"She does not seem to be disfigured at all by her overweight." Descriptions of female and male patients in applications for analytical psychotherapy

How do psychoanalysts perceive their male and female patients? We analyzed texts from reports to the experts from applications for reimbursement of psychotherapy to find out if there were gender-specific differences. The reports for 20 male patients and 20 female patients were qualitatively analyzed, resulting in 399 coded text segments. It was found that for women their appearances (hairstyle, body shape, eyes, clothing style, etc.) were described much more frequently than for men. Differences in the assessment of their appearance were also found: female patients were more often described as being pretty/attractive or childlike/younger looking, whereas these attributes were rarely used for men. By contrast, they were more often described as being aboveaverage intelligent. In the countertransference women more frequently induced feelings of having to be careful but also compassion and sympathy, whereas men more frequently induced the wish to help and to support them, the wish to limit them as well as anger and rage. These findings indicate that gender stereotypes play an important role in the perception (and description) of patients.