Institut für Ethnologie
01.07.25: Vortrag im Ethnologischen Kolloquium von Erwin Schweitzer
27. Juni 2025, von Christina Fastner
Erwin Schweitzer (Donau Universität Krems) zu dem Thema
Gendered Dynamics in Private Psychotherapy Practices in Austria: A Relational Phenomenological Exploration of Patient-Therapist Experiences
In psychotherapy research, the medical model continues to occupy a hegemonic position. Within this paradigm, psychological distress is understood as the result of underlying dysfunctions requiring targeted interventions. This mirrors the biomedical logic of treating disease with medication or surgery. From this perspective, gender is typically conceptualized as a discrete variable whose influence on therapeutic outcomes can be measured and quantified. Most outcome studies conducted within this framework report only a minimal “gender effect.” In contrast, in this lecture I adopt a relational phenomenological perspective to explore the significance of gender in psychotherapy from the viewpoints of both patients and therapists. I draw on semi-structured interviews conducted as part of a qualitative subproject within the Process and Outcome of Psychotherapy in Private Practice (POPP) study, launched in 2020 across Austria. From a phenomenological standpoint, I argue that psychotherapy functions as both a gendered and gendering social practice. The lived experiences of my interlocutors reveal that gender is embodied, embedded, and enacted in therapeutic encounters. In this process, binary gender logics are either reproduced or downplayed—yet always entangled within broader cultural and relational contexts.
Wir freuen uns sehr auf den Vortrag, zu dem wir alle interessierten Personen herzlich einladen.
Das Kolloquium findet immer dienstags im großen Seminarraum des Instituts statt:
Institut für Ethnologie
Seminarraum 222, 2. OG
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Westflügel
20146 Hamburg