Counseling the Contemporary Woman. Suzanne Degges-White
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relationship. While the structure of the practice of counseling is one in which the helper holds a different type of power than the client, it is essential for the client to be accorded the relevant power that is due. The client’s expert stance on her own experiences and life is valued, as is the clinical expertise of the therapist. This creates a robust working alliance in which the client feels heard, understood, and validated.
The client’s voice, way of knowing, and individual experiences are consciously valued and privileged by the therapist rather than privileging only the voice of those who deliver the therapy (Brown, 2018). Feminist practitioners also enter each new alliance with a willingness to explore and reexplore her own biases as she works with her clients. Brown (2018) noted the potential presence of aversive biases held by the therapist. These are the kind of biases that are seldom acknowledged or owned due to the self-criticism or shame that they may bring up for the counselor herself. An example would be a lesbian therapist who carries a bias against bisexual clients of which she, herself, is still unaware. She may acknowledge challenges she feels in relating to a female client who identifies as bisexual, but she may not appreciate the covert depth of her own bias unless she takes time to self-assess and evaluate her own feelings. Aversive biases may be the product of our own cultural upbringings or beliefs that we have accepted or developed independently. Feminist therapists must be able to openly explore their own privilege and covert attitudes in order to engage in an egalitarian and liberatory relationship with their clients.
In addition to the self-exploration that the therapist is doing outside her practice, she is also likely to incorporate self-disclosure into her work with clients (Brown, 2018). This willingness to be open, authentic, and vulnerable in the therapeutic relationship is another hallmark of feminist practice. Brown also noted that self-disclosure is not always explicit but can be accomplished through less obvious, but equally transparent, means. Therapists also bear in mind the power that they hold in having choice in what they disclose in contrast with the lack of power that clients have in terms of expected disclosure. Self-disclosure, as a technique, sets the stage for the work of therapy to be conducted.
Within the feminist paradigm, it is possible for creative clinicians to shape many interventions to fit within the feminist paradigm. Following are additional techniques that are frequently used within this framework.
Assertiveness Training
While assertiveness training may be viewed as “old school” due to its arrival on the self-help scene in the 1970s (Speed, Goldstein, & Goldfried, 2017), it still holds significant value as a tool to help clients gain mastery over their cognitions and behaviors. The goal of assertiveness training is to facilitate a client’s ability to stand up for herself and express her thoughts and feelings with confidence while recognizing that her own behavior should not restrict the rights or freedoms of another (Alberti & Emmons, 1970). The implementation of this technique may include skills such as behavior rehearsal, learning to avoid manipulative exchanges with others by consistently staying on topic, and learning to acknowledge shortcomings without feeling guilt or shame.
Behavior rehearsal occurs when a counselor asks a client to practice, in session, the statements or questions that the client wants to use outside of session. For instance, if a client feels that her work supervisor is unfairly assigning work tasks based on gender, her counselor can ask her to state, in session, what she would like to express to her supervisor. She might try out statements such as, “Mr. Jackson, I feel that you assign me more of the background research on projects than you do the men in our department. I’d like the opportunity to meet with potential clients, not just do the fact-finding on their businesses.” The counselor can invite her to practice the statement several times in session as well as play out the potential conversation through role play by having the client and counselor take turns playing out the roles of employee and supervisor. This allows the counselor the opportunity to try and manipulate the conversation in ways that will give the client practice in keeping to the facts and refusing to allow herself to be “derailed” in her advocacy for her rights on the job. The counselor may also encourage the client to practice the statement in front of a mirror to help her practice assertive, strong posture and facial expressions.
Learning to be accepting of one’s shortcomings can be especially challenging when a client has been taught that her identity has little value and is an impediment to success. Counselors can provide clients with the space to discuss the negative messages they receive about their gender, appearance, identity, and so on. Following the discussion, the counselor can help the client to tease out any “truths” in the message and help the client to “own” her weaknesses without any sense of shame. For instance, if a client acknowledges that she is stronger in “street smarts” than “book smarts,” she can discuss ways her “weakness” has strengths and become less defensive about her lack of formal education.
Assertiveness training can be especially appropriate for clients who are able to recognize instances in which they are being “shut down” or disregarded. Women experiencing marginalization in any sector of life, including home, school, work, institutional organizations, and so on, can gain significantly from learning how to communicate assertively and effectively. It is not unusual for women who have been reared in environments that fostered gender-based power imbalances to have difficulty developing assertive communication skills. They may experience cognitive dissonance in their early attempts to practice assertiveness as the mastery of the new skills may be in conflict with the values and gendered behavioral expectations with which they were raised. Counselors may choose to incorporate consciousness-raising discussions and gentle challenges to hesitant clients to encourage movement toward change and increased confidence in practice of new skills.
Relabeling and Reframing
These two related techniques are common to many cognitive-behavioral therapeutic orientations and are used to provide clients with the power to alter, or renegotiate, their perceptions of situations or circumstances that they have allowed to negatively affect them.
Relabeling is the practice of replacing a negative description of a characteristic with a more positive word. For instance, if a woman has been called “mannish” due to a more muscular or stereotypically masculine physique, the therapist might suggest that the client brainstorm alternative adjectives to describe herself. She could be encouraged to replace the negative or hurtful word with a substitute such as “healthy” or “strong.” Language is filled with gendered adjectives that can create covert obstacles for clients owning aspects of their identities that do not fit these gendered expectations. Encouraging clients to be creative in how they express themselves and their identities returns to them the power to own their choices and embrace all aspects of their identities.
Reframing is similar but typically is used to translate a potentially negative circumstance or event into a more positive experience. For instance, reframing could be used when a client is not hired for a specific position or is not accepted into a specific training program. She can be encouraged to see the perceived roadblock as an opportunity to seek out a better fitting position or career. Clients often get mired in negative thinking and feel overwhelmed by external circumstances. Helping clients to reframe disappointing or distressing experiences and to shift their perspective to a more empowered stance may help them become “unstuck” and develop new goals. Reframing an experience returns power to clients to take ownership in their interpretation and reaction to events over which they may feel little control.
Social Identity and Gender Role Analysis
The goal of this exercise is to allow a client to explore the ways culturally messaged beliefs about gender and broader social issues have influenced her life, choices, and behaviors. There are four steps involved in this intervention:
1 Invite your client to reflect on the overt and covert gender role expectations that she recalls having received over her life.
2 Ask your client to explore both the positive and negative results that these messages have had on her life. Work with her to brainstorm how she has internalized these messages.
3 Next, explore these messages with your client