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

There is no shortage of literature about working with men in counseling and psychotherapy, but almost none of it addresses the unique issues that a female clinician can face with a male client. These women do not have a basis for a complete understanding of the impact our society’s ideas about gender can have on a man, his masculinity, and his feelings toward talk therapy, in part because they are not men themselves. The contributors to this book, all female clinicians who have worked extensively with men, have set out to provide their female peers with a guide for therapeutically engaging and helping men. Chapters explore how each author became involved in men’s issues, case studies and examples from her own practice that illustrate her approach, and her own assessment of what works best with male clients. Topics considered include core treatment issues, such as transference and counter-transference, beginning and ending therapy with men, and ethical dilemmas; working in different therapy modalities; and doing therapy with diverse populations of men. The book concludes with an edited transcript of a discussion amongst the authors about their personal experiences working with male clients. This will be an important book for all female therapists who work with male clients and are looking for ways to better understand and tailor their approaches to meet the needs of men in therapy.

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.

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.

Here is the first volume ever to focus on the issues of Jewish women in the context of counseling and psychotherapy. Through poignant reflection and observation, the authors convey the richness and variety of Jewish women’s experiences and the Jewishness and femaleness of the concerns, issues, values, and attitudes that Jewish women--both clients and therapists--bring into the therapy room. Jewish Women in Therapy is a landmark book in many ways. It calls attention to the historical and political realities of the Jewish heritage and acknowledges the oppression of both Jews and women that therapists have typically ignored. And although Jewish women have participated in the therapeutic process, as clients, scholars, and therapists, seldom have they chosen to write about it. Never before have the writings of so many distinguished leaders in the field, including Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Evelyn Torton Beck, and Susannah Heschel, been compiled. They examine the damaging stereotypes of Jewish women--the Jewish American Princess and the Jewish Mother--that flourish today. Chapters also address the conflicts that many women feel about being Jewish and being female, celebrate the contributions of Jewish women to feminism and to therapy, examine the deliberate omission of women from the political process and the religious ritual, and convey the complexities of the oppression that are still blatantly directed at both Jews and females.

Exploration of erotic transference and counter transference in therapy with particular attention given to the female therapist / male client relationship. Draws on Lacan and Jung to analyse examples from clinical practice and client's art.