The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy

Marcia Hill, Mary Ballou

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136375996
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Sciences sociales
• Subtopic: Féminisme et théorie féministe

Explore the obstacles and challenges involved in bringing feminist values and techniques into mainstream therapyFeminist therapy has been challenging mainstream therapy thinking and practice for the past thirty years. The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy is the first book to provide a summary and compilation of that history. It describes the work of the major contributors, early and recent, and gives a terrific overview of the rich and radical development of feminist therapy from a variety of perspectives.The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy honors the work of women such as Laura Brown, Iris Fodor, Miriam Greenspan, Hannah Lerman, and Lenore Walker, who developed, and who continue to develop, feminist therapy theory and practice. This book breaks new ground by envisioning a feminist-informed future in the areas of therapy practice, the education of therapists, and community. It also provides an unflinching look at the challenges and threats to developing that future and offers suggestions for action.The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy includes the work of past and present contributors to feminist theory on topics such as:

• the complex intertwining of gender and other oppressions
  
• the impact of race and ethnicity
  
• the effects of sexual orientation, age, class, disability, and refugee and immigrant status
  
• discussions about violence against women
  
• feminist theory from a wide range of perspectives, from relational-cultural to multicultural theory
  
• perspectives on trauma
  
• the discussions at a conference that imagined a future informed by feminist principles
  
• and much more!

For those interested in feminist therapy theory, The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy is an excellent starting point, and many references are provided for readers who want to pursue specific topics further. This book will interest practicing therapists at all levels, including psychologists, counselors, and social workers. It is also appropriate as a textbook for women's studies, psychology of women, counseling, psychology, and social work classes.

Part 1: Foundations

Feminist Therapy’s Roots and Wings

Marcia Hill

This is a critical time for feminism in general and for feminist therapy in particular. We have made many gains: feminist principles have been incorporated to some extent into ethics codes and into norms of generally accepted practice. Nonetheless, there has been a lengthy and increasingly powerful political swing to the right, especially in the U.S. This has not left the practice of psychotherapy unaffected. So although professional organizations now recommend sensitivity to a client’s race, gender and sexual orientation, therapist autonomy is increasingly restricted to techniques and time lines that serve the insurance industry rather than clients. While awareness of violence against women is now commonplace among clinicians, human pain has become increasingly defined in medical, rather than psychological or sociopolitical, terms. Even the language of therapy has been co-opted by the insurance industry: Therapists are now “providers,” clients are “consumers,” and psychotherapy is “behavioral care” (as if all problems were behavioral). Words like “emotions” have been all but eliminated from the lexicon of psychotherapy. Language shapes reality, and the industry-driven language of therapy would have us see pain as biological and behavioral and help as drugs and the application of brief outcome-based “treatments.” There is little place in this realm for looking at problems as responses to cultural injuries or for accompanying the client in a search for her own solutions and truths.

It is in this context that these authors contribute to this volume, which looks both backward to the roots of feminist therapy and forward to its possibilities. We offer also an analysis of the contemporary challenges to feminist therapy theory and practice.

We look at the foundations of feminist therapy from two organizing perspectives. One is its placement in time. The work of the earliest theorists (pre-1985) is examined by Susan Contratto and Jessica Rossier; Natalie Porter presents feminist therapy’s primary theorists after that date. These authors have selected, in consultation with colleagues, those contributors to the foundations of feminist therapy whose work stands out either for originality or impact. The second frame is based more on content, pulling together four of feminist therapy’s significant themes. Here, Susan Barrett reviews multicultural feminist therapy, focusing specifically on race and ethnicity. Laura Brown, Laurie Riepe and Rochelle Coffey look at the contributions of writers who have examined feminist therapy through the lenses of other differences, such as sexual orientation, ability and disability, aging, refugee and immigrant status, and social class. These perspectives come out of feminism’s recognition that “woman” is not a unidimensional construct, and that to understand any woman, you must first understand her placement in her family; in her communities; and in the various social groupings of which she is a member, such as race or class (Barrett, 1998). Carolyn West describes the work of the relational-cultural theorists, whose influence has been significant in feminist therapy theory. Denise Webster and Erin Dunn review those authors whose work comes out of trauma theory, recognizing that in a culture of gendered and sexualized oppression, much of what women bring to therapy is a consequence of sexual abuse, battering and rape. All of these contributors end with a look at possible lessons that come out of the work they have reviewed, lessons that can and will be used as a foundation for feminist therapy’s future.

