Conceptualizing cultural and gendered identities in psychological therapies

This paper addresses implications for psychological therapies and practices of recognizing the varieties of ways ‘race' and gender intersect and impact on therapeutic relationships. We illustrate how ‘race' and gender have either eluded analysis or been treated in oversimplified ways that disallow their interchange and varieties of forms, and impoverish the recognition and process of therapeutic change. Debates about ‘race' and gender in psychotherapy are situated within more general discussions about theorizing whiteness as a normalized cultural absence. This is used to inform how ethnic minorities in Britain, and specifically minority women, have been represented in (and omitted from) the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic literature. Common claims about cultural specificity (or its converse, universality) in psychological therapies, the grounds on which they are offered and their discursive consequences are evaluated. The case is made for therapy as an inevitably intercultural enterprise, while also cautioning against some prevalent misconceptions of intercultural approaches. The final substantive section develops the conceptual arguments proposed in relation to debates about culturally relevant and appropriate models in psychological therapies, including a critical commentary on the uses of gender, cultural and racial ‘matching'. Finally, implications for the training and practices of mental health professionals are discussed.     

Accessing the multitude within: A psychoanalytic perspective on the transformation of masculinity at mid‐life1

This paper reflects upon the essential components of male identity that commonly are reworked in middle age. The author argues that healthy masculine gender identity involves an ongoing, plastic process of destabilization and reconstruction at various pivotal developmental stages, particularly during middle adulthood. In essence, a man's mature transformation of his sense of masculinity results when finite concepts of gender identity are superseded by an awareness of the complexity of one's multiple, early and diverse gender identifications. A clinical case provides insight into how psychoanalytic treatment can contribute to a new experience of masculinity. The case illustrates how a maturing man, meeting an altered sense of identity in mid‐life, relies less on gender splitting and more on reuniting previously antithetical intrapsychic elements. Why this more pluralistic, polythreaded masculinity frequently must wait until mid‐life is further clarified. Specific importance is attached to the early development of male gender identity as it is founded on the boy's unique struggles in separating from his mother. The foundation for male gender identity formation is reconsidered as the author questions the ‘dis‐identification’ model while explicating how the boy's striving for narcissistic completion shapes the gendered masculine ego ideal. Classically termed ‘phallicism’ is understood both to facilitate and obstruct a man's adult development, while the concept of ‘genitality’ is augmented by the postclassical notion of ‘interiority’. At mid‐life, ‘phallic’ ego ideals (resting on omnipotence, desires for narcissistic completion and gender splitting) are transformed into more realistic, ‘genital’ ego ideals (synthesizing autonomy and connection). The achievement of a mature, less sharply gendered ‘masculine’ ego ideal (revitalizing the foreclosed dimensions of both the early maternal and paternal imagos) occurs as the balance of forces shifts in the direction of true genitality rather than defensive phallicism.     

Women Behaving Badly: Gender and Aggression in a Military Town, 1653–1781

Magistrates records from the English town of Portsmouth show the towns women to have been exceptionally violent. Women accounted, on average, for just over 31% of all assaults on record for the years 1653 to 1781. We used a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods to compare the fighting styles of men and women and to examine the extent to which these were gendered. Particular attention was paid to levels of violence between pairs of brawlers. The most common form of violence was male-on-male (2,666 cases), followed by female-on-female (1,690), male-on-female (1,675), and female-on-male (299). Of these pairings, female-on-male assaults were the most violent, as measured by the types of weapons used by the aggressors, and female-on-female pairings were the least violent.Funding was provided by grant 410-2000-0467 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. The authors are profoundly grateful to the gracious and highly capable staff of Portsmouths Museums and Records Service, including, most notably, Michael Gunton, Diana Gregg, Donna Malcolmson, and Sarah Speller. Special thanks also go to the team of volunteers who transcribed the towns sessions papers, thus greatly facilitating our entry of the same into a database. They were, in alphabetical order, Kate Beatty, Barbara Gower, Ursula Heinrich, Pam Honeysett, George Hothersall, Marjorie Hothersall, Una Lowe, Betty Richardson, Marjorie Ripper, and Brenda Whorton. There was one other volunteer: an inmate at the Kingston Prison just outside Portsmouth. Back in Toronto, several more people assisted in entering the records into a database. They were, in alphabetical order, Joanne Cordingley, James Hewitson, Allyson Lunny, Yvonne Pelletier, and Victoria Vaag.     

A little bit transparent with one another: Constructing vulnerability in the evangelical discourse of women preachers

Using four categories of Brown’s shame resilience theory (SRT), this paper analyses two similar online videos by prominent American evangelical female preachers: Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore. As each unpacks her survivor’s story of childhood sexual abuse, SRT (and its components of vulnerability, critical awareness, reaching out and speaking shame) can provide a matrix for interpreting the narrative in which each preacher frames her self-disclosure.     

Recasting Gendered Paradigms: An Indonesian Cleric and Muslim Women in the Malay World

This essay examines the ideas of a prominent Indonesian cleric, Haji Abdul Malik Karim Amrullah (Hamka), about the place of women in Islam and in Southeast Asian Muslim societies. I argue that Hamka was engaged in the project of “recasting gendered paradigms,” which involves reinterpreting, reconceptualizing and reconfiguring various dominant understandings about the roles, functions and responsibilities of women in Islam as reflected not only in the Qur'an and the adat (traditional customs), but also in modern discourses about women's empowerment. I show that Hamka's commitment to advocating for women's rights and critiquing prevailing ideas about the place of women in religion and society was a product both of his personal experiences and of the profound social and intellectual shifts that characterized his day and age.     

Women in Inpatient Facilities

No abstract available for this article.     

The Good of New Age Goods

Critical writing on cultural appropriation and commodification is often predicated on the assumption that the transformation of cultural goods into commodities is essentially a process of alienation: of consumers from themselves and of indigenous people from their cultural products. The consumption of indigenous practices and images by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities has been the subject of particularly harsh criticism, with ‘New Agers’ excoriated as exploitative culture thieves. In this paper, I draw on ethnographic research into the use of commodified images of Australian Aboriginal people by practitioners of New Age and alternative spiritualities—and by Aboriginal people themselves—to suggest that the producers and consumers of such goods, and indeed the goods themselves, have a greater agency than is commonly recognised. I argue that, many critics of cultural and spiritual commodification fail to recognise or fail to take seriously, the meaning cultural goods can acquire when removed from the market place and personalised by their consumers. More to the point, the suggestion that such transformations are inherently alienating tends to elide the involvement of indigenous people in the production of imagery that complements (as well as competes with) New Age representations.     

The Gendered Nature of Family Structure and Group-Based Anti-Egalitarianism: A Cross-National Analysis

Abstract

Using 4 samples of adolescents from 3 nations (Australia, Sweden, and the United States), the authors explored whether the gendered nature of the family socialization environment affected young people's level of group-based social egalitarianism. It was hypothesized that the greater the father's influence in the family, the greater the children's level of group-based social anti-egalitarianism. The results were consistent with the authors' expectations. Children from father-headed households had the highest level of group-based social anti-egalitarianism; children from mother-headed households had the lowest level of group-based anti-egalitarianism; and children from dual-parent households were in between. Similarly, children from homes in which the father had the greatest decision-making power tended to exhibit the highest levels of anti-egalitarianism, whereas children from homes in which the mother had the greatest decision-making power displayed the lowest levels of social anti-egalitarianism. Family structure did not interact with either the nationality or gender of the child.