Feminist Psychology
Development of Feminist Theories
and Therapeutic Interventions
By W. McIntosh & G. Green
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Statistics US Bureau of Census
(2000)
• Number Females USA143,000,000
• Number of Males USA138,000,000
2
Statistics US Bureau of Census
(2000)
51.5
51
50.5
50
MALE
FEMALE
49.5
49
48.5
48
47.5
Population
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The Emergence of Feminist
Psychology
• Feminist psychology grew out of the
influence of the women’s movement of
the late 1960’s. It originated as a
backlash against the traditional
assumptions of male dominated theory,
research and practices, especially in
psychoanalytic theory.
4
Emergence
• Freud’s theories, such as “ penis envy”
and hysteria, which were gender-biased
and based on developmental studies of
men, were particularly distasteful to
supporters of the feminist movement.
5
Emergence
• Feminist Psychology was found by
women who had become aware of the
pressures of patriarchy, sexism and
male chauvinism that therapy and
counseling were not exempt from these
pressures.
6
Emergence
• Women discovered that they were put down
in a number of subtle ways, and that all
sorts of expectations about the female role
and how it should be played were built in to
the therapy process. Therefore, they started
to set up their own therapy centers and their
own network of therapists. In this way, a
feminist therapy started to come into being.
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Emergence
• The feminist psychology movement
was a grassroots one, and therefore, no
one particular theorist can be named as
primarily responsible for its
development.
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Raison d'être
• 1. Traditionally accepted psychological
theories and practices regarding mental
health standards based on gender were
harmful to women.
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Raison d'être
• 2. Women were labeled of as mentally
ill for political reasons (punishing
women for not adhering to expected
roles) Women tended to be diagnosed
as “mentally ill” when they didn’t
conform to male stereotypes and
protested the sexism of psychotherapy
and psychotherapists
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Raison d'être
• 3.The womanless state of psychology
and its development (including women
being shut out and women’s work
being underreported), and
• 4. The desire to report women’s
experiences from a woman’s
perspective.
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Feminist Therapy
• Examines sociological as well as
psychological factors
• Helps people understand the impact of
gender roles and power differences in
society
• A. Sex: biological difference
• B. Gender: socially determined thoughts,
beliefs and attitudes about men and women
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Theories of Personality
• Hare-Mustin and Maracek(1973) - two
biases in the approach to gender
• Alpha bias - separating men and women
into two categories - danger is in treating
women as different and therefore inferior
• Beta bias - treating women and men as
identical and ignoring real differences
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Theory Development
• Three distinct phases of development
for feminist psychology have emerged,
beginning in the 1970’s.
14
Phase 1
• The first phase was characterized by
borrowing therapeutic techniques that
fit into the feminist philosophy, with
the goal to “empower all women by
strengthening individual women.”
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Phase 2
• The second phase is marked by the
inclusion of feminism into more
psychological theories where feminists
attempted to keep the parts of
psychological theories that were
sensible and that worked, but tried to
eliminate the sexist elements that were
present
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Phase 3
• The final and ongoing phase consists of
trying to develop a complete theory that
explains the common experiences of women
and their difficulties arising from living in a
society where they are devalued. Such a
theory would also integrate the impact of
social oppression based on ethnicity, race
and culture.
