Feminist Therapy as a Political Act

Feminist Therapy as a Political Act explores what is means to politicize therapy and how you can make pyschotherapy a method for creating social and individual change. You’ll find examples and strategies for discussing topics such as empowerment and identity that allow you to provide better services to clients while learning new ideas and methods of feminist therapy.

Examining how language, behavior, and political thinking influence therapeutic methods, Feminist Therapy as a Political Act contains suggestions and examples that can be applied to clients in the individual, hospital, or community setting. You’ll discover the rich variety of ways in which therapists politicize the therapy relationship, setting, assumptions, techniques, and dialogues, and find several examples on how to incorporate political consciousness into your sessions. Feminist Therapy as a Political Act gives you insight into several methods and practices, including:

• integrating specific therapy techniques and the background dialogue of therapy into principles of feminist therapy practices

• modifying cognitive-behavioral therapy, hypnosis, and other therapy techniques to make them more compatible with feminist principles

• redefining and reclaiming empowerment for conducting political analysis in feminist psychotherapy

• recognizing client identity, including race, gender, and sexual identity, to provide clients with better therapy

• providing information on Japanese feminist counseling in relation to Eastern thought, the women’s liberation movement, and the concepts of independence, dependence, and maternity

• discussing the challenges of working with men

  Contributors to Feminist Therapy as a Political Act give you insight into the profession on the international level, for example, examining the challenges to feminist therapists in Japan and describing how survivors of incest and sexual abuse in Israel “went public” with their ordeals through art, poetry, performances, and lectures. Offering diverse methods, techniques, and suggestions that will help you provide better services for your clients, Feminist Therapy as a Political Act also gives you the knowledge and inspiration to make your therapeutic work a political act.