Feminist Therapy as a Path to Friendship with Women

While many feminist therapists have found that their personal experiences of friendship have given them an experiential base from which to develop their work, some feminist therapists have had alternative journeys through connections with women. This article explores how the author transformed her childhood and adolescent experiences of relational aggression into a deepened understanding of the value and importance of relationships between women. The contributions of misogyny and sexism to relational aggression among girls and women, and their enduring effects on all women's relationships to other women is explored. Finally, the author describes her intimate e-epistolary friendship with two other women, and considers how the medium of email and other forms of electronic communication may facilitate emotional intimacy for women who have experienced relational aggression with other women.     

Black Women's Body Image: An Analysis of Culture-Specific Influences

A review of the literature on racial differences in body image in Black and White women indicates body image dissatisfaction is more common in White females than Black females. However, Black women are not protected from body image issues. Research on body image concerns specifically related to Black women is limited. The present study involves focus group and individual interviews conducted with 16 Black women. Data were analyzed using qualitative methodology. Results indicate 6 major themes, with shapely and curvaceous ideal body image standards within the Black community as the most prevalent theme across data sources. Therapeutic implications emphasize recognition of culture-specific ideal standards of beauty, as well as the influence of external factors such as men, family, peers, and media on Black women's self-evaluations.     

Facing Up to Aging: Mid-Life Women's Attitudes toward Cosmetic Procedures

Despite the fact that mid-life and older women are a major consumer group for cosmetic procedures (e.g., botox, face lifts), few studies have been done on their attitudes toward these procedures and their willingness to undergo them. The purpose of the present study was to gather information about the popularity of these procedures among a group of 57 mid-life American women, examine whether some personality and attitudinal measures might predict attitudes toward these procedures, and consider the ramifications of the data for the treatment of women in feminist therapy. About one third (38.5%) of our sample had had one or more cosmetic procedures, and 81% said that they would have a procedure if cost were not an issue. Positive attitudes toward cosmetic surgery and preoccupation with being over-weight best predicted women's interest in cosmetic procedures. The popularity of these procedures is discussed in light of the double standard of aging and age discrimination, weight as a “normative discontent,” and the ubiquity of advertisements for, and normalization of, these procedures in the popular media.     

Visions and Aspirations

SUMMARY

This chapter explores key characteristics of an ideal feminist educational environment, one that specifically focuses on the intellectual development and training of feminist therapists. Such an environment is dependent on an ongoing relationship among three entitiesstudents, instructors, and the institutionand characteristics of each of these three entities are discussed. The chapter evaluates the present climate within universities, and whether that climate offers the potential to promote or stifle a feminist environment.     

Countering Correctional Discourse

SUMMARY

This article discusses the development of a feminist support group for women prisoners enrolled in a six-month substance abuse treatment program in an adult correctional facility in Guam. After the completion of five Group cycles, a follow-up study was conducted in the community using qualitative, feminist, and participatory methods. Results indicate that the Group was successful in helping women prisoners to address trauma, addiction, and the stresses associated with incarceration. Nevertheless, participants reported having significant difficulty transitioning into the community upon release and 23% were sent back to prison for parole violations. Recommendations are outlined for gender-responsive programming, both within women's prisons and in the community, to support women offenders after release.     

Coram Meipso: Presence,Privilege, and Vocations in Feminist and Lutheran Languages

Abstract : Themes of simultaneity and complex identity emerge when considering the human person using Lutheran theological constructs and feminist theoretical analysis. Focusing on human life coram meipso does not mean committing the error of pride that Luther and his Augustinian brothers so feared. Instead, coupled with a robust understanding of interlocking systems of privilege and oppression, looking into ourselves illuminates multiple vocations for justice that we have in the world.     

Theme Articles: Luther,Feminism, Friendship and the Future

Abstract : This article traces the author's journey of becoming a Lutheran feminist theologian. Drawing on insights from both Lutheran and feminist traditions, the author proposes a shift in Christian vocation imagery from that of servant to friend. She then argues that call to friendship includes subverting global structures of domination. The article ends with an invitation to join the expanding conversation about how Lutheran and feminist frameworks address the needs of our contemporary world.     

THE SHAPE OF THIS WONDER? CONSECRATED SCIENCE AND NEW COSMOLOGY AFFECTS

In response to Lisa Sideris's provocative new book Consecrating Science: Wonder, Knowledge and the Natural World and in conversation with voices from feminist technoscience, this article challenges the deracinated wonder of new cosmology encounters in two senses. First, by tracing how it is uprooted from critical perspectives on scientific knowledge production. And second, by contending deracinated wonder is ripped from cultural and historical contexts thus erasing embodied inequalities. Deracinated wonder attached to uncritical forms of science, I argue, solidifies new cosmology as an investment in white environmentalism by directing religion and ecology away from pluralities of encounter and the affective weight of environmental degradation and environmental racism.     

Writing therapy in brief workplace counselling: Collaborative writing as inquiry

The purpose of this collaborative research was to reflect on one client's experience of using writing therapy during brief workplace counselling. The client/co‐researcher used expressive and creative writing between counselling sessions, the benefits of which are reported. A brief review of the literature on writing therapy is provided. The focus of the study is on investigating the process of writing therapy from the client's point of view. The epistemological assumptions and research methods are influenced by narrative inquiry. Feminist values inform both the therapeutic practice and research.     

A feminist psychotherapeutic approach to working with women who eat compulsively1

Feminist psychoanalytic theorists argue that eating problems demonstrate ways in which conscious and unconscious gendered feelings about women are split off and projected on to their bodies. As such, they are complex ways in which women attempt to negotiate and express their identities within their paradoxical social position in contemporary western society. They are not just consumers but also objects of consumption. This paper explores material from a feminist psychodynamic therapy group for women with a variety of eating problems, focusing on how interweaving both discursive and unconscious approaches to understanding the gendered function of weight can facilitate change. Feminist psychodynamic therapists work with the concept that the body is an interface between conscious and unconscious mind within both an internal and a social world. This framework enables the client to understand the connections between socially constructed frameworks of femininity, emotions and bodily sensations, rather than to act on them through some form of bodily abuse. This approach is based on my adaptation of Susie Orbach's (1978) ‘Fat is a Feminist Issue’ therapeutic model for working with compulsive eaters. While arguing that a feminist psychoanalytic framework is crucial in this type of work, I suggest that it is essential to combine this with cognitive and behavioural therapeutic interventions in order to provide a pedagogic structure in which food, eating and body size come to be seen as meaningful.