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Principles of Feminist Therapy
• The personal is political
• The counseling relationship is
egalitarian
• Women’s experiences are honored
• Definitions of distress and "mental
illness" are reformulated
• There is an integrated analysis of
oppression
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Key Concepts of Feminist
Therapy
• Problems are viewed in a
sociopolitical and cultural context
• The client knows what is best for her
life and is the expert on her
own life
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Key Concepts
• Emphasis is on educating clients
about the therapy process
• Traditional ways of assessing
psychological health are challenged
• It is assumed that individual change
will best occur through
social change
• Clients are encouraged to take social
action
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Developmental Issues
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Childhood
• Preference for boy babies over girl
babies
• Pressure to learn gender stereotypes
during elementary school years
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Adolescence
• Development of secondary sex
characteristics can be very difficult for
girls even more than boys
• Breast development
• Focus on thinness
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Adolescence
• Females valued for appearance rather
than achievement
• Teen pregnancy issues
• Encouragement of independence in
boys and nurturance and helplessness
in girls
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Adulthood
• Mothering
• Decisions about work and childcare
• Women are more likely to be blamed for
children's problems
• Work
• Women working outside the home often
also do all or most of housework - “The
Second Shift”
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Midlife issues
•
•
•
•
•
Menopause
Devaluation of older women
Violence
Rape, Incest, Domestic abuse
Child abuse
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Goals of Feminist Therapy
• To become aware of one’s gender-role
socialization process
• To identify internalized gender-role
messages and replace them with
functional beliefs
• To acquire skills to bring about change in
the environment
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Goals of Feminist Therapy
• To become personally empowered
• Symptom removal
• Self-esteem
• Quality of interpersonal relationships
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Goals of Feminist Therapy
• Body image and sensuality
• Attention to diversity
• Political awareness and social action
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Four Philosophic Approaches
to Feminist Therapy
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1. Liberal Feminism
Focus
• Helping individual women overcome
the limits and constraints of their
socialization patterns
Major goals
• Equality
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1. Liberal Feminism
• Personal empowerment of
individual women
• Dignity
• Self-fulfillment
• Equality
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Intervention Techniques using the
Liberal Feminism Approach
• Gender-role analysis and
intervention
• To help clients understand the
impact of gender-role expectations in
their lives
• Provides clients with insight into the
ways social issues affect their
problems
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Intervention Techniques using the
Liberal Feminism Approach
• Power analysis and power
intervention
• Emphasis on the power differences
between men and women in society
• Clients helped to recognize different
kinds of power they possess and how
they and others exercise power
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Intervention Techniques using the
Liberal Feminism Approach
• Bibliotherapy- Reading assignments
that address issues such as
A. Coping skills • Gender inequality
B. Gender-role stereotypes • Ways
sexism is promoted
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2. Cultural Feminism
Focus
• Oppression stems from society’s
devaluation of women’s strengths
• Emphasize the differences between
women and men
• Believe the solution to oppression lies
in feminization of the culture
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2. Cultural Feminism
• So that society becomes more
nurturing, cooperative, and
relational
Major Goal
The infusion of society with values
based on cooperation
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Intervention Techniques using the
Cultural Feminism Approach
• Power differential • Society's
obsession between women and men
with thinness
• Self-disclosure
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Intervention Techniques using the
Cultural Feminism Approach
• To help equalize the therapeutic
relationship and provide modeling
for the client
• Values, beliefs about society, and
therapeutic interventions discussed
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3. Radical Feminism
Focus
• The oppression of women that is
embedded in patriarchy
• Seek to change society through
activism
• Therapy is viewed as a political
enterprise with the goal of
transformation of society
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3. Radical Feminism
Major goals
• Transform gender relationships
• Transform societal institutions
• Increase women’s sexual and
procreative self-determination.
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Intervention Techniques using the
Radical Feminism Approach
• Assertiveness training
• Women become aware of their
interpersonal rights transcends
stereotypical sex roles
• Changes negative beliefs
• Implement changes in their daily lives
• Reframing
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Intervention Techniques using the
Radical Feminism Approach
• Changes the frame of reference for
looking at an individual's behavior
• Shifting from an intrapersonal to an
interpersonal definition of a client’s
problem
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4. Socialist Feminism
Focus
• Goal of societal change
• Emphasis on multiple oppressions
• Believe solutions to society’s
problems must include consideration
of:
1. Class
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4. Socialist Feminism
2. Race
3. Other forms of discrimination
Major Goal
• To transform social relationships
and institutions
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Intervention Techniques using the
Socialist Feminism Approach
• Relabeling
• Changes the label or evaluation applied
to the client's behavioral characteristics
• Re-focusing- a shift from a negative to
a positive evaluation
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Three themes often come up in feminist
therapy - anger, self-nurturance and
autonomy.
