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Colonizing women’s minds: feminism, therapy and the FMS backlash

University of British Columbia

During the last three to four decades, the feminism movement has moved from its radical roots towards an increasingly liberalized stance. Nowhere is this more evident than in its relationship with psychology. In 1978, Mary Daly described therapy as "mind rape", a patriarchal institution of social control whose aim was to reconcile women (and other oppressed groups) to their oppression. Since that time, the feminist movement has moved toward an increasingly entrenched relationship with/in therapy and psychology. Feminist therapy lies at this intersection of feminism and psychology offering women (and men) a reformed vision of mental health and therapeutic practice framed through a feminist political analysis. The question remains, however, whether or not psychology/therapy can ever be compatible with feminist and with the feminist goal of ending women's violent oppression. In order to explore this question I critically examine feminist therapy in the context of violence against women and the context of false memory syndrome discourse. FMS discourse provides a specific context within which to explore the ways in which therapy and the embracing of a therapeutic culture within the feminist movement have contributed to, or at least facilitated the current backlash against feminism and the feminist goal of ending violence against women. Using a critical, deconstructive approach I examine the therapeutic language and themes of FMS discourse and the ways in which the anti-feminist agenda within the discourse relates to, and is supported by feminism's engagement with therapy/psychology. This text also documents the sometimes overwhelming contradictions in my own journey as a radicalized feminist in a graduate program in Counselling Psychology. It arises not only from the (re)examination of my relationship with psychology and therapy, but also from my struggle to work creatively and politically within a rigid, and unself-reflexive academic context. By juxtaposing alternate readings/writings of the FMS data I attempt to display not only the complexity of the issues arising from feminism's relationship with psychology/therapy, but also to capture, in some measure, the evocative and provocative potential of stepping outside the traditional research text.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-02-16

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/4633

Counselling Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace