In clear, lively prose, Harriet Lerner takes a bold look at women and the psychotherapists who work with them.

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the challenges women may face as they navigate the multiple roles that they carry. Attention is given to the unique cultural identities that women embody and suggestions are provided to help counselors acknowledge the various aspects of each client’s intersectional identity. In addition to theory, we provide suggestions for practical application of relevant interventions and strategies for helping women achieve their goals. A foundation is provided that explore the multiple layers of development that occur during adolescence, adulthood, midlife, and older adulthood. Women face numerous challenges related to identity development and relationships. These challenges can generate psychological and emotional distress that lead women to seek professional assistance in finding solutions to their issues. With more choices than in generations past, women can face unexpected and unanticipated challenges and barriers to their individual and relational development. This book is organized around contemporary developmental and relational rites of passage women experience in adulthood. Traditional rites of passage include birth, menarche, marriage, and death. These events still hold significance but women’s lives today follow expanded and complex trajectories. Numerous transitions, such as attending college, navigating employment opportunities and the relational challenges that women face in various areas of life, are presented and addressed in this book from a clinician’s perspective providing practitioners with insight and practical knowledge. In this book, we cover choices related to such topics as career, relationships, parenthood, and support networks. We also explore the struggles that women face including abuse, depression, anxiety, feelings of low self-worth, loss, and addictions. Best practices in counseling women are highlighted and utilized in case study examples. The relationships created by women impact their lives and this book helps the reader to gain insight into how women can take ownership for their relationships and choices.

Presents a collection of 21 papers on the ways in which sexism influences theories and techniques in psychotherapy and methods for helping women develop as complete and equal people. Specific topics include values and value change in psychotherapy, principles of feminist psychotherapy, assertion training, career counseling, psychotherapy for lesbians, feminism as therapy, the challenge of radical feminism to professional therapy, and social activism as therapy.

Feminist Perspectives in Therapy: Empowering Diverse Womenaddresses core issues in feminist psychological practice along withstrategies and techniques for understanding the development andexperiences of women throughout their lives. Two leading feministpsychologists provide a model that integrates feminist andmulticultural theory and practice, incorporating both internal andexternal sources of women's psychological distress andwell-being. This Second Edition is filled with valuable information on thelatest developments in research and major issues faced bytherapists treating women, along with clinical case studies thatprovide practical examples of how to put theory intopractice. Topics covered include: * Promoting physical and psychological health * Confronting interpersonal abuse and violence * Balancing career and family * Integrating multicultural and diversity issues * Negotiating relationships Complete with self-assessment activities, experimental exercises,and resources for further reading, Feminist Perspectives inTherapy: Empowering Diverse Women, Second Edition is a practicalbook for students and a valuable resource for mental healthprofessionals.

TABLE OF CONTENTS: 1 The Therapeutic Process. 2 The Mentally Healthy Woman. 3 Problems Women Bring to Therapy. 4 Role Transitions in Women's Lives. 5 How to Help the Client in Transition. 6 Women in the World of Work. 7 Career Counseling. 8 Women and Their Bodies. 9 Abuse of Women's Bodies. 10 Minority Women and Women in Poverty. 11 Older Women, Lesbians, and Female Offenders. 12 The Goals of Therapy with Women.

This book aims to advance the understanding of women who bring to their work as therapists the empathy and caring that are the cornerstone of successful treatment, regardless of their theoretical orientation.