This text emerged from discussions and reflections that occurred between my work as a psychoanalyst and my work as a supervisor. I wrote it after a discussion with an assistant I’m supervising. She was telling me of her concerns about encounters with very young adolescent boys who are very inhibited and silent in the session with her. This recurring difficulty had led her to ask me if it would not be wiser to refer them to male therapists? This led me to reflect upon ways of getting out of the impasse she found herself in with these patients.