New Approach to Women and Therapy

In the tenth-anniversary edition of this text, Miriam Greenspan presents a stinging and often humourous indictment of a male-dominated psychotherapeutic community unwilling to acknowledge the role of sexual inequality as a factor in female "symptoms" such as low self-esteem, depression and sexual withdrawal. By its failure to address the social roots of women's psychological pain, Greenspan says, the patriarchal mental health care establishment contributes to women's emotional suffering. Writing for a broad range of readers interested in psychotherapy and women's issues, Greenspan tells of her own experiences in therapy and those of many of her patients. These stories illustrate how treatment approaches based on traditional male attitudes pathologize and devalue women. This detailed and critical study does more than expose the failures of male-biased psychotherapy. It also offers a positive alternative treatment model which recognizes women's emotional pain and is based on an empowering therapeutic relationship.
Greenspan gives several case examples of feminist treatment techniques, explaining the rationale behind each and assisting readers in the search for a therapist who subscribes to them. In a new introduction, Greenspan takes a close and impassioned look at recent developments in the world of women and healing, including the accomplishments of feminist therapy during the last decade, the emergence of the sexual abuse survivor movement, the contribution and dangers of the codependency recovery movement for women's psychological healing and a new vision of feminist therapy as a means of bringing about planetary healing.