ABSTRACT
This chapter explores these questions: the territory of gender within play therapy and, specifically, what it means to be a male play therapist within a profession that has come to be socially constructed as predominately female. Ann Cattanach, the programme convenor, gave somewhat knowing look and, the sub-text clearly being about ability to manage minority of gender status. Gender roles are powerfully defined, stereotyped and reinforced in many ways and the notion of sexual equality, something that we would all clearly aspire to, still remains somewhat elusive as long as the economic institutions of the day continue to remain primarily within the male domain. As therapists, we are more than adept at exploring issues of power and gender, adroitly able to enter into post-modern, constructivist conversations about the feminist discourse within psychotherapy and how the dynamics of power and oppression are played out on both familial and wider systemic levels.
