Feminist Therapy: Valuing Women
By Patricia J. Anderson
Frida Kerner Furman, MALS 477, Feminist Ethics, March 14, 1996
My interest in feminist therapy stems out of my own difficult experience with non-feminist therapy. Like many women, I have gone into therapy at various times in my life, basically wondering, What’s wrong with me? Why was I so unhappy? Why was I so sad, incompetent, and worthless? I was sure that the inner inferiority and confusion was within me, that it was my fault.
I will illustrate how “traditional and/or family values” have actually had a part in causing women’s mental health problems. I will tease through feminist therapy ideas, principles, disorders common to women, and women’s diversity to illuminate the feminist values that inform this field that offers real promise to women’s mental health.
Feminist Therapy, Do We Really Need It?
A personal friend’s experience with therapy provides an insightful example of the need for feminist therapy. She sought therapy to help her get away from an abusive husband. She began to tell me some of the therapist’s responses to her explanations of the type of abuses her husband inflicted upon her. It became clear to me that this therapy was never going to help her to gain the psychological strength she needed to escape.
Examples of the therapist’s responses to her depictions of the physical and psychological abuse were: Maybe you should stay home on Saturdays and do housework; Do you really have to go to the movies with your girlfriends?; Have you really tried to cook the foods that he likes?; Maybe it’s a good idea to let him handle your paychecks, maybe he’s better with money?
It took months to convince my friend that this therapist was not only not helping her, but was functioning to maintain the abusive relationship. The therapist was blaming her for the abuse, trying to get her to conform to the passive, obedient feminine role that would support her husband’s dictates! The solution was simply for her to follow the prescribed feminine role and her marriage would be alright. It was assumed that the problem stemmed from inside her, her patriarchal disobedience was in need of fixing!
Rather than empowering her to act in defense of her self, the therapist reinforced her internalized inferiority. My friend’s experience with psychotherapy is not an isolated one. Many women have had similar experiences, although perhaps not as obvious and easy to articulate. Therapy’s perpetuation of oppression can be as subtle and invisible as it sometimes is in society, especially when combined with the client’s emotional vulnerability.
Medicine and Morals
Kathryn Morgan describes women’s moral status as akin to a moral groupie, dependent upon males deemed capable of full moral integrity (149-150). The male moral model claims that “… women’s bodies are interpreted as capable of acting on the mind so as to occlude consciousness, thought, and moral feeling” (Morgan 150). If women lack societal power to live according to their own values, it serves to explain why women are so frequently unhappy.
According to Rhoda Unger and Mary Crawford, the male medical model sees “… a direct connection between the uterus and the mind” (572). Throughout history the uterus has been blamed for women’s so-called hysteria/insanity. The term most women are very familiar with, hysterectomy, refers to the removal of the uterus – the source of women’s insanity. Hysteria is used to label stereotypical behaviors of exaggerated femininity including: “… being demandingly childlike, overly dramatic, scatterbrained, and sexy, but frigid” and according to Rachel Mustin, may actually depict, “… a caricature of women”, not a mental illness (597).
Imagine an opposite affliction in males, “testeria.” Despite common accusations that men think with their penises, “We need never worry about disabling testeria in men” (Morgan 151). Sometimes turning things around can illuminate the preposterous nature of the masculinist arguments about women’s so-called “hysteria.” Can you imagine books titled, Men Who Love Too Much or Men Who Feel Guilty When They Say No?
The Genderization of Women’s Psychological Disorders
Many psychological disorders are actually exaggerations of masculinity and femininity. In our society characteristics that define femininity also define maladaptive behaviors. Thus the gendered societal norms that we have internalized are at the root of many of the psychological problems frequently seen in women.
Traditional therapists see the world through the same gender-colored lenses that the rest of society does. Women are diagnosed and treated by a system that places women’s psychological disorders within the individual women. However, many of women’s problems are the result of societal oppression.
The development of mental illness may be influenced by sex roles that demand that women repress negativity, strive to satisfy men, be passive, helpless and at times to even exaggerate their femininity (Mustin 595). Judith Rodin and Jeannette Ickovics say that a person whose social role lacks power and control is more likely to be victimized by violence, sexual discrimination and harassment (1018). It’s not healthy to be confined within a role prescribed by someone else, let alone some one else who seeks control.
Unger and Crawford describe the social constructionist view of mental illness which claims that psychological distress encompasses personal and social aspects (Unger & Crawford 569). Morgan recommends, “… a vigilant deconstructionist attention to sexist, racist, heterosexist and class presuppositions” (161) as one solution to women’s internalized “moral madness”. The personal is political definitely applies to women’s psychotherapy.
Women’s unequal status has robbed them of the power to define and even to name themselves. Men have held the power to name and/or diagnose the acceptability of women’s behaviors. “The power to name is also the power to control” (Unger & Crawford 569). “… Under some circumstances, simply being a woman is sufficient reason to be considered `mad'” (Unger & Crawford 571). Many disorders common to women come out of stereotypical roles expected of them, thus the naming and treatment of their disorders can’t be value-free (Unger & Crawford 571). Within this cultural power dynamic how could women’s therapy be therapeutic, let alone ethical?
Despite a lack of knowledge about women’s psychology, mental health services for women have flourished due to the pervasive nature of women’s unhappiness. Women’s responses to oppressive “… social, economic, ethical and legal conditions,” instrumental in causing women’s problems, are labeled pathological, and are thus subject to psychiatric intervention (Mustin 593).
Erickson explains women’s masochism in allowing their own exploitation by theorizing that women only find identity when they figure out who to marry (Mustin 594). Erickson’s theory is a patriarchal rationalization and justification for female exploitation. The notion of a woman’s self, found only in conjunction with a male, dependent upon exploitation for development is beyond unethical – it’s evil. Applying Nel Noddings’ theory of evil, this notion has caused women great psychic and physical pain and has separated women from their sense of self. And as a result of the internalization process, harmful ideologies become invisible, leaving women helpless in escaping their psychological grasp (91).
Typical Genderizations
Morgan quotes Andrea Canaan regarding intellectual growth and its connection with her womanly virtue of altruism, “The open heart and forgiving soul stifled my rightful indignation, gagged my rage, and forced my fear, my needs, my rage, my joys, my accomplishments, inward” (154). Psychological disorders reflect gender roles. Women become depressed, anxious, passive and unassertive; their behaviors are viewed as mental health issues (Unger & Crawford 597). Men exhibit psychic disorders through acting out, which involves anti-social behaviors–toughness–and because they’re dealt with in the criminal justice system, aren’t seen as psychological disorders (Unger & Crawford 597-600). The fact that women take their psychic pain inward and seek mental health services makes it look like women have more mental disorders (Unger & Crawford 600).
Depression
Studies show that married women experience depression more than men and that husbands of housewives experience the least depression. Conflicting expectations between trying to care for children and maintaining a job plus the stress of multiple roles plays a part in the depression married women experience (Unger & Crawford 579). The Task Force on Women and Depression of the American Psychological Association found that women’s low social status, poverty, and sexual/physical abuse was depressing to women (Unger & Crawford 579). How … shocking!
The medical model posits a connection between women’s biology and depression. Three basic syndromes are blamed for women’s depression: Premenstrual syndrome (PMS), postpartum depression and menopausal syndrome. There are also three no’s that apply to these diagnoses: No symptoms or pattern of signs define them, there are no tests to prove their existence and there is no cure or effective treatment for them (Unger & Crawford 581). Contrary to the claims of medicine, studies have demonstrated that menopause is rarely a crisis to women (Mustin 596). And yet the pathologizing goes on.
Women’s cyclicity has not been valued. Biological connections with female emotionality is just another way to justify and rationalize women’s inferiority, lower status and vulnerability to psychological problems (Unger & Crawford 581-582). The knowledge of all this alone is depressing.
Healthy self-esteem protects people from depression and self-esteem reflects cultural values. Signs and symptoms of psychological disturbances are likely to occur when people are prevented from expressing behaviors that enhance their self-esteem (Unger & Crawford 579). Women are likely to experience poor self esteem because they’re not valued in society.
Anorexia and Bulimia
Unger and Crawford suggest that the pandemic nature of women’s “normative discontent” with their weight is inseparable from the fact that women are the major victims of anorexia and bulimia (585). The connection between this disorder and the societal mandate for thinness is obvious. Traditional mental health has no effective treatment to offer patients with these life threatening conditions (Unger & Crawford 588). The collective rejection of the perfect, skinny female body could prevent this disease but presents a monumental task.
Agoraphobia
Agoraphobia serves as a perfect example of a disease that is inseparable from notion of femininity gone too far – the phrase, “a woman’s place is in the home” fits this disease. Agoraphobia is usually seen in married women and means “fear of the marketplace.” Another name for it is “housewife’s disease.” The client fears leaving home or a safe place (Unger & Crawford 590). The severity of symptoms ranges from fearing elevators, crowds, expressways to fearing separation from home or trusted person (Unger & Crawford 590-591). Agoraphobia requires relationality. They’re passive, dependent on others for basic needs, and unable to make decisions. Husbands of agoraphobics report satisfaction with their marriages, perhaps due to the wife’s obvious femininity (Unger & Crawford 591).
Self-defeating Personality Disorder
Self-defeating personality disorder (a concept derived from psychoanalytic theory) serves as a label for women’s masochism exhibited by remaining in abusive situations. Victims of interpersonal violence have high rates of mental illness, yet a study of this diagnosis never asked the three hundred women about abuse (Unger & Crawford 593). Interestingly, when removed from abusive situations for six months, symptoms were diminished or disappeared altogether, thus arguing against a disorder of personality itself (Unger & Crawford 593).
This diagnosis is an example of a double bind that blames women if they fail to keep the family together, but labels them crazy if they don’t get out of abuse (Unger & Crawford 593). If we twist the diagnosis to fit males, a new diagnostic category blooms into being: “Delusional Dominating Personality Disorder,” describing the pathological social norm of the “real man” (Unger & Crawford 569).
Traditional Therapy and The Male Medical Model
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) classifies disorders of the American Psychological Association (1987). Judith Worell and Pam Remer assert that the DSM-III-R is an offshoot of the sexist medical model. It focuses on personal pathology, denying oppression and institutional stressors (153). Established norms come from healthy male models, making pathology itself genderized (Worell & Remer 156-8).
Over seventy percent of psychotropic medications are prescribed to women (Mustin 595; Rodin & Ickovics 1018), despite the fact that they were not included in most of the research done on these drugs. The disproportionate use of these drugs among women is linked to the fact that, instead of being viewed as a psychosocial issue, stress has been designated as a medical pathology (Rodin & Ickovics 1027).
Studies examining clinicians’ beliefs about normal and appropriate characteristics of men and women parallel the rest of society. Therapists don’t make distinctions between healthy adults and healthy males (Unger & Crawford 597). If male behavior is the norm – no wonder women seem crazy.
According to The President’s Commission on Mental Health (1978), providers and administrators of health care are mostly male, but most clients are women. There’s no reason to believe that these males have less oppressive attitudes toward women than any other male. Male therapists have encouraged women to accept and adjust to the unhealthy behaviors implicit in our societal roles; males frequently lack insight into women’s experience and reinforce the patriarchal power that brought women into therapy to begin with (Mustin 594).
Over the last forty years, psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories have dominated psychotherapy that specify, “… women’s innate nature as passive, dependent, and morally inferior to men” (Mustin 594). Rarely even recognized by therapists is the injustice women face within the traditional family (Mustin 596). With a chauvinistic physician you risk your physical health; with a chauvinistic therapist you risk your sanity.
Psychodynamic therapy assumes problems are “all in the head” of the individual stemming from unconscious forces (Unger & Crawford 601). Androcentrism is more likely to view behaviors of women and minorities as disordered, thus traditional psychotherapy acts as a social control (Unger & Crawford 601, 602). Women are expected to the behave within male norms; when they deviate from these norms they’re labeled less than. Freud’s penis envy theory places a penis in a “better than” position with vagina and uterus (Worell & Remer 85).
Traditional therapy denies the oppressive social context of women’s problems, thus denying the lack of justice at the root of many woman’s problems. A misogynistic society guarantees large numbers of unhappy women for mental health professionals to treat (Unger & Crawford 602). The mental health system also stands to profit from its misogyny. If traditional therapy maintains women’s oppression while making a profit, how therapeutic might it be?
Feminist Therapy’s Values
Susan Sherwin posits that the basic criticism that feminist ethicists have with traditional biomedical ethics is that its discourse excludes people’s oppression, thus it’s unethical (54). Biomedical ethics addresses issues of importance to doctors and ignores problems of importance to women, minorities and other health professionals, despite the serious effect they have on patient care (Sherwin 4). The mental health system’s same lack of ethicality is compounded by the fact that the exclusion of women’s values and oppression has itself caused many of women’s mental health problems.
