Abstract
This book was issued by the same publishers as a special issue of the journal Women & Therapy. This is one of the features, or if you like detractions, of it. It contains a collection of articles by a number of women, mainly academic and clinical psychologists. It includes some research as well as opinion pieces.
To give a flavour of the contents here follows a summary of a few articles. The first article is based on a survey asking two open-ended questions of a number of members of the Feminist Therapy Institute, thus women clearly identifying themselves as feminist therapists. The first question was ‘Have you adapted a specific therapeutic strategy so that it is feminist?’ The second question was ‘Please describe one or more examples of ways that you make the substance or ongoing dialogue of therapy feminist.’
Out of 125 surveys sent, 35 useable responses were obtained. The main content of the responses was discussion about power in the structure and relationship of therapy, therapists aiming for a collaborative stance. Other features included providing information, recognising sociocultural causes of distress, valuing women's experiences, analysing oppression and including talking about social change as part of the therapeutic process. The second article is based on interviews of three feminist therapists with social work graduate students doing the interviews. The question that the researchers asked themselves was ‘How does feminism enter into and transform the practice of therapy?’ The transcripts were analysed using discourse analysis. Three distinct belief systems were elucidated described as ‘a feminist perspective is a healthy perspective’, ‘feminist therapy as pedagogy’, and ‘my religion is my kindness’. An interesting discussion follows about institutionalising feminist therapy. Other articles cover integrating political analysis into counselling and psychotherapy, a model for therapy and social change based on contextual identity, Japanese feminist counselling as a political act, politicising survivors of incest as another facet of healing, doing therapy with men, using feminist ideas in a hospital-based program and, finally, practical advice on how to incorporate political action and social change into therapy sessions.
I found the book both interesting and frustrating. Thinking was stimulated in a number of directions, I felt critical about the quality of some work described, wondered about the professionalism of some of the feminist practices admitted to, yet felt inspired to ask colleagues about their work and what they think constitutes feminist therapy. Would I buy the book? Only on a weak day, when I get ‘the should’ s; should support feminist endeavours being the one applicable here.