Women and Poverty: A Challenge to the Intellectual and Therapeutic Integrity of Feminist Therapy

I. INTRODUCTION This paper examines feminist therapy's relevance to women of all races in poverty. Let us first establish what this work is not: it does not reiterate or support feminist criticism of traditional psychotherapy (some arguments of which are treated here as assumptions), nor does it delineate approaches to feminist therapy methodologies as they might or might not apply to a multiracial population of poor women. This exploration is a suggestion that feminist therapy can be advanced as an applied discipline and its scope broadened by taking to task its dysfunctional areas -- particularly those that, by defining the biases of traditional psychotherapy, have created new biases and stereotypes resulting in paradigms that still exclude some of us. The exploration is organized as follows: Section II establishes the basis of criticism by looking at the philosophy underlying feminist therapy and its theory/view of the nature of (A) oppression, (B) the ideal world, (C) reality, and (D) the socialized female prior to therapeutic intervention. Section III discusses lower socio-economic class women and their psychological distress relative to the same set of issues. Section IV asks whether poor women can benefit from (or even survive) feminist therapy, and offers five questions to be explored by feminist therapists. For a complete reprint of this article contact Haworth Press by telephone (1-800-HAWORTH) or E-MAIL (getinfo@haworthpressinc.com).