Inclusion of Diversity
Inclusion is a fundamental value for feminist therapy. Traditional therapy has not addressed the needs of the many diverse varieties of women. Psychological diagnosis and symptomology include assumptions about class, race, ethnicity, age and sexual orientation that are enmeshed in the labels attributed to people (Unger & Crawford 570).
African-American Women
Angela Neal and Midge Wilson discuss how Black women have not only been compared to the norms of healthy males, but to the beauty standards of white women. In therapy, Black women frequently need to deal with anger and resentment about an additional discrimination they face in their own community related to skin color and features. A light-skinned Black women may be concerned about her ancestral history and may feel guilty about privileges that she might enjoy because of her light complexion and Caucasoid features. A dark-skinned woman may feel unattractive and might resent Black men who prefer lighter skinned women (330). Therapy can help Black women to realize that images of white beauty are inappropriate and must be redefined within the Black community (Neal & Wilson 332). Therapy and social change must fit the context and needs of particular women’s experience.
Asian-American Women
Connie Chan says that Asian women have been viewed as sexual objects and prostitutes by American soldiers (34). Their portrayal in Western media as exotics has fostered the fantasy of Asian women as passive sex slaves and created a booming market for mail-order brides in America (Chan 34-35). Mail-order brides are prime targets for exploitation and abuse for several reasons: they come from desperate poverty, to a strange country with a new language and culture, to a husband of a different race and nationality who has enormous power over them (Chan 35).
Asian-American women seem quiet, submissive, unlikely to be rejecting, and invisible while at the same time alluring. Values developed from her Asian-American culture make it likely that women will be agreeable, gentle and will defer to the needs of others. Chan shares that in her practice with Asian-American women there is a conflict between their own values, and feeling unrespected and abused within the American system that values placing one’s own needs first (36). They frequently use denial to deal with uncomfortable feelings of objectification by men (Chan 36). After initially feeling vulnerable when they realize how they’re stereotyped, they experience ambivalence about the desire for invisibility and wanting attention for who they really are (Chan 36-37). Like most women, they blame themselves for their problems (Chan 37).
Hispanic-Latina Women
Lillian Comas-Diaz describes Marianismo as a concept taken from the Catholic church’s Virgin Mary that serves as an example of female superior spirituality that provides women with the strength to endure male abuse (43). This image forbids women to express interest in sex, even after marriage, but expects men to be interested in sex all the time (Comas-Diaz 43-44).
Machismo is about male virility, male as provider and protector of female relatives from other men’s advances. The extreme form of machismo includes alcoholism and physical abuse. Hembrismo, a sort of revenge to machismo, is an image of female strength similar to feminists (Comas-Diaz 44). In Puerto Rican culture Hembrismo women use their power in a spiritual sense which might be compared to the superwoman image in America (Comas-Diaz 45).
Acculturation issues sometimes mandate role reversal. The fact that female immigrants find work easier than men in America has led some Chicana women to reinforce machismo in their mate as a means to soothe their lower status (Comas-Diaz 48-49).
Physical and psychological problems aren’t separated in Hispanic/Latino culture and it’s believed that strong emotions lead to physical illness. Somatization is not only an accepted way to express one’s needs, but is rewarded with support from the family (Comas-Diaz 51).
Lesbians
Laura Brown discussed three themes that explain the lesbian and gay identity: Biculturalism, marginality, and normative creativity (New Voices 452). The bicultural aspect allows lesbians and gays to incorporate the ambiguous nature of more than one cultural identity at the same time (Brown, New Voices 452). “The experience of having both self and other within one’s identity development creates a singular and potentially powerful heuristic model for self-understanding” (Brown, New Voices, 450).I would go beyond biculturalism to multiculturalism. Being a lesbian or gay man adds another separate cultural layer of identity, in addition to being Black or white, Asian or Hispanic, Jewish or Hindu. There are Jewish Black lesbians.
Another layer of identity involved in lesbianism is the butch\fem\androgyny concept. This involves women developing various degrees of stereotypical masculinity, femininity or a combination of the two. There is much confusion and ambivalence within the lesbian community about this topic. Research is needed in this area of psychological development to help lesbians avoid mirroring the dominant culture’s harmful stereotypes.
