Therapy and Feminism

Two women sit and talk earnestly about how one of them can be stronger and happier: looks like applied feminism to me!  But it can also describe a typical modern psychotherapy session. Women have been the primary recipients of clinical mental health services since the origins of psychotherapy in the late 19th century. Only in the last 40 years, though, have a sizable swath of women practiced therapy as clinicians, rapidly increasing their presence to 70-80% of the field at the present time (2017, Rocheleau.)  In a world where female contributions are inconsistently valued at best, counseling is emerging as a training arena by women and for women, to become their own best resource.

James Brown famously sang, “It’s a man’s world.” For many women, a man’s world is a breeding ground for insecurity and uncertainty as you play by rules that you can only guess the boundaries of, and question yourself over subtleties like: did they interrupt me because my contributions are of lesser quality? Should I keep my voice down, since everyone else here seems more confident?  Any single instance of perceived disrespect might be innocent, but the pattern is damning nonetheless for one’s confidence. It is death by a thousand cuts, but you can’t tell which ones are bleeding. Hypervigilance and daily decision-making over which minutiae to challenge and which to dismiss; even this sifting is exhausting.

Women are twice as likely as men to be diagnosed with a depressive disorder, and 2-3 times as likely to be diagnosed with an anxiety disorder (2009, Office of Women’s Health.) Modern diagnostic patterns reflect a longstanding history of female overrepresentation in mental healthcare.  Powerlessness and frustration within existing social roles; male-created standards of deviancy; and evolutionary adaptivity for some characteristics (e.g. anxiety related to caregiving for children) are all factors. This is reinforced on a daily basis in which women’s experiences and contributions are often trivialized in the public arena, while men’s are more readily assumed to be relevant.

Validation, like oxygen, is something that one notices most in its absence. We all seek it.  While verbal validation is more obvious (“Good idea!” “Thanks for saying that”, etc.), validation is more often expressed nonverbally in conversational deferral, respectful eye contact, head nods, or the repetition of one’s ideas or word choice later in the conversation.  Women are invalidated more frequently in conversations by nonverbal behavior such as being interrupted, ignored, contradicted, or having the topic changed (2011, Cortina et al.; 1993, Anderson & Leaper; 2001, Okamoto & Smith-Lovin.) The ambiguity of this nonverbal validation gap makes it that much harder to identify when it’s happening.

The work I do with female clients is built on the same scaffolding as for men, but with a heightened sensitivity to devaluation by self and society. By modeling respect for their reasoning and values, my goal is to make my clients self-validating mistresses and masters of their own destinies.  The structure of therapy prevents women from undercutting their own needs via defaulting to a familiar caretaking role. The transactional clarity of therapy enforces a pre-determined commitment that this hour is gloriously, unambiguously about her.

Toni Morrison wrote, “The function of freedom is to free someone else.”   If you think of yourself as smart and capable, it's probably because a lot of people validated your contributions along the way. The distribution of validation in a culture is the distribution of individual self- confidence.  If you have been validated all the way to healthy self-confidence, congratulations! Now go leverage that for someone else. And if you haven’t gotten there yet, get yourself some therapy.

References

Anderson, K. & Leaper, C. (1998.) Meta-analyses of gender effects on conversational interruption: Who, what, when, where, and how.  Sex Roles, 39(3-4), no page numbers available.

Cortina, L, Kabat-Farr, D., Leskinen, E., Huerta, M., Magley, V. (2011.)  Selective incivility as modern discrimination in organizations: Evidence and impact.  Journal of Management, 39(6) p. 1579-1605.

Okamoto & Smith-Lovin, (2001.) Changing the subject: Gender, status, and the dynamics of topic change.  American Sociological Review, (66)6 p. 852-873.

Rocheleau, M. (2017.) Chart: The percentage of women and men in each profession. Boston Globe. Retrieved from https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/03/06/chart-the-percentage-women-and-men-each-profession/GBX22YsWl0XaeHghwXfE4H/story.html