• 1.Women often turn their anger
inwards, and may need a good deal of
encouragement to direct it where it
really belongs.
• 2. Women are taught to nurture others,
but may not be good at nurturing
themselves
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Con’t
• 3. Women are taught cooperation and find
networking very easy, but may need a lot of
help to see out through their own eyes and
ask "what do I need myself"? This question
tends to arouse much anxiety and even
guilt, and a feminist approach is necessary
if women are to feel that these reactions are
unnecessary. Group support very often
supplements individual therapy.
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Sometimes certain stages can be
recognized:
• (1) Increasing self-awareness
• (2) Acceptance of self-awareness
• (3) Strengthening of self-acceptance
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Con’t
• (4) Developing the power to act
• (5) Recognizing societal restraints
• (6) Accepting or combating societal
restraints
• (7) Acceptance of self and other
women
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Two Models of Therapy
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Lenore E. A. Walker
A
• "A feminist Therapist Views The Case"
from "Women as Therapists" ( Cantor,
1990), provides an overview of the
guiding principles of feminist therapy,
indicating that there are six tenets of
feminist-therapy theory:
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1. Egalitarian Relationships:
• 1) Egalitarian relationships between
clients and therapists serve as a model
for women to take personal
responsibility to develop egalitarian
relationships with others instead of the
more traditional passive, dependent
female role.
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Con’t
• While it is excepted that the therapist
knows more in terms of psychology,
the client knows herself better. That
knowledge is as critical as the
therapist's skills in developing a
successful therapeutic relationship.
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2. Power
Women are taught to gain and use power
in relationships, and the possible
consequences of their actions.
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3. Enhancement of women’s
strengths
So much of traditional therapy focused on a
woman’s shortcomings and weaknesses that
feminist therapists teach women to look for
their own strengths and use them
effectively. The feminist therapist focuses
on the enhancement of women's strengths
rather than remediation of their weaknesses.
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4. Non-pathology-oriented and
non-victim blaming
In this framework, the medical model is
rejected and women’s problems are
seen as coping mechanisms and
viewed in their social context.
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5. Education
Women are taught to recognize their
cognitions that are detrimental, and
encouraged to educate themselves as to
the plight of all women.
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6. Acceptance and Validation of
Feelings
Feminist therapists value self-disclosure
and attempt to remove the we-they
barrier of traditional therapeutic
relationships. Feminist therapists
accept and validate their clients’
feelings.
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Con’t
They are also more self-disclosing than
other therapists thus removing the wethey barrier between therapists and
their clients. This limited reciprocity is
a feminist goal that is believed to
enhance the relationship.
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Models of Therapy
B
• In A New Approach to Women and
Therapy" (1983), Miriam Greenspan
explores the impact of "traditional" and
"growth" therapies on women as well
as describes "feminist" therapy in action
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Task 1
• That the therapist's most essential tool is
herself as a person.
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Task 2
• That it is essential therapy be demystified
from the beginning in order for clients to
achieve a sense of their own power in
therapy. Therapy must be geared to helping
the client see that she must be her own
rescuer - that the power she longs for is not
in someone else but in herself.
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Task 3
• That rules of the therapeutic relationship
should be overtly stated and mutually
agreed upon. The client and therapist
explore their expectations of one another
together and jointly come to an agreement
of what each person's role and
responsibilities will be.
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Task 4
• That within every symptom, no matter how
painful or problematic, there exists a
strength.
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Issues
• One of the main issues in feminist therapy
is a woman's relation to work (a) doing well
at a job does not have to be a masculine act
and (b) the ability to make choices, and to
sustain these choices.
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Bibliography
Feminist Psychology
• Anderson, G. & Hill, M. (1997) eds. Children's
Rights, Therapists' Responsibilities. Haworth
Press, 1997.
• Burman, E. (1997). Deconstructing Feminist
Psychology. NY: Sage.
• Burr, V. (1998). Gender and Social Psychology.
NY: Routledge.
• Wilkinson, S. & Kitzinger, C. (1993). eds.
Heterosexuality: A Feminism and Psychology
Reader. NY: Sage.
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