Feminist therapy aims to promote equality and empowerment. Key goals include developing egalitarian relationships, challenging gender stereotypes, and analyzing power dynamics and social influences. Common techniques used in feminist therapy include consciousness-raising, exploring gender roles and power, appropriate self-disclosure, bibliotherapy, assertiveness training, reframing, and relabelling. Feminist therapists work to empower clients on personal, interpersonal, and sociopolitical levels.

1. by Adriana Tanese Nogueira

2. What Is Feminism?

Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at
defining, establishing, and defending equal political,
economic, and social rights for women. In addition,
feminism seeks to establish equal opportunities for
women in education and employment.
Feminism has been the first political moment of historical critique
to family and society.
Manifesto di rivolta femminile, luglio 1970
Feminism is a state of mind.
Lee Johnson-Kaufmann

3. If You're Not a Feminist, Then You're a Bigot

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dddgkEg2XSA

4. Anyone who:
Who Is feminist? • Supports the political, social and
economic equality between the
sexes, believing that women has
been and still are, in different ways,
discriminated and subordinated to
men;
• Is convinced that the biological sex
should not be a pre-determinant
factor that shapes the social identity
or the sociopolitical and economic
rights of a person;
• Is affiliated to the political, cultural
and social movement born in the
This is What a Feminist Looks „800, which has claimed and still
Like claims equal rights and dignity for
http://www.youtube.com/watch women and men, and that in various
?v=3YA13GNT8Mc&feature=relat ways is interested to comprehend the
ed dynamics of gender oppression.

5. There‟s More Than One
Feminism

 Liberal:  Postmodern:
 Empowering women and helping  Using deconstruction and
them overcome the limits and
constraints of patriarchal discourse analysis to show
socialization how reality is constructed
 Cultural:  Women-of-Color
 Infusing society with women‟s (Womanists):
values
 Racism, classism, sexism, and
 Radical: heterosexism are all
 Social activism interlocked
 Socialist:  Lesbian:
 Race, class, nationality, and  Heterosexism at the core of
historical biases women‟s oppression

6. Is feminism
universal
(transnational)?
YES
We need to work on the world so it
will not be so oppressive.
James Hillman

7. Naomi Wolf and Germaine Greer

Naomi Wolf on Third Wave Feminism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCQI-
ougLsg&feature=fvwrel
Germaine Greer thinks women still have cause to be
angry
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CITBPjJCU9o

8. Feminist Therapy

Value-driven
more than technique-
driven.
Feminist therapy is a revolutionary
therapeutic modality, which…
means not only a technique but also
a theory of individual and social
change.
Elizabeth Friar Williams

9. Feminism in Therapy Is…

…a sensibility, a political and aesthetic center that informs a
work pervasively. One does not merely make clinical
interventions in the family as a feminist; one also greets the
family and sets the fee as a feminist. The words spoken
during a session that catch one’s attention or that slip by, the
things that make one feel warm toward the family, and the
things that offend are all determined in part by this
sensitivity.
Deborah Anna Leupnitz

10. Towards the Others

 Oppositional character
 Critique of the psychotherapeutic mainstream
Standards of mental health for women emphasized the qualities that men
wanted and needed in women. The result was that women who could not
or would not meet those standards suffered from the anger and abuse,
emotional and physical, of frustrated men as well as from the rejection
from male intimates, co-workers, and bosses.
Elizabeth Friar Williams

11. Common Points in Feminist
Family Therapy

 Patriarchy is alive and sick in sociopolitical life and in
the life of families;
 “Normal family” is too often a life not good for women;
 Power in relationships, therapy and society must be
addressed, analyzed and challenged;
 Reforming families in ways that fully empower and
enfranchise women economically, socially, and
politically;
 Positive attitude toward women, social analyses, explicit
consideration of gender issues for both genders and
treating the personal as political.

12. Women in the “adequate” (also called
normal) families were [are!]
“overwhelmed with responsibility”,
“obese”, “psychosomatically ill”, and
“sexual dissatisfied”. The men in these
same families were “functioning well”
and were not sexually dissatisfied. Thus
… an adequate family consists of a
husband and children who are
functioning adequately and a wife who is
not.
Deborah Anna Leupnitz
The “normal”
family, not so
normal.

