A Feminist Poetics of Psychotherapy

No abstract available for this article.     

A Decade of Feminist Influence on Psychotherapy

The last decade has seen some major impacts of feminism on the institution of psychotherapy regarding theories, treatment techniques, and assessment instruments. The changes in attitudes toward women as therapists and as clients have reflected the general advances of the women's movement in that women clients are more likely to seek women therapists and to receive treatments specifically developed for crises affecting women such as rape, pregnancy and domestic violence. The difficulties in designing empirical studies to demonstrate bias in psychotherapy have resulted in a confusing state of the art because only the higher-order interactions have consistently been significant. Attempts of some women to resist changes brought about by the women's movement and the apathy and levity of others have also presented problems in the path of progress. However, movement toward the long-range goal is encouraging when one compares the writing on women and psychotherapy in recent professional journals with examples from the 1960s.     

Group Psychotherapy in the Context of Cultural Diversity

The authors review the salient issues involved in therapy with culturally diverse populations. They present a framework where group therapy addresses those issues. Clinical vignettes from each of the authors serve to illustrate the power of group therapy with ethnocultural populations.     

How Psychoanalytic Thinking Lost its Way in the Hands of Men: The Case for Feminist Psychotherapy

A feminist stance is adopted to challenge the androcentric nature of many of the concepts which lie within the tradition of male psychoanalytical thinking. Such thinking steadfastly refused, and largely still refuses, to acknowledge the social reality and consequences of women's experience of living in a patriarchal society. It is argued that psychoanalytical theory has construed women as inferior and is wholly revealing of what men expect and want women to be. Any psychotherapy based solely within that tradition thus plays its part in the oppression of women. Two concepts from analytical psychotherapy, transference and counter-transference, are used as specific examples, and some contrasting researches advanced by feminist psychotherapy are outlined.     

Feminist Biologies: Revising Feminist Strategies and Biological Science

Rebecca Hannagan’s analysis of gender and leadership based in evolutionary biology challenges scholars to integrate research in biology with feminist insights. This commentary argues that this is a timely challenge and that that the project of integrating feminism and evolutionary biology in accounts of gender is necessary for bringing about more equitable futures. However, the commentary also suggests that biological inputs should be understood as operating within categories that feature substantial variation, that change through time, that are not independent and complete sources of human outcomes, and that biological factors interact with language and culture.     

Feminist Identity Development: Implications for Feminist Therapy With Women

This article discusses the implications of the Downing and Roush (1985) model of feminist identity development for feminist therapy with women. Following a summary of the model, the potential pitfalls of feminist therapy with the passive-acceptant client are described, as well as potential issues at subsequent stages of the client's identity development. Suggestions are made regarding how to facilitate clients' movement to higher levels of development. Finally, a research agenda is proposed that suggests hypotheses to be tested that arise from applying this model to conducting therapy with women.     

Diversifying Feminist Theory and Practice:

Expanding the existing concept of victimization as a basis for all forms of prejudice as one means of expanding the base of feminist therapy. Such an expansion moves feminist therapy and practice away from a white middle class consumer base to a more raciallhy and culturally diverse base. It is critical, however, that a broad concept of victimization not be used as a means of denying the uniqueness of individual experience. The therapist needs to both respect and value clients' different racial and cultural values and help the client find resolution in a manner consistent with those values.     

Women's Lives/Feminist Knowledge: Feminist Standpoint as Ideology Critique

Feminist standpoint theory posits feminism as a way of conceptualizing from the vantage point of women's lives. However, in current work on feminist standpoint the material links between lives and knowledges are often not explained. This essay argues that the radical marxist tradition standpoint theory draws on—specifically theories of ideology post-Althusser—offers a systemic mode of reading that can redress this problem and provide the resources to elaborate further feminism's oppositional practice and collective subject.     

Predicting Feminist Identity: Associations Between Gender-Traditional Attitudes, Feminist Stereotyping, and Ethnicity

The connection between holding gender-traditional attitudes and the reluctance to identify as a feminist is well established, yet little is known about factors that might underlie this association. One factor that may serve this function is the tendency to hold negative stereotypes about feminists. Indeed, the constructs of ambivalent sexism (Glick and Fiske 1996) and ambivalence toward men (Glick and Fiske 1999) provide a strong theoretical basis for the prediction that traditional attitudes toward women and men are related to the derogation of women who do not conform to the feminine-stereotyped gender role. Therefore, the present study utilized path analysis to test a mediational model in which traditional attitudes toward women and men predict the tendency to stereotype feminists, which in turn predicts feminist identity. The present study also examined whether the relations between the variables in the model differed for African American, European American, and Latina women. Participants consisted of 544 women from the southern United States who, despite being undergraduates, were in their mid-to-late twenties on average. As expected, participant ethnicity moderated the paths in the model. Among African American and Latina women, hostility toward men and hostile sexism predicted the tendency to stereotype feminists, which then predicted feminist identity. Support for the mediational model was not obtained among European American women; instead, the model for European American women was characterized by direct paths from traditional attitudes toward women and men to feminist identity. Discussion focuses on the importance of considering participants’ ethnic background when assessing predictors of feminist identity.     

