Feminist Therapy

Feminist Therapy

Chapter Twelve: Feminist Therapy
Ihsan Cagatay Ulus
University of Texas at San Antonio

Feminist Therapy
I learned many things that I did not know from chapter twelve that is “Feminist Therapy.” First of all, gender is a reality that shapes our behavior. Our world is organized through its effects. Feminist therapy recognizes that environmental pressures affect a woman's identity.  Feminist therapy is the importance of understanding the psychological oppression of women. The most important purpose is the change of both society and the individual. In other words, it is important to recognize the central place relationship and connect to hold in women's lives. It considers the nature of sex-bias in a male-dominated culture. It honors women's experiences as valid and unique. Secondly, there are many techniques and strategies for feminist therapy. Some techniques described by Worell and Remer and Enns. These are empowerment, self-disclosure, gender-role intervention, power analysis, bibliotherapy, assertiveness training, reframing and relabeling, social action and group work, and gender-roles analysis. I believe that gender-roles analysis is especially important. It includes the evaluation of the client’s psychological distress and methods of coping. The client learns about the affects of social and cultural norms and expectations. It helps the clients become aware and identify their experiences with respect to society. For example Turkish society is a more male dominated society, but in recent years it has to start to accept and understand females’ impact on society. The essential reason is that females become aware of their roles in society and are given many rights by the government. Thirdly, there are many goals of feminist therapy such as 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...