“Female authority is the ability of a woman to validate her own convictions of truth, beauty, and goodness in regard to her self-concept and self-interest.”
Women deserve therapy designed specifically for us.
Girls and women face a lifetime of exposure to gendered expectations and limitations that harm our well-being. We face social pressures to conform, to be pleasing, and to meet unrealistic ideals of behavior and beauty. Along with being employed outside of the home, there is a cultural expectation that we will also perform the vast majority of unpaid household and caretaking labor for our families. Over half of us have experienced some form of sexual violence. Women who tell their stories or demand change are often silenced, disbelieved, or stigmatized..
Rather than recognize women’s emotional distress as a natural response to these oppressive (and often abusive) conditions, traditional therapy diagnoses women as mentally ill. This is the deliberate action of a sexist culture to discredit women, silence our voices. and obstruct meaningful social change by labeling us as disordered or unwell.
A psychotherapy specifically for women must center—and believe—women’s stories. It must empower women—regardless of race, religion, age, ability, sexuality, cis or trans—to advocate for themselves, demand change in their relationships, and seek justice when possible. It must support women in identifying their resources, making meaning on their own terms, recovering their power, and valuing their inner wisdom over external expectations.
Join me in creating this new, liberatory therapy for women.
NARRATIVE THERAPY / POWER - THREAT - MEANING FRAMEWORK
Narrative therapy and PTMF encourage women to place our suffering within a broader external context—inequitable or abusive relationships, oppressive gendered cultural norms, lack of physical safety, the authoritarian political climate—rather than diagnose it as something that is broken within us. We claim the right to tell the truth about what happened to us. We create meaning from our experiences that makes sense to us even if it fails to conform with cultural or familial expectations. We assert our personal authority to take action to make changes that center our happiness and well-being. And we do it all without asking permission or offering apologies.
Marriage therapy / Relationship counseling for one
For heterosexual relationships in which the woman is dissatisfied with an inequitable division of labor, sexual incompatibility, or lack of emotional intimacy, relationship therapy often serves as a source of gaslighting and frustration. Unfortunately, most marriage therapy simply reinforces gender norms and defaults to a “both-side-ism” that minimizes the very real harm these culturally enforced roles and expectations do to women’s health and well-being. It may feel helpful to explore your feelings about your relationship on your own in an environment that centers your feelings, desires, and hopes for your future.
EMDR Trauma Resolution Therapy (EMDR)
EMDR is an approach to trauma treatment that has been backed by research. When employed within a safe and trusting therapeutic relationship, EMDR can be effective in reducing the emotional distress and limiting self-beliefs that result from childhood abuse and neglect (C-PTSD) as well as specific traumatic events (PTSD)
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