The Effects of Assertive Training on Sex Role Concept in Female Agoraphobics

Agoraphobia in women has often been associated with a restricted, "overly-feminine" sex role definition. We investigated whether assertiveness training from a female therapist would benefit agoraphobic women not only by teaching skills but incidentally by modeling a broader feminine gender role. Of 14 clients from an agoraphobic treatment program seven received assertiveness training as an adjunct to regular therapy. Sex role definition and assertiveness attitudes were measured with the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (Spence, Helmreich, & Stapp, 1974) and the Rathus Assertiveness Schedule (Rathus, 1973), administered before and following a 7-week treatment period. All the agoraphobics initially had significantly lower Masculinity scores on the PAQ than did large normative samples. T-tests performed on the data indicated that the assertiveness group's Masculinity scores increased after treatment to the level of the normative samples, while the comparison group did not change. Results supported the clinical observation that many agoraphobic women have limited gender role definitions, and indicated that this limitation consists of a deficit of masculine traits rather than a surplus of feminine ones.     

Heartless Bimbo or Subversive Role Model?: A Narrative (Self) Critical Reading of the Character of Esther

Abstract :  She has been described as weak, beautiful but brainless, and "the scab undermining the impact of a striking worker's sacrifice." This article engages such opinions, but takes a different view of the character of Esther. It is a narrative critical reading that is nuanced with 'realistic empathy', from the perspective of someone whose life story has much in common with Esther's tale. Given away as a child by my biological parents in a society that preferred boys, like Esther, I was adopted by a single parent and raised in a strongly patriarchal society. I am now an Asian immigrant in New Zealand, a predominantly Western society, while Esther was a diasporic Jew in Persia. ¹     

A Feminist Lutheran Substantive Christology: Method and Methodology

Abstract : From a Euro‐American feminist perspective, not only the methods of North American ‘mainstream’ Christology but also of much feminist Christology needs refinement. The former must take into account the context of feminist consciousness, with particular attention to experience. The latter must reclaim kerygma and dogma. Drawn from history, kerygma, dogma, and experience, feminist Lutheran Christology is substantive, meaning that Jesus Christ is fully human and fully divine and sufficient for salvation.     

Embodied female experience through the lens of imagination

Abstract: In 1971, I made a film entitled Self Portrait of a Nude Model Turned Cinematographer in which I explore the objectifying ‘male’ gaze on my body in contrast to the subjective lived experience of my body. The film was a radical challenge to the gaze that objectifies woman – and thus imprisons her – which had hitherto dominated narrative cinema. Since the objectification of women has largely excluded us from the privileged phallogocentric discourses, in this paper I hope to bring into the psychoanalytic dialogue a woman's lived experience. I will approach this by exploring how remembering this film has become a personally transformative experience as I look back on it through the lens of postmodern and feminist discourses that have emerged since it was made. In addition, I will explore how this process of imaginatively looking back on an artistic creation to generate new discourses in the present is similar to the transformative process of analysis. Lastly, I will present a clinical example, where my embodied countertransference response to a patient's subjection to the objectifying male gaze opens space for a new discourse about her body to emerge.     

Three Contributions of Personal History

SUMMARY

Who we are becomes manifest as we conduct therapy. Much of the flavor and strength of our therapeutic style, as well as our errors, can be traced to our personal history. This history provides us a storehouse of memories which enrich our sessions. It also helps determine our chosen therapeutic stances. One of the dilemmas for all therapists is the extent to which we will use transparency and self revelation as an ingredient in our work. The final section of this paper explores the pros and cons of sharing our life stories with our clients.     

Domination et impérialisme en psychologie

We offer some arguments in support of the idea that the only goal the teaching and research system of the United States can serve is that of the global system to which it belongs, namely, domination. We show how, within the last few decades, French research in psychology - its issues, its institutions, its practices, its ethics - has undergone a process of Americanization that has turned it into a mainstream Western (and basically American) psychology. We point out some research trends that have contested this mainstream psychology, either because it appears too male chauvinist or liberal (opposition psychologies) or because it is grounded in the individualist and liberalist postulates of Western cultures (indigenous psychologies). Unfortunately, because dominant epistemology is governed by a principle of continuity, these contesting trends have not increased our scientific requirements; on the contrary, they have often led to anti-scientific approaches. It is still the task of psychology to break away from kwoledges and values of common sense.     

The History of Sexual Anatomy and Self-Referential Philosophy of Science

This essay is a case study of the self‐destruction that occurs in the work of a social‐constructionist historian of science who embraces a radical philosophy of science. It focuses on Thomas Laqueur's Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud in arguing that a history of science committed to the social construction of science and to the central theses of Kuhnian, Duhemian, and Quinean philosophy of science is incoherent through self‐reference. Laqueur's text is examined in detail in order to make the main point; a similar phenomenon in the work of the feminist historian of science Evelyn Fox Keller is then briefly discussed.     

The Proud and Productive Life of a Red-Diaper Baby: Judith Herman

ABSTRACT

Judith Herman is a feminist psychiatrist, political activist, intellectual, and writer. Her work in the field of abuse and trauma spans decades. Her work is informed by generations of prolific thinkers, teachers, writers, and social/political activists. Her groundbreaking work, in turn, is informing future generations of feminists, political activists, and clinicians.