Expansions of Feminist Family Theory Through Diversity

Expansions of Feminist Family Theory Through Diversity reconstructs feminist family therapy to include issues of race, class, gender, culture, and sexual orientation. The contributors assist the reader with creating possible solutions to mental health problems in all types of families. Readers will find specific working strategies to help solve the problems inherent in families of diversity. Several conceptual models for approaching the sociopolitical context of family therapy are also presented.

Expansions of Feminist Family Theory Through Diversity reconstructs feminist family therapy to include issues of race, class, gender, culture, and sexual orientation. The contributors assist you with creating possible solutions to mental health problems in all types of families. This will enable you to find specific working strategies to help solve the problems inherent in families of diversity. This book also provides you with several conceptual models for approaching the sociopolitical context of family therapy.

This collection challenges family therapy as an existing context of power privilege and expands feminist principle and diversity into subject areas such as intimate violence among the racially and sexually different, heterosexual privilege in family life, homosexual and racial oppression, social inequalities within the therapeutic story, and, from Monica McGoldrick, reflections on self as viewed by the multiple social systems of oppression.

Clinicians and practicing feminist therapists can find insight into many general topic areas relevant to daily practice, such as:

• race as a social construct
• culture in the context of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation
• assessment and treatment of violence in heterosexual and homosexual families
• a social critique of therapeutic inequalities addressing the social inequalities in the delivery of mental health
• the politics of privilege and privacy in family life
  
  Expansions of Feminist Family Theory Through Diversity is organized in a way that makes it central to all clinical practice. It can be used as a guidebook for family therapists, social workers, counselors (guidance, clergy, and counseling programs) and psychologists who deal with diverse families and their problems.