Feminist

Theory: Feminist

Theorist: Karen Horney, Alfred Adler

Focus: Feminist theories address the issues that gender stereotypes cause by imposing expectations, demands, and gender roles and the consequences that those who do not follow these expectations face.

Strengths: Feminist therapy allows women to explore how they are affected, socially, emotionally, and psychologically, by current and historical gender roles. They can address what inner struggles are caused by the desires or needs to meet these expectations, and how their own personal expectations from themselves differ. The same principles can be applied to not only women, but also minority groups who also struggle with stereotypes and disadvantages.

Weaknesses: Evolving gender roles call for concurrent evolution of feminist theory, so it must keep up with current state of society, which may be difficult. Feminist theory may also lead some minority groups to attribute all of their struggles to society, and allow them to absolve themselves of responsibility for all of their issues, which is not always productive.

Techniques: The therapist can address cultural, gender, or minority differences to gauge how relevant the client sees it in regards to their treatment and issues. If the client feels that their issues stem from larger social contexts of gender, etc, they can engage in techniques such as group therapy, that employ normalization, which conveys to them that they are not the only person suffering from these struggles.

Personal example: In high school I had a friend who was dating a guy who was about ten years older than us. She loved him and was happy with their relationship, but she knew that he wanted to marry her and start having children as soon as possible. She had aspirations to attend college and enjoy freedom for a few years before starting a family. Pressure to start having children at a younger age than she was ready for caused her stress, which eventually caused issues in her relationship. She found it helpful to talk with other women who were currently or previously in the same situation, if only to know that she was not the only person struggling with this issue.