Feminist Therapy

Theory: Feminist Therapy

Therapist: Jean Miller

Focus: Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Most of women’s mental health problems stem from living in a sexist society that assigns them an inferior status with less economic and political power than males.

Strengths: The Feminist therapy can serve as a model in terms of not only dealing with issues for women but all diversity as it applies to inequality with relation to gender, race, class, and sexual orientation.

Weakness: Many people try to dismiss the feminist therapy as not being a real problem and think it is just the ranting and raving of a small group of dissatisfied trouble-making woman. (Austad, 2009)

Techniques: Therapeutic techniques include consciousness raising, education, feminist group therapy, empowerment and assertiveness training, and creating an egalitarian relationship. The process of therapy begins with raised consciousness about gender roles, then deals with the rage and resentment about consequences, and ends successfully when the patient applies the therapy to her everyday life. (Austad, 2009)

Personal example: One example I have of being treated differently because of my sex is when my husband and I went to buy a new car. The salesmen talked to him about all the “technical” stuff and just looked at me and said “I bet you want to know what colors is comes in.” I looked at my husband and said, “I don’t care what color it comes in, we are not buying a car here!” And we left!

References:

Austad, C. (2009). Counseling and Psychotherapy Today, New York: The McGraw-Hill

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