Consciousness-raising which has been a basic component of the feminist movement and is absolutely necessary in feminist therapy, can be done most effectively in groups where women feel free to share their personal experience.

Finally, feminist therapy has as its goal that women must act on what they know. It is not enough to have insight into one's own individual difficulties since "there are no individual solutions for women". Political action must be social, community-based, cooperative and "generate new and viable patterns of behavior and relating" (Sturdivant, 1980). Feminist therapists, by virtue of definition are involved in political social action beyond the practice of their profession.

The advent of feminist values in psychotherapy is creating new possibilities for women to develop individual self-hood and solidarity with one another. As we grasp opportunities to explore our own personal "histories" and understand the roots of our own pain in an oppressive social system, the anger that has often energized the women's movement can be harnessed and used more economically, purpose- fully and effectively to bring about change. We will become less needy by virtue of accepting our needs and developing aptitude for getting them met in more direct ways. We will know better what we want and we will learn how to develop a variety of options for going after it. We will become more effective in our mothering, thus helping to raise daughters and sons who are sure of their own self-hood, less limited by role stereotyping, and with values that are less distorted by patriarchal perspectives. Feminist psychotherapy is an educational tool in the most radical sense because it leads not only to learning new concepts and behavior, but because it leads to perspective transformations in individual women that are necessary if culture is to be transformed.

Mary Helen Garvin is a psychotherapist in private practice in Toronto, and a doctoral candidate in Adult Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her focus is on the training and development of counselors and therapists. She is the mother of five grown-up children, and her favorite recreation is wilderness canoe tripping.

REFERENCES

  1. Eichenbaum, Luise and Orbach, Susie; Understanding Women:
    A Feminist Psychoanalytic Approach
    .
    Basic Book Inc.: New York, 1983.

  2. Gilligan, Carol: In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Harvard University press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982.

  3. Kegan, Robert; The Evolving Self: Problem and Progress in Human Development. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1982.

  4. Levine, Helen; "Feminist Counseling: Approach or Technique?" Perspective on Women in the 1980s, ed. Joan Turner and Lois Emery, University of Manitoba Press, 1983.

  5. Levine, Helen; "The Personal is Political: Feminism and the Helping Professions", Feminism in Canada, ed. Angela Miles and Geraldine Finn, Black Rose Books: Montreal, 1982.

  6. Levine, Helen; "The Power Politics of Motherhood", Perspectives on Women in the 1980s, ed. Joan Turner and Lois Emery, University of Manitoba Press, 1983.

  7. Lindsay, Karen; "On the Need to Develop a Feminist Therapy", Roughtimes: A Journal of Radical Therapy, 1974, No. 4, pp.2-3.

  8. Mander, Anica Vesel, and Rush, Anne Kent; Feminism as Therapy, Random House: New York, 1974.

  9. Mezirow, Jack; "A Critical Theory of Adult Education and Learning", Adult Education Vol.32, Number 1, Fall, 1981, pp.3-24.

  10. Schaef, Anne Wilson; Women's Reality, Winston Press Minneapolis, Minn.,1981.

  11. Sturdivant, Susan; Therapy with Women: A Feminist Philosophy of Treatment, Springer Publishing Co.: New York, 1980.

  12. Wyckoff, Hogie; Solving Women's Problems, Grove Press: New York, 1977.


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