Therapists' judgments of mentally healthy beliefs for women and men

Clinical and counseling literature indicates that practicing psychologists often observe different mental health standards for women and men. Most of this research has examined mental health in terms of personality attributes, and as such there is a noticeable lack of research concerned with mentally healthybeliefs. The present research was concerned with the investigation of a possible gender bias in therapists' mental health standards, defined in terms of personal beliefs. For this purpose, the Irrational Beliefs Test (IBT; Jones, 1969) was completed three different times by a group of licensed psychologists in private practice, measuring their beliefs of how (1) a mentally healthy sex-unspecified adult, (2) a mentally healthy male adult, and (3) a mentally healthy female adult would respond to the IBT. The results indicated that both women and men therapists associated unique beliefs with women's and men's mental health.The late Dr. Frank B. Lambert studied the philosophical foundations of psychotherapy theory and was concerned about value issues in the practice of psychotherapy. He was pursuing his Ph.D. in counseling psychology at the time of his untimely death.Portions of these data were presented at the 1985 annual meeting of the American Psychological Association, Los Angeles, California. Graditude is extended to Lucia Gilbert and Mark R. Leary for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this article.