Blowing in the Wind: '70s Questions for Millennial Therapists

• Published in: Women & therapy Vol. 40; no. 3-4; pp. 406 - 417
• Main Author: Marecek, Jeanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 02-10-2017
• Subjects: Consciousness-raising; feminist therapy; managed care; medicalization; women's liberation movement
• ISSN: 0270-3149; 1541-0315
• DOI: 10.1080/02703149.2017.1241582

Psychotherapy came in for a drubbing by the Women's Liberation Movement of the 1960s. Indeed, some movement members declared that Feminist Therapy was an oxymoron. Despite the antipathy, feminists in the mental health professions borrowed practices, ethical ideals, principles, and goals from the Women's Liberation Movement to create innovative models of therapy. This progressive impetus came to an abrupt halt with the sweeping re-medicalization of psychiatry in 1980s and the corporatization of medicine that followed thereafter. As the landscape of psychotherapy changed, so too did the founders' vision of Feminist Therapy. Drawing on interviews with feminist therapists, I examine some of these changes. I close by asking about the conditions of possibility for feminism in therapy today.