried to accept my crossdressing, but preferred not to see it or discuss anything about it. That changed, as she started joining support groups of wives of crossdressers and heard all the transitioning horror stories, and started to make assumptions about me on her own. She TOLD me that I was just fooling myself, that I was surely transsexual and was afraid to admit it to myself. She decided that my difficulty at sex was because i was really attracted to men (my difficulty was actually because I was scared to death that she would get pregnant before I could finish school, and I would be stuck working three minimum wage jobs to support her and the children, and that manifested itself in my having difficulty reaching orgasm for the last years years of my marriage; I did mention that I found it odd that women are allowed to say that they are still quite satisfied with sex even if they don't orgasm all the time, but that for some reason for a man that is never acceptable).
I think that perhaps the best you might be able to hope for is a dadt situation; there aren't a whole lot of women who want to participate in feminizing their husbands; it's simply a disturbing thing for most of them, and it can potentially interfere with how they are sexually attracted to us. Women are attracted to men who have traditional masculine traits; strong, protective, stable, reliable, providers. When we assume feminine appearance and behavior, we toss all of those out the window, and it can destabilize any sexual desire they have for us. Once that sexual attraction is gone, so is the romance, and often, so is any romantic love. Once that's gone, you may as well be her brother, and her need to feel sexually desirable can easily become focused on attaining that feeling from another male, and poof, your marriage is over. If the sexual stage of your marriage is over, you stand a better chance of staying together. But if she has the desire for a 'real man', and you screw up that image of yourself to her, you're playing with fire.
Let her take the lead with this; get to the dadt point, let her get used to the fact that you're the same person that you always were. She needs to see that. Once it's been established that you are the same guy you've always been, then you can see if she starts taking an interest in making YOU feel better about your crossdressing.
This has to center on HER needs, not yours. That's the way it has to be. If you try to push it so she has to be the one making all the sacrifices, you're going to definitely lose her.
Oh, and TG is perfectly normal FOR SOME PEOPLE. The term you were looking for is 'average'. TG is not average. But it's so common (there are about 3.75 million men who crossdress on a regular basis) that it is a normal varient of our males in the species.

[VirtuaGrl]

I totally get what you are saying about all parties need to be willing to work together, Gen.

Initially, my wife and I discussed seeing a counselor together, but one of the main reasons we're going with me solo first is our insurance wouldn't cover joint sessions unless one of us was the primary patient and the joint session were needed as part of that person's treatment plan. So, if I sign up as the primary patient and the therapist and I decide it would be beneficial to have sessions that include my wife the insurance would cover it where otherwise it wouldn't. Since my crossdressing is at the heart of our issues, my wife and I agreed that I should be the primary and work on my messed up little head first and that when needed we could start having her join the sessions.

So, I'm not going to be going to therapy to the exclusion of my wife, just jot at first.

Personally, I think having a therapist will be cathartic and will help our relationship just by the mere fact I won't be trying to work through my issues in a void (i.e., my own head) or online in forums like this one.

I really think I have a dissociative disorder and that my xdressing is how my alter manifests herself. I think it is less an expression of my feminine side as much as it's an expression of a completely separate identity that shares my body. I'm only coming to this realization as a result of that stupid Szondi Test, but the way I've thought about my xdressing in years past leads me to believe it's not just simply gender identity as whole identity. Believe it or not, this makes me a little more hopeful because it means that there's an established treatment plan for minimizing the disruption in my life by the alter.

[ChrissyW1]

Got a first response from the first counselor I tried -- she's full and referred me to a male colleague, but I'm just more comfortable with a female counselor in this area. So made another try at a first contact. Let's see how it goes....

[SamanthaSometimes]

I can empathize with you. Almost immediately after my wife discovered I CD, I suggested I see a counselor because I couldn’t explain it to myself so I certainly couldn’t explain it to her. I wanted to see only a female counselor because girls are the only people I could really open up to. Fortunately, my insurance had a female, Ph.D psychologist on their list. I told her on the first visit that I enjoyed dressing as a female which was good because she was quickly able to get ‘on point’. I naively thought that if I could only understand why I CD that I would be able to stop. I accomplished neither. It goes so deep. The counselor, I believe, correctly diagnosed that I was androgynous. My gender identity is not binary but on a spectrum. However, after reading your last post you believe your issue is more of a split personality? It sounds like you haven’t had your first session yet so be sure to bring up your feelings and thoughts about that – but more importantly why you believe you may have a split personality. A well trained counselor will be able to sort out the differences between a split personality and gender dysphoria. There is a huge difference between the two. My six solo counseling sessions really helped me sort through my feelings and gave me new self-introspective skills I had never had. Later, my wife and I went together in ‘marriage counseling’ sessions together with a different counselor. My wife didn’t want to go to my previous counselor she didn’t ‘fix’ me. Long story short, we failed joint marriage counseling. After five or so sessions, our counselor refused to see us anymore because, in his words, “it wasn’t fair to keep taking our money”. He was also a Ph.D in psychology and a professor at a local university who taught/trained college students to be counselors. In other words, he was a highly trained and experienced counselor. My wife was more than agitated that he wouldn’t just come out and say that my CDing was wrong. In fact, the counselor was correctly educated and trained to not take any ‘side’ of patients’ arguments but rather ask probing questions and let the patient’s come to their own conclusion. My wife was so closed minded and bigoted that she wouldn’t entertain questions that could lead to objective thoughts or feelings and wanted to also (in addition to our counselor) discontinue the sessions. I really hope things turn out better for you and your wife but, at least in my case, even a highly skilled marriage counselor didn’t help her accept me for who I am or our marriage. Of course this sounds very one sided of me but – “you can only lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink”. And I was very motivated to do whatever was necessary to save our marriage while retaining myself. Currently, we are in a DADT relationship but I recently returned home after a business trip to find some of my dresses missing from what I thought we had previously agreed was a ‘safe’ zone. So the struggle continues for me but hopefully your story will have a better ending. Some do – at least that is what I read. Which gets back to your statement, “all parties need to be willing to work together”.

[CherylFlint]

If you think you’re nuts now, or a therapist is going to “help” you with your SO, good luck.
First off, being a CD is not something you’ll “change from” or “grow out of”.
You’re a CD: accept it.
So the “problem” is with your SO.
My wife says she ought to accept it, there’s just too many things going wrong with the world today to get hung-up on and having a CD as a boyfriend or a husband is at the very, VERY bottom of the list.
This is exactly what happens when a CD is not up-front and honest about being a CD at the very, VERY beginning of a relationship.
Your SO having a problem with you being a CD isn’t your problem, it’s hers. She’s the one with the hang-up: send her to a therapist if you think it’ll do any good.
But I’d have to say is to save your money. If you two can’t sit down and have a heart-to-heart about you being a CD and she gets bent-out-of-shape about it, no amount of therapy is going to help.
I’m sure everyone else is going to write, “Oh, good luck”. Okay, I’ll say “Good Luck”, but use your brain. It’s not that complicated when you think about it.
Good luck.