These authors have done a remarkable job of sifting through almost three decades’ worth of writing about feminist therapy to present its central themes and contributors. There is, naturally, a great deal of overlap, with some authors having substantial influence in more than one category. In addition, the choices of what work to include necessarily omitted many theorists whose work is both important and influential. Nonetheless, we believe that this compilation will give the reader a good overview of feminist therapy theory to date.

We look at this work keeping in mind that theorists whose writing is presented here all speak from their location not only in time but also in all of this culture’s defining conditions. They speak as women of color or white women, as disabled or temporarily able-bodied. Their sexual orientation, age, class background and many other factors shape their understanding as much as does their gender. Too often these standpoints are mentioned only when they are “other,” i.e., other than the perspective of the dominant culture. But growing up middle-class influences values as much as does growing up poor; being European-American determines one’s vision as surely as does being Asian- American. In some of these reviews, notable those of Barrett and of Brown, Riepe and Coffey, these standpoints are at the center of the discussion; in others, they are unspecified (or only occasionally specified) and in the background. This reflects the reality of most writing and theorizing both historically and currently. The value of noting non-dominant status is that those outside the dominant culture are by definition bicultural and thus are in an especially powerful position to recognize and comment upon the “givens” that may otherwise be invisible. This is one of the gifts of feminism’s analysis of gender, for example. The value of noting dominant status, however, is in reminding the reader that all perspectives are particular.

Where do we go from here? It is easy to feel defeated in today’s climate. Sometimes it seems that the only and best future for feminist therapists is to hang on to what shreds of feminist perspective we can behind the closed door of the consulting room. Yet as the early feminist thinkers recognized, we cannot create a future that we cannot imagine; if we are to make real changes in both our cultural and clinical realities, we have to brave envisioning what those changes might look like. Thus, the second part of this collection imagines a future informed by feminist principles in the related arenas of psychotherapy, education for therapists, and community. These authors take up where the first section authors leave off, with visions that are informed by the lessons coming out of feminist therapy theory’s history. Articulating dreams always runs the risk of sounding remote and unachievable, so these authors also include suggestions for actions both large and small that will help to make that future a reality.

If peering into the future is a risky enterprise, trying to create that future is like trying to build a home in the middle of a river: so little seems to take hold and make a difference. Further, the nature of the task is that the outcome is unobservable, often until well after one’s lifetime. Yet what choice is there but to start? Malcolm Gladwell, in The Tipping Point (2000), describes the nature of change as being a matter of cumulative effort. That is, for complex problems there is rarely any one thing that makes a difference. Rather, each of many small changes adds to a kind of inevitability, with there being little evident effect until– apparently suddenly–the weight of the accumulated efforts creates a major shift in the picture. This is congruent with a feminist model of collaborative and grassroots change, as opposed to the traditional male mythology of autonomous heroic action as the fulcrum for change. Similarly, our attempts to change the cultures of community, education, or therapy are likely to appear either ineffective or minimally so. But these small efforts do accumulate. Do not think that nothing is changing simply because you cannot see it.

That said, as you read these visions of the future, consider for yourself where you might make a difference. What do you see as the most important place to begin? And, equally important, where is your own passion, what do you have the energy and commitment to do? One example of action has already come out of this volume, started by those who were involved with or heard about its creation. A number of women in the Boston area, including members of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute, members of the Feminist Therapy Institute, urban health researchers, and others involved in service provision are meeting to consider how better to provide services based on feminist principles to local women. This group hopes to encourage support and collaboration among therapists and others who work with women, as a way to decrease isolation and provide solidarity in a shared feminist perspective.

Finally, we end this collection with a description and analysis of the challenges to feminist practice. We cannot hope to change that which we do not understand, and we wish you to be well equipped to grapple with and influence the forces that stand in the way of a feminist future. The work of remembering our roots, imagining and creating our future, and recognizing the threats to that future is as important now as it was when the second wave of feminism began. In fact, the Feminist Therapy Institute conference of 2002 was organized to do just that; the volume you hold is the outcome of that conference. We hope that in its pages you find both the groundwork and inspiration for action.

