Women On The Couch

The Millennial Female Psychotherapist

In this video talk with slides, Sissy Lykou examines the disadvantages young women face in the therapy field. Culture’s ambivalent attitudes to female youth inevitably affect the Millennial female therapist. How is she perceived? By her clients/patients, by her colleagues of other ages and sexes, and by herself?

Is there a special issue of hierarchy here, related to appearance rather than to experience and skill? Our profession can seem in flight from youth. Young female therapists (Millennials or Generation Y, born since about 1980) may shrink in their chairs or feel disillusioned by the continuous exclusion and reminder of their freshness. Sissy discusses the potential political impact of this generation of therapists breaking their silence on their experiences in the profession as well as in wider contexts such as the #metoo campaign. This means engaging with a range of issues, from Botox to banking, feminizm to fashion and sexualisation of the body to anxieties over status, and the oppressive feeling of being denied a fulfillling future.