– Why We Need to Understand a Woman’s Brain in Marital Therapy in Nashville, TN

Last Updated on September 14, 2014 by Chris Roberts

WHY WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND A WOMAN’S BRAIN IN MARITAL THERAPY IN NASHVILLE, TENNESEEE

References “The Female Brain” By Louann Brizendine, M.D. 2006. Broadway Books.

One of the most harmful practices of marriage counseling in Nashville, TN is not understanding that a woman’s brain is significantly different than a male’s brain. This isn’t such a radical idea in the 21^st century, but it wasn’t that long ago that very little research was invested in the female neurology and psychology. In a must-read for any woman interested in her specific, female biology by Dr. Louann Brizendine called, “The Female Brain,” Dr. Brizendine states that, “Until the 1990s, researchers paid little attention to female physiolology, neuroanatomy, or psychology separate from that of men.”(p. 2) It does seem hard to imagine that only 20 years ago the field of human biology related to just women was created. This has profound cultural implications for how we relate to and understand women. We are on a good path towards a more healthy view of women, but it will take many more decades before we have accumulated the data to accurately understand their personhood. In fact, Dr. Brizendine gives a sobering example of this reality, “When a professor presented a study about animal behavior one day at Yale, I raised my hand and asked what the research findings were for females in that study. The male professor dismissed my question, stating, “We never use females in these studies—their menstrual cycles would just mess up the data.”(p. 2)

In marriage counseling, this statement by her professor at Yale is ever-present. Men, and many women, are dismissive of female menstrual cycles, because we have been inoculated into the belief that the menstrual cycle “messes things up.” Anyone with long-term interactions with a female will not deny that the menstrual cycle changes things pretty drastically for most women. The deep-rooted problem with the belief that the menstrual cycle “messes with the data” assumes that a male’s data is more accurate. That could be furthest thing from the truth. If ALL women experience a menstrual cycle repeatedly and consistently throughout their lives, then data without this reality is false data!! I don’t believe the professor meant to be as dismissive and degrading to women as it sounds, but the reality is: It was. We must come up with an entirely new category of data to understand women, not just try to fit them into a male’s schema.

Most men, and even women, are so quick to define these periods of menstrual cycles as women acting “crazy” or “out of the norm” or “irrational.” Again, the problem is not about women acting “out of the norm,” but the fact that society has such little understanding of women as a whole, that women continue to be compared to males as if they SHOULD be more like men. It’s quite saddening and sobering. It’s like asking a 4 year old to be more like an adult, or a monkey to act more like a human. We can beg and plead and force them to work harder and see things more OUR way, but ultimately they are NOT the things we are wanting them to be. We can make some comparisons, but it would be ridiculous and unhealthy to assume they can or should be. Yet, this is what we have done with females for most of human civilization. Dr. Brizendine makes this important statement, “To the observing eye, the brains of females and males are not the same. Male brains are larger by about 9 percent, even after correcting for body size. In the nineteenth century, scientists took this to mean that women had less mental capacity than men. Women and men, however, have the same number of brain cells. The cells are just packed more densely in women—cinched corsetlike into a smaller skull.”(p. 1) What a terrible assumption: that just because the physical size is different, it means for certain that a woman has less capacity for thought and intelligence than a man. And yet, this type of “misunderstanding” has endured and continues to endure today.

Why Marital Therapy in Nashville Needs to Address the Differences in Women

When working with women in marriage therapy in Nashville, there must be a primary reverence and understanding that a female psychology and neurology are different than a male’s. Marriage counselors must take special care to check their own biases and judgments against the reality that women function differently than men and therefore see and perceive the world differently. We all have blindspots to areas where we have been influenced by our culture and society in ways that don’t promote the greatest possibility for health and wholeness.

If you are looking for marriage counseling in Nashville or middle Tennessee, Chris Roberts at Two Trees Counseling Nashville could be a great resource for you. Chris enjoys working with couples and would be happy to assist you with any questions you might have about the marriage counseling process. If you are a woman, or married to one, and are struggling with how to accept and integrate your essence as a female, counseling may be a great resource for helping you during this time of your life.