Psychotherapy assessment: Theory and practice

The history and developments in psychotherapy assessment are reviewed. Suggestions for an extended assessment of several sessions derived from the clinical experience of a District Psychotherapy service are put forward with clinical illustrations. The advantages in terms of flexibility, and the ability to embrace the range of factors involved as well as the influence this has in generating a sense of containment in the patients, are discussed. The implications of this approach on technique, and its differentiation from ongoing psychotherapy, are highlighted. It is suggested that assessment should be seen as an entity in its own right, with its own clinical technique.     

Outsight: Radical Behaviorism and Psychotherapy

Clinical experience suggests that a variety of neurotic and personality disorders are effectively treated by an approach to therapy that is relatively passive in appearance and is directed towards the development of self-knowledge. Behavior theory provides an economical, naturalistic analysis of the therapeutic effects of this approach. Punishment, a common method of controlling forbidden behavior, can result in pathologic avoidance and deficient awareness of one's own behavior and its relation to the environment. Traditional methods of psychoanalysis and behavior therapy provide circumstances that help the patient to observe acts and feelings and their relation to elements of the environment that are otherwise avoided. These procedures may work best when self-observation is (1) not selectively reinforced by the therapist, and (2) supplemented by explicit training in behavior analysis. These elements are combined in a treatment approach for generating observations of one's own behavior and its functional significance in the natural environment.     

Fat-Oppressive Attitudes and the Feminist Therapist:

This article will examine the responses of other feminist therapists to the author's anti-fat-oppressive stance. These reactions will be used as a base from which to generate some hypotheses regarding the difficulties that continue to be faced by women therapists in attempts to identify and reduce internalized fat-oppressive attitudes regarding their own bodies and those of their women clients. Suggestions for heightening personal awareness regarding internalized fat oppression, and strategies for reducing fat-oppressive attitudes as a therapist will be presented.     

Black Feminist Figures: Interventions and Inheritances

In both popular culture and academic disciplines, feminism, especially feminisms of women of color, is increasing in popularity. But with that popularity comes certain challenges. It would seem that, due to its popularity, Black feminism has gained a nominal invite to professional philosophy’s (largely) white school social affair. But it has been invited by hosts who don’t quite know what to do with Black feminism once it’s arrived.     

Cosmetic Surgery: Feminist Perspectives

Cosmetic surgery is gaining popularity not only in the U.S., but worldwide. The sheer number of procedures being performed makes it seem “normal,” and in the statistical sense it is. Feminist therapists are likely to have clients who are contemplating undergoing one or more of these procedures. Therapists ought to help their clients to understand the motivations underlying a decision to undergo surgery for the sake of improving on nature. In the final analysis, the decision belongs to the woman who may be placing her life at risk to achieve some desired end. The therapist can play a role in helping her to weigh the risks and what will be accomplished in the end.     

Transference-Focused Psychotherapy for Borderline Adolescents: A Neurobiologically Informed Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

In this article we first contextualize and then outline a model of TFP adapted for working with adolescents with Borderline Personality Disorders. We discuss how to take the normal developmental challenges of adolescence, such as separation-individuation in consideration, and how to support this in the context of the therapeutic work, while at the same time stimulating curiosity through clarification and confronting the adolescent with self-defeating and destructive patterns and dangerous behavior. Furthermore, we give examples of working with split–off parts of self and other representations through clarification to increase self-awareness and confrontations with contradictions within the adolescents communication and nonverbal behavior, with the aim of facilitating the integration of identity.     

Synthetiki Psychotherapy: An Integrative Psychotherapy for Individuals with Schizophrenic Symptoms

During the past 22 years, the author has developed an integrative psychotherapeutic model, called Synthetiki Psychotherapy (from the Greek word synthesis), for the treatment of individuals with schizophrenic symptoms. It has been influenced by certain philosophical and ethical principles, by ancient and modern Greek civilization and culture, and by the psychotherapy integration movement, and has been tested through research at the Laboratory of Clinical and Social Psychology of the University of Crete, Greece. The principles of Synthetiki Psychotherapy are presented and discussed.     

2003 Division 35 Presidential Address: Feminist Leadership: Feminist Visions And Diverse Voices

Although the theories and models on feminism and leadership exist, there has been little study of the intersection of the two. The literature on feminist leadership is scant. Few have defined it and fewer still have researched it. Thus, Feminist Leadership was chosen for my presidential initiative. This initiative kicked off a dialogue about feminist leadership that is summarized in this article. The article is based on my presidential address presented at the 2003 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in concluding my year as President of Division 35, the Society for the Psychology of Women. It identifies some challenges faced by women in leadership positions and by feminist leaders. It identifies the major issues that emerged during a web-based dialogue about feminist leadership. It discusses the intersection between theories of leadership and feminism. It ends with the lessons learned and implications for the future of feminist leadership.