13. Feminist Therapy Beliefs

In the sociocultural causes of distress
In valuing women‟s experiences
In integrated analysis of oppression
And in social change

14. Who Is Sick?

My practice tells me I can no longer distinguish
clearly between neurosis of self and neurosis of
world, psychopathology of self and psychopathology
of world. Moreover, it tells me that to place neurosis
and psychopathology solely in personal reality is a
delusional repression of what is actually,
realistically, being experienced.
James Hillman

15. Wake Up, Therapists!

Therapies that avoid gender issues contribute to gender
oppression both in theory and in practice:
 Gender is part of the therapist‟s psychological, social, and
economical own system;
 Issues that the therapist is not aware of are reproduced in
therapy, thus supporting the maintenance of the status quo.
I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics.
So I'm a victim again. A result.
James Hillman

16. Who Is Afraid of Feminism?

Anyone who takes advantage of the patriarchal
system: men and women alike.

17. Feminism Is Feared Because:

 It disrupts traditional family
homeostasis;
 It challenges men‟s decision
making and leadership;
 It unearths the underlying power
issues that underpin most
romantic relationships;
 It forces self-questioning and
self-awareness, interrupting the
convenient flow of complicity and
inertia.

18. 
Feminist Theory Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcEwKpnTsoQ&f
eature=related
Naomi Wolf debunks the myths around pregnancy
and motherhood
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ZX3T-rzLM

19. Feminist Awareness in Psychotherapy

 In all or most of couple relationships there‟s a latent
power issue that if not solve will undermine the
relationship.
 Society as a whole is evolving. Avoiding to face power
issues both in gender and society reflects an
understanding of counseling as a bubble separated from
the larger environment;
 Many women (and also men) show spontaneous
conscious evolution of gender issues; therapists who
don‟t take it in consideration are pushing backward their
client‟s process.

20. Continued

 Feminism implies in a broader conception of what
human beings are and a philosophy about their life
together.
A female therapist should set an example for her
clients. Because she honors and respects herself she‟s
a feminist. A male therapist should be feminist
because he honors and respect his female partner,
mother and girlfriends, thus representing a model for
his male clients. A gay therapist should be feminist in
solidarity of the discrimination they both know.

21. Key Concepts in Feminist Therapy

 Honoring the
experience and
perceptions of
women
 The personal is
political
 Social transformation
and advocacy

22. Feminist Family Therapy Goals

 Developing egalitarian relationships
 Learning to value women‟s voices and perspectives
 Making room for gender-unique identity
development
 Analyzing sex-role socialization in the life of families
 Identity internalized sex-role messages and beliefs
 Challenging and replacing sex-role stereotypes and
scripts
 More self-enhancing belief and stories

23. Feminist Identity Development
by Downing and Rousch (1984)
Step 1. Passive

acceptance
 Feminism? What is it?
 I suffer no machismo in my life.
 It is what it is.
 I don‟t believe in feminism.
 Feminism is anti-family.
 I can‟t have a romantic
relationship and being feminist.
 Feminism is against God.
 Everyone has their own
righteous place in society.

24. Feminist Identity Development
by Downing and Rousch (1984)

Step 2. Revelation
 Oh my goodness! I‟m a victim!
 They abused and still abuse me.
 That‟s not fair.
 I don‟t want this for me and my
daughter.
 I‟ve been living for years in this
and I didn‟t realize it!
 He‟s not the man I thought he
was.
 I don‟t want to be a victim!

25. Feminist Identity Development
by Downing and Rousch (1984)

Step 3. Embeddedness
 To hell with men!
 I want to know what other
women‟s lives look like.
 Women = my sisters
 Feminine and feminist culture
is mine.
 Looking for the Sacred
Feminine.
 Let‟s create a women‟s group, a
women‟s studies, a women‟s
world!

26. Feminist Identity Development
by Downing and Rousch (1984)

Step 4. Synthesis
 There are some good men.
 Creating alliances that can
favor women.
 Oppression is a larger issue.
 Solidarity with other minorities.
 Men friends of women do exist.
 We‟ll change the patriarchal
system gradually.
 Empowering people on the
move for a more just and
tolerant world.

27. Feminist Identity Development
by Downing and Rousch (1984)

Step 5. Active
commitment
 Self-appreciation
 Personal freedom
 Pride in being a woman
 Appreciation of women in
general
 Appreciation of some
aspects/part of the dominant
culture
 Real change = only through
social and political activism

28. Feminist Family Therapists:

 Meet families in whatever
stage form and at whatever
stage they are in;
 Facilitate development;
 Allow and contextualize the
expression of feelings from
fear and anger to pride and
celebration;
 Help members of the
dominant culture look at
themselves, challenge their
perspectives, and find ways to
become supportive of their
partner and children.

