Psychotherapy With Women: Exploring Diverse Contexts And Identities

In 1963, Betty Friedan’s revolutionary book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ was published. This was a wake-up call to women that they did not have to tolerate inequality and gender determined privilege. Betty Friedan died last year in 2006 and the feminist movement celebrated its 40th anniversary. Since its beginning, feminism has broadened its preview to consider issues, not only of gender, but ethnicity, race, culture, class, economics and sexual orientation. It is from this broad perspective that Marsha Pravder Merkin published her first book Women in Context (1994). Now, eleven years later a new edition is available: Psychotherapy With Women; Exploring Diverse Contexts And Identities. This is a complex, thoughtful, challenging book and not an easy read. Important issues are raised, not only for doing therapy with women, but for men too. The areas considered transcend particular models of therapy, and the questions examined are not ones that are raised in the more traditional literature. Like the editors, I was left with more questions than answers, but my therapeutic endeavours will never be quite the same and I will have the courage to wade into areas I never before transversed. I also had to look inward and consider thoughts, feelings and beliefs - not always comfortably - that were affecting me and my work. Someone once said to me that you cannot not be racist and I believe that is true, but hopefully through self-examination and knowledge, the therapeutic encounter will be richer and more achieved. This book raises many questions that need to be addressed to do good work. The book is in five sections, including the concluding chapter. The first section (3 chapters) maps out the territory. Their thesis is that “therapists must explore different situational contexts within which a woman moves to fully understand her social systemic context and its effects on her functioning, whether healthy or problematic” (P3). Clinical questions are spoken to and some suggestions given. Part 2 (4 chapters) explores women’s interpersonal relationships, cross-referencing this with a consideration of class, culture, race, class and immigration. Part 3 (4 chapters) looks at women at work and how culture and gender biases impinge. The glass ceiling is still there and women still find it hard to go up the organizational ladder, to juggle issues of family and work, having to make troublesome choices in their lives with little support or understanding, even from loving partners. Part 4 (4 chapters) looks at self-nurturance. I loved the chapter on play. The only other person in our field who has written about this is Lenore Terr in Beyond Love and Work - Why Adults Need To Play. (Touchstone - 1999). The chapters on Spirituality and Healthy Living, Healthy Women were also good. Maybe because I am a Canadian, I wished there was more consideration of the experience of first nation women. This is an American book and so more focus was on the experience of black women and also some on Asian women. In the final chapter the editors talked of their own process in preparing the book, the questions that were raised for them, and the ideas they have for future directions of study. All the authors were asked to talk of their process in a personal way and give clinical examples that enriched the book and the formidable issues they were grappling with. All in all, it is a thoughtful, tough book which considers important questions that should be part of our therapy with both sexes. I would recommend buying this book and taking the time to read it through and digest its contents.

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