Learning from Our Mistakes

Difficulties and Failures in Feminist Therapy

Esther D Rothblum, Marcia Hill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317720768
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

If you're a long-time veteran of feminist therapy or someone just starting out, you'll find a helpful, reliable list of "dos" and "don'ts" in Learning from Our Mistakes: Difficulties and Failures in Feminist Therapy. Frank and honest in tone, makeup, and style, this one-of-a-kind publication looks at the failures and roadblocks that have hampered feminist therapists in the past so you can learn from their misfortunes and avoid them in your own professional endeavors.

In Learning from Our Mistakes, you'll come face-to-face with classic difficult cases, and you'll see from a feminist perspective how therapists used various treatments to deal with these seemingly insurmountable challenges. You'll find that these and other topics will help you in navigating the difficult situations that arise in your personal practice:

• the pros and cons of terminating with a client who has an eroticized transference
• differences between therapists and clients in terms of race, ethnicity, and age
• problems encountered by rural therapists in small communities
• using a translator in therapy when the therapist and client don't speak the same language
• feelings of anger in therapy
• many other "log jams" in the therapeutic process

It's no mistake that Learning from Our Mistakes is full of what works and what doesn't. In it, three veteran discussants give you the tools necessary to overcome the uncertainties and inadequacies that plague therapists. You'll come away understanding the many ways failure is embedded in both the theory and practice of psychotherapy. Ultimately, you'll find that mistakes are really only failure narratives waiting to be used, shaped, and turned toward the positive experiences of both client and therapist.

Index

• Adleman, Jeanne 69
• Anger therapy
  • client description and 55–56
  • countertransference and 59–60
  • listening, value of 61
  • therapist anxiety and 55–56, 58
  • therapist rejection and 59
  • uncared-for child, anger venting and 56–58
  • unconditional love, therapeutic value of 57, 58, 61, 92
• Anxiety management, of client and therapist
  • consultation issue and 53
  • family dynamic issues and 51–52
  • multiple diagnoses, problems of 50, 52
  • personal and career issues overlap and 50–51
  • pharmacotherapy and 52–53
  • social phobia and 50
  • summary regarding 49
  • of therapist 50, 52–54
• Autonomy, in ethical reasoning 104

• Ballou, Mary 13
• Beneficence, in ethical reasoning 104, 105

• Canadian Code of Ethics for Psychologists 103
• Case examples
  • of anger therapy 55–61
  • of anxiety management 49–54
  • of couples therapy, ethical-decision making in 31–38
  • of cross-cultural counseling 41–47
  • of eroticized transference 6–11
  • of ethical decision-making, feminist model of 115–116, 118–120
  • of ethical decision-making, self-disclosure teaching approach to 32–36
  • See also Multiple issues, case example of
• Childs, E. Kitch 70
• Cole, Ellen 31
• Conditional duties, of ethical principles 104
• Countertransference
  • in anger therapy 59–60
  • ethical decision-making and 109
  • premature termination and 64–65
  • termination by client and 67–68
  • termination by therapist and 65–67
  • therapeutic failure and 14, 63–64
  • therapeutic failure narrative and 90–91
• Crisis, therape...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• Concerning Failure—Marcia Hill
• A Case of Eroticized Transference—Nanette K. Gartrell
• One Case, Many Conversations: Toward Multiplicities—Mary Ballou Gretchen Schmelzer
• Self-Disclosure as an Approach to Teaching Ethical Decision-Making—Ellen Cole
• Triangulated Therapy: Cross-Cultural Counseling—Geri Miller
• Managing Anxiety: The Client’s and Mine—Gloria Rose Koepping
• The Client Re-Visited: A Second Look at a Near Failure—Rascha Levinson
• Where, Oh Where, Has the Therapeutic Alliance Gone? Disquieting Log-Jams in the Therapeutic Relationship—Marcia Perlstein
• Meanings and Implications of Failure in Therapy—Jeanne Adleman Marny Hall Natalie Porter
• A Feminist Model for Ethical Decision Making—Marcia Hill Kristin Glaser Judy Harden
• Index