Feminist therapy is more than a prescription of technique; it is a unique philosophy of psychotherapy. While much has been written on feminism and therapy, this bold book breaks new ground by making explicit and coherent the theoretical underpinnings of feminist therapy.Building on the revolutionary work of feminist scholars who have described how women employ strategies of knowing the world in a manner distinct from men, Laura S. Brown, noted for her pioneering work in the field of ethics and boundaries, (...) shows how these insights should reshape the very nature of the therapeutic encounter. With meticulous care, the author examines key features of the therapeutic encounter with a feminist lens: the power of the therapist; assessment and diagnosis; the nature of change; the ethics of practice; and differences in race, class, and sexual identity. She constructs a vision of therapy that helps the client develop a sense of entitlement to satisfying and equal relationships outside the therapist's office. This powerful vision of feminist therapy is grounded throughout with case examples that illustrate how a dialogue between therapist and client can be healing, subversive, and transformative all at once. (shrink)

This article presents a conceptual framework within feminist therapy theory for viewing overt and covert racist behaviors as forms of unethical action. Using the personal as theoretical and political, the author traces her process of having her consciousness raised regarding the issue of racism in psychotherapy. Racism is then conceptualized as an ethics problem in terms of lack of mutuality and respect, violation of boundaries, and unethical imbalance of power in the therapy relationship. The concept of antiracism, a proactive stance (...) to address overt and covert racism in therapy, is presented as a strategy for moving toward more ethical therapy practice. (shrink)

The Counterhuman Imaginary proposes that alongside the historical, social, and institutional structures of human reality that seem to be the sole subject of the literary text, an other-than-human world is everywhere in evidence. Laura Brown finds that within eighteenth-century British literature, the human cultural imaginary can be seen, equally, as a counterhuman imaginary—an alternative realm whose scope and terms exceed human understanding or order. Through close readings of works by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Alexander Pope, along with lapdog lyrics, (...) circulation narratives that give agency to inanimate objects like coins and carriages, and poetry about the Lisbon earthquake of 1755, Brown traces the ways presence and power of the nonhuman—weather, natural disasters, animals, even the concept of love—not only influence human creativity, subjectivity, and history but are inseparable from them. Traversing literary theory, animal studies, new materialism, ecocriticism, and affect theory, The Counterhuman Imaginary offers an original repudiation of the centrality of the human to advance an integrative new methodology for reading chaos, fluidity, force, and impossibility in literary culture. (shrink)

In this commentary I discuss the shared theme found in articles by Hoult, Calof, Cheit, Freyd, and Salter (this issue) of the prices of resisting attempts to engender silence when the topic is sexual abuse of children. The parallels between silencing tactics of sexual abusers of children and those used by the false memory movement against its critics are analyzed. Questions are raised about the ethical implications of such silencing strategies.

One barrier to optimal pain management in the neonatal intensive care unit is how the healthcare community perceives, and therefore manages, neonatal pain. In this paper, we emphasise that healthcare professionals not only have a professional obligation to care for neonates in the NICU, but that these patients are intrinsically worthy of care. We discuss the conditions that make neonates worthy recipients of pain management by highlighting how neonates are vulnerable to pain and harm, and completely dependent on others for (...) pain management. We argue for a relational account of ethical decision-making in the NICU by demonstrating how an increase in vulnerability and dependence may be experienced by the healthcare community and the neonate’s family. Finally, an ethical framework for decisions around neonatal pain management is proposed, focussing on surrogate decision-making and the importance of compassionate action through both a reflective and an affective empathy. As empathy can be highly motivating against pain, we propose that, in addition to educational programs that raise awareness and knowledge of neonatal pain and pain management, healthcare professionals must cultivate empathy in a collective manner, where all members of the NICU team, including parents, are compassionate decision-makers. (shrink)