Living along the margins, inside and outside of dominant culture, provides lesbians a view into both homosexual and heterosexual worlds (Brown, New Voices, 452). The feminist value of inclusion demands that we value lesbian identities that include multicultural visions of the world not available to heterosexuals.
Brown describes normative creativity as the ability to invent workable limits where there were none, and with make-shift tools (New Voices 453). Brown says that her experience with psychotherapy ethics sees “… ethical action as a continuous variable” and that “… having rules about what to do narrowed my thinking and excluded that which had never been considered, thus making it invisible” (New Voices 453). A great argument for a creative ethicality in feminist therapy in general.
In the context of large number of homosexuals who have received or are in therapy, Brown questions whether it’s due to pathology or whether it’s a health-seeking mechanism to deal with the societal ambiguity they live in (New Voices 456)?
Principles/Feminist Values in Therapy
Your therapist’s values CAN hurt you! Worell and Remer warn that, without conscious awareness, each therapist’s values will be communicated in therapy. They discuss three basic principles of feminist therapy: The personal is political, egalitarian relationships, and valuing the female perspective (Worell & Remer 91). Feminist values lie within their context.
The Personal is Political
This very basic feminist principle asserts that what happens to individuals also has political aspects and acknowledges that social experiences are at the core of women’s problems. This principle leads feminists to address three areas of therapy: Separating the external from the internal, reframing pathology, and initiating social change (Worell & Remer 92).
Therapy’s goal is to assist clients to externalize problems so that their societal core becomes visible. Clients can then choose whether or not they want to work on change, not only within themselves, but in their environment. Instead of looking for ways to cope with dysfunctional situations, therapists focus on the unhealthy situation (Worell & Remer 92). Thus women’s societal experience is valued.
Instead of blaming the client, therapists help clients to see their “pathology” as coping mechanisms to deal with numerous societal dysfunctions. This reframing would make symptoms of depression natural, “normal,” and even logical in the face of discrimination. This perceptual change has the power to remove the “crazy” label imposed upon the client’s self and can lead women to understand that nothing is wrong with them; Thus the fuel of empowerment to facilitate change is instilled (Worell & Remer 92).
Women aren’t only taught to express their anger, but to use it’s energy to effect change. The client is also held responsible for making changes (Worell & Remer 92). Feminist therapists also assist clients to become involved in social change within their communities. Social change becomes enmeshed in preventative mental health care for women (Worell & Remer 93).
The ultimate goal of women’s therapy is to help women to see and overcome* the ways in which they facilitate their own oppression and to help women to see their power (Unger & Crawford 602).
Egalitarian Relationships
The therapist/client relationship itself serves as a model of egalitarianism. Therapy’s use as social control is minimized, the therapist’s values are not imposed and the imbalance of power so often experienced by women is rejected. Rather than an expert\sick mode, therapy is a collaborative process that empowers the client by viewing her as expert on herself and her experience (Worell & Remer 94). This egalitarian process starts with the therapist sharing her values with clients, educating clients about feminist therapy itself, along with its goals, thus making the client an informed consumer (Worell & Remer 95).
Self-disclosure is used to reveal common experiences, divert the focus from internal causes and reduce role distance and power (Worell & Remer 95). Self-involvement is a tool that allows the therapists to respond emotionally to the client, allowing the client to safely test how she is perceived. When feelings are mutually expressed, vulnerability is reduced and the therapeutic relationship models healthy communication along with acceptance of and the expression of anger (Worell & Remer 95). The traditional model of “the objective, emotionally- distant, expert-therapist” is replaced by feminist values of “… empathy, sharing of common experience, nurturance, and mutual respect (Worell & Remer 95-96).
Valuing the Women’s Perspective
By helping women connect with devalued parts of their self, feminist therapists help women to rethink weaknesses and negativity in terms of strength and positivity. Harmful double binds are pointed out so they can be disregarded (Worell & Remer 97). Women can be assisted to reject male definitions of femininity. Therapists help them to validate, value and trust their experience, offering the opportunity for self discovery and for the development of women-centered world views (Worell & Remer 97-98). Feminist values: Empathy, nurturance, cooperation, intuition, interdependence and relationship are priorities. Valuing the female self and female relationships can lead to self-nurturance, healing and social change (Worell & Remer 98).
