“…Matching also has long been advocated by academic researchers and theorists; for example, it has been recommended that clients and therapists be matched on the basis of age ( Boulware & Holmes, 1970 ), sexual orientation ( Beane, 1981 ), race ( Thompson, Worthington, & Atkinson, 1994 ), and race/ethnicity ( McGoldrick, Giordano, & Garcia-Preto, 2005 ). Matching clients and therapists on the basis of gender has been the most widely recommended and examined method of demographic matching, and it has constituted a major theme in counseling research ( Koile & Bird, 1956 ;Boulware & Holmes, 1970 ;Simons & Helms, 1976 ;Highlen & Russell, 1980 ;Jones and Zoppel, 1982 ;Yanico & Hardin, 1985 ;Orlinsky and Howard, 1986 ;Bernstein, Hofmann, & Wade, 1987 ;Blier, Atkinson, & Geer, 1987 ;DeHeer, Wampold, & Freund, 1992 ;Fowler, Wagner, Iachini, & Johnson, 1992 ;Fowler & Wagner, 1993 ;Fujino, Okazaki, & Young, 1994 ;Wintersteen, et al , 2005 ;Blow, Timm, & Cox, 2008;Johnson & Caldwell, 2011 A number of diff erent theories have been articulated to support the practice of matching clients and therapists on the basis of gender. Generally, these theories rest upon the premise that people better identify with and better understand people they believe to be similar to themselves ( Fabrikant, 1974 ;Eagly, 1987 ).…”