Whither Feminist Therapy?

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Date

1-1-1986

Published In

Contemporary Psychology

Abstract

Reviews the book, Women Therapists Working With Women: New Theory and Process of Feminist Therapy by Claire M. Brody (Ed.) (1984). The opening section contains two*chapters. In the first, Brody asserts that the key to her success as a therapist is "authenticity" coupled with the calculated insertion of personal values. The second chapter (by Gibbs) resurrects Parsons's dichotomy of female expressiveness and male instrumentality to explain why therapists who are women and all therapists who work in expressive (defined as "non-behaviorist") modalities are beset by feelings of fraudulence in their work. The section on psychodynamic therapy is the most integrated and most substantial section in the book. The chapters draw on feminist extensions of object relations theory to formulate new understandings of autonomy, to illuminate process issues in psychodynamic therapy with women, and to elucidate the influence of gender in transference and countertransference. The third section offers a scattering of chapters grouped under the somewhat misleading title "Treatment Strategies." The final section-enigmatically titled "Gender Issues"-bears no evident relation to the title of the book or to the preceding sections. Unger's chapter provides a tantalizing glimpse of the plurality of premises from which feminist thought proceeds. The remaining chapters in this section discuss a math anxiety clinic, stresses facing working women, and networking.

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