Brown’s value system also includes self-care for the therapist (Ethical Issues 333). Feminist therapists need to be valued as much as their clients. Within small communities the number of feminist/lesbian therapists may be limited. As a leader in the community the therapist may feel obligated to always project an image of competence and complete mental health which may result in her personal feelings being ignored. A therapist whose role stress and self-care is ignored is more likely to slide down the ethical continuum toward problematic action (Brown, Ethical Issues 333). If you don’t take care of yourself you’re more likely to make “ethical errors.”
Ann Stanford eloquently synthesizes the work of three African-American fiction writers whose characters find healing outside of the medical/mental systems. Stanford’s synthesis artfully blends connections between personal health and societal illness, so that their inseparability is unquestionable. She argues that health professionals have not only overlooked social change as a therapeutic option, but their very treatments serve as a means of duplicating and perpetuating oppression (Stanford 30). The African-American women authors refuse to name the illnesses of their characters, illustrating that without medical labels illnesses “… are out of medicine’s reach” (Stanford 31). She refers to a poignant metaphoric phrase taken from one of the novels, “… the `poison of reality,'” spreading like gangrene through a woman’s body (Stanford 39). One might envision oppressive ideologies causing psychological gangrene that destroys parts of a woman’s self.
Finally …
Unless therapy comes out of women’s experience it harms women and as a result is unethical. For women’s therapy to be truly therapeutic it must deconstruct the social context and so-called symptomology attributed to their so-called madness. Women themselves must create a feminist paradigm of therapy that comes out of lived experience. We must de-internalize patriarchy’s notions of who we are. Within a racist and sexist society, “… the community is both the disease and the cure” (Stanford 34).
I think feminism itself is therapeutic, simply sharing feminist values among women offers the potential to heal societal wounds. Any therapeutic environment must honor women’s experience, diversity, and values. It needs to address the unjust and oppressive environment women live in and must emphatically reject blaming women for their situations. Feminist therapy teaches women they’re not crazy, that the craziness lies in the ill society. Internalized “norms” that have actually caused women’s disproportionate unhappiness must be revealed and rejected. Feminist values themselves contain the power to heal societal wounds and ills. If women lived in a society that valued and really loved them, most women wouldn’t need therapy.
One last thought. If one believes that the mind, body and spirit are inseparable, it would make sense that if we improve women’s psychological health we stand a good chance of also improving their physical health. If you feel good about yourself, odds are you’ll be less likely to become physically ill. I think feminist therapy has the potential to also enhance women’s physical health and well being. A loved self and valued body is less vulnerable to stress and illness.
Teacher comments: This particular stance might be arguable. More convincing would be to say that standard therapy harms women and it is unethical.
Works Cited
Brown, Laura S. “Ethical Issues in Feminist Therapy: Selected Topics.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 15 (June 1991): 323-336.
___. “New Voices, New Visions: Towards a Lesbian and Gay Paradigm for Psychology.” Psychology of Women Quarterly 13 (1989): 445-458.
Chan, Connie S. “Asian-American Women: Psychological Responses to Sexual Exploitation and Cultural Stereotypes.” Women and Therapy 6 (1987): 33-38.
Comas-Diaz, Lillian. “Feminist Therapy with Hispanic/Latina Women: Myth or Reality?” Women and Therapy 6 (1987): 39-61.
Morgan, Kathryn Pauly. “Women and Moral Madness.” Feminist Perspectives Eds. Lorraine Code et al. (n.d.): 146-167.
Mustin, Rachel Hare T. “An Appraisal of the Relationship Between Women and Psychotherapy: 80 Years After the Case of Dora.” American Psychologist (May 1983): 593-601.
Neal, Angela M., and Wilson, Midge L. “The Role of Skin Color and Features in the Black Community: Implications for Black Women and Therapy.” Clinical Psychology Review 9 (1989): 323-333.
Noddings, Nel. Women and Evil. Los Angeles: U of California P, 1989.
Rodin, Judith, and Ickovics, Jeannette R. “Women’s Health: Review and Research Agenda as We Approach the 21st Century.” American Psychologist 45, no 9, (Sept 1990): 1018-34.
Sherwin, Susan. No Longer Patient: Feminist Ethics in Health Care. Philadelphia: Temple UP, 1992.
Stanford, Ann Folwell. Mechanism of Disease: African-American Women Writers, Social Pathologies, and The Limits of Medicine. NWSA Journal 6, no 1, (Spring 1994): 28-47.
Unger, Rhoda, and Crawford, Mary. Women and Gender: A Feminist Psychology. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1992.
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