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "Feminist Therapy's Roots and Wings." Hill, Marcia. Co-published simultaneously in Women & Therapy (The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 28, No. 3/4, 2005, pp. 1-5; and: The Foundation and Future of Feminist Therapy (ed: Marcia Hill, and Mary Ballou) The Haworth Press, Inc., 2005, pp. 1-5. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@ haworthpress.com].

http://www.haworthpress.com/web/WT

© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

doi:10.1300/J015v28n03_01

References

Barrett, S.E. (1998). Contextual identity: A model for therapy and social change. In M. Hill (Ed.) Feminist therapy as a political act. New York: Haworth.

Gladwell, M. (2000). The tipping point: How little things can make a big difference. New York: Little, Brown & Co.

Early Trends in Feminist Therapy Theory and Practice

Susan Contratto Jessica Rossier
Susan Contratto is in private practice in Ann Arbor, MI. Jessica Rossier is in the graduate psychology program at Northeastern University, Boston, MA. Address correspondence to: Susan Contratto, 1617 Cambridge Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48104.

SUMMARY. This article looks at some of the early writers in the feminist therapy movement, pre-1985. It highlights contributions of each as well as pointing out some of the internal debates between the women whose work is covered. It focuses on the diversity of contributions, the compelling political roots of the practice and unresolved questions. It concludes by raising points for consideration, which emerge from the consensual positions of these writers. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Early feminist therapy writers, psychology of women, feminist therapy

Feminist therapy and feminist therapy theory emerged out of the ferment of the women’s movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Women in consciousness raising groups all over the country began to reveal previously unspoken and even unlabeled aspects of their lives. Affirmation, questioning, and self-revelation took place at a profoundly personal level. Women began to realize threads of similar experience with each other as women, as women in relationship with men, as women yearning for connections with other women, as daughters, as workers, and as lovers. As they discussed their experiences with therapists, or as therapists in these groups probed their discomfort with their training experiences, common themes emerged. Most problems were seen as internal to the individual. Most patients were blamed for their problems. Women’s anger and frustration had no place in therapy. The pain and difficulties of everyday life–poverty, boredom, childrearing, isolation, and traumatic violence–were ignored. Early life events of a rather subtle nature such as “inadequate or insufficient mothering” were assumed to be the source of current problems. Women were labeled as neurotic, hysterical, depressed and were medicated or “helped to adjust.”

It began to be clear that women’s socialization in this culture created problems for them and that traditional psychology and therapy ignored this. “Real life” surrounding women’s experience was ignored. Two vignettes from the clinical training of one of us (SC) give a flavor of the psychological climate around women.

The setting is a prestigious psychology clinic in a Northeastern city. The attending psychiatrist presented a case of a low-income family where the mother had committed suicide in particularly horrendous circumstances. The three children were under the care of the maternal grandmother who worked in the service industry. She had no car and depended on public transportation. The clinic had no evening hours. The staff psychiatrist supervising the case described her as “resistant” to seeking counseling for the children because she had difficulty getting to the appointments. This interpretation overlooked the circumstances and experiences of the grandmother by not recognizing her need to work in order to support three children who were suddenly placed under her care. At the same time the interpretation did not acknowledge the grandmother’s grieving the loss of her daughter and struggling with the feelings accompanying the suicide.

Two teenage girls walking along a road in a public campground in early evening were picked up by a motorcycle gang and brutally gang raped. The first comment at the case presentation was, “You have to ask what they were doing walking along the road at night.” In other words, they were asking for it. Statements like this are shocking for their cruel nature, as well as their existence in our seemingly more comprehensive approach to therapy these days. The ease with which women’s experiences are trivialized and invalidated continues to be an issue for many feminist theorists.

The feminist therapy movement emerged from some of the major questions that women, practitioners and theorists struggled with. How much early experience is internalized and how is this done? How malleable is a woman’s per...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foundations
• Feminist Therapy's Roots and Wings
• Early Trends in Feminist Therapy Theory and Practice
• Multicultural Feminist Therapy: Theory in Context
• Beyond Color and Culture: Feminist Contributions to Paradigms of Human Difference
• The Map of Relational-Cultural Theory
• Feminist Perspectives on Trauma
• Location, Location, Location: Contributions of Contemporary Feminist Theorists to Therapy Theory and Practice
• Futures
• From the Past Toward the Future
• Feminist Therapy Practice: Visioning the Future
• Visions and Aspirations: Feminist Therapy and the Academy
• Fostering Feminist Principles in Our Community: How Do We Get There?
• Threats and Challenges to Feminist Therapy
• Index