29. Feminist Therapists Role and Function

 Congruence between their  De-pathologize behaviors
personal and professional and interactions
lives
- What were you told in the hospital?
 Promoting egalitarian
- I am borderline.
relationships
- You were molested and raped in your
 Listen and acknowledge childhood – let’s see, starting when you
women‟s voice were 6. Your mother was in jail on drug
charges when you were sent to live with
 Reframing you aunt and uncle. And older male
 Affirming and valuing cousin also molested you; your uncle
abused you; and you have been in two
feminine characteristics marriages where men have verbally and
physically abused you, but you are
borderline!?! James R. Bitter

30. Tecnique

1. Egalitarian
relationships
 Collaboration
 Partnership
 Consent form
 Therapy purposes

31. Tecnique continued

2. Consciousness-
raising  Link personal experience to
one‟s position as a woman in
 Leaderless group in a male-dominated culture;
order to:  Identify oneself as a woman
 Gain a validated who shares a common fate
voice with all women
 Share personal stories  Taking action to change
oneself and the social
 Raise awareness structure that oppresses
women.

32. Tecnique continued

3. Gender role and
power analyses
Families are institutions that
have most thoroughly absorbed
the stereotyped roles and
power imbalances imposed by
dominant global cultures.

33. Tecnique continued

4. Appropriate self-  Connecting individual‟s
and family‟s struggles to the
disclosure collective experiences of
women and families;
Grounded in authenticity  Normalizing thoughts,
feelings, and actions;
and a sense of mutuality.
 Helping clients to realized
that they are not alone in
their struggles.

34. Tecnique continued

5. Bibliotherapy
 Non-fiction
 “Her stories”
 Feminist psychology and
counseling
 Self-help books
 Educational videos and
films
 Movies
 Novels

35. Tecnique continued

6. Assertiveness  Self-esteem
training  Confidence
 Feeling capable in the
= world
Standing up for  Speaking up
oneself

36. Tecnique continued

7. Reframing
 Elevate positive intention;
 Shift the focus from
individual to systemic
perspective;
 From scapegoating women
to consider how dominant
cultural has affected
individuals.

37. Tecnique continued

8. Relabeling
 Deconstruct the power
and negative effects of
societal norms and
expectations;
 Analysis of causes of life
difficulties;
 Normalize human
development;
 Support people were they
are at and open up new
possibilities for change.

38. Conditions and Dimensions of
Empowerment in Feminist Therapy

Personal Interpersonal Sociopolitical
(Power within) (Power with (Power in
others) society)
Permission Individual rights Approval or Legal rights
(May I? Am I and freedom permission from
worthy?) another
Enablement Personal resources Support and Access to
(Can I? Am I advocacy from resources
able?) others
Information “Know thyself” Sharing stories, Questioning
(What do I need to breaking silences “the truth”
know?)

39. Growth and Expansion

Although therapists are often
nicknamed “shrinks,” I prefer to think
of the work we do as having an
expansive effect on clients. … we
enable clients to open inner doors,
widen horizons, unfurl leaves, and
develop inner potentials.
Lesly Irene Shore, PhD

40. For every woman who is tired of acting weak when she is strong,
there is a man who is tired of appearing strong when he feels
vulnerable,
For every woman who is tired of acting dumb,
there is a man who is burdened with the constant expectations of
“knowing it all”,
For every woman who is tired of being called an “emotional female,”
there is a man who is denied the right to be weak and gentle.
For every woman who is tired of being a sex object,
there is a man who must worry about his potency.
For every woman who is denied meaningful employment, with equal pay,
there is a man who must bear full financial responsibility for
another human being.
For every woman who was not taught the intricacies of an automobile,
there is a man who was not taught the satisfactions of cooking.
For every woman who takes a step toward her own liberation.
there is a man who finds the way of freedom has been made a
little easier.
Maria Fadli

41. Concluding and Opening a New Venue
 The feminist perspective
Feminism opened a window on goes far beyond the initial
the reality of society,
relationships and individual feminist movement. It
psychology. It‟s about: addresses different layers of
1. Full human rights for the question, one deeper
women; than the other.
2. Balancing gender power in
the relationship;
3. Recovering the value of
feelings, emotions and the
“irrational” within the
relationship;
4. Espousing one‟s inner other
side/opposite.
It’s like peeling an onion. Some cry, others
finally get a new flavor to their life.