Therapy and How it Undermines the Practice of Radical Feminism*

By Celia Kitzinger

(As published in Radically Speaking: Feminism Reclaimed, edited by Renate Klein and Diane Bell [Spinifex 1996])

*Excerpt from Celia Kitzinger (1993), Depoliticising the Personal: A Feminist Slogan in Feminist Therapy.

One of the great insights of second wave feminisms was the recognition that "the personal is political" – a phrase first coined by Carol Hanisch in 1971. We meant by this that all our small, personal, day-to-day activities had political meaning, whether intended or not. Aspects of our lives that had previously been seen as purely "personal" -- housework, sex, relationships with sons and fathers, mothers, sisters and lovers – were shaped by, and influential upon, their broader social context. "The slogan…meant, for example, that when a woman is forced to have sex with her husband it is a political act because it reflects the power dynamics in the relationship: wives are property to which husbands have full access" (Rowland: 1984, p. 5). A feminist understanding of "politics" meant challenging the male definition of the political as something external (to do with governments, laws, banner-waving, and protest marches) towards an understanding of politics as central to our very beings, affecting our thoughts, emotions, and the apparently trivial everyday choices we make about how we live. Feminism meant treating what had been perceived as merely "personal" issues as political concerns.

This article explores the way in which the slogan, "the personal is political" is used within feminist psychological writing, with particular reference to therapy. The growth in feminist therapies (including self-help books, co-counselling, twelve-step groups, and so on, as well as one-to-one therapy) has been rapid, and has attracted criticism from many feminists concerned about their political implications (Cardea: 1985; Hoagland: 1988; Tallen: 1990a and b; Perkins: 1991). However, many feminist psychologists (both researchers and practitioners) state explicitly their belief that "the personal is political."

According to some, this principle has "prevailed as a cornerstone of feminist therapy" (Gilbert: 1980), and qualitative methodologies have often been adopted by feminists precisely because they permit access to "personal" experience, the "political" implications of which can be drawn out through the research. It would be unusual to find a feminist psychologist who denied believing that "the personal is political," despite the existence of feminist critiques of some of its implications (its false universalizing of women’s experience, for example, see hooks 1984, and the – ironic – tendency of some women to perceive the slogan’s categories of "personal" and "political" as polarised and in competition, see David: 1992). However, widespread concurrence with this slogan amongst feminist psychologists conceals a variety of interpretations. This article illustrates four of those differing psychological interpretations of "the personal is political," and argues that far from politicising the personal, psychology personalises the political, focuses attention on "the revolution within," concentrates on "validating women’s experience" at the expense of political analysis of that experience, and seeks to "empower" women, rather than accord real political power.

Two caveats before launching into my main argument.

First, this article does not claim to present a thorough overview of the whole of feminist psychology – a huge and growing area. Moreover, unlike other critiques (e.g. Jackson: 1983; Sternhall: 1992; Tallen: 1990a and b), this article is not an attack on any one particular brand of psychology, or a discussion from within the discipline (e.g. Burack: 1992). Rather, its aim is to stand outside the disciplinary framework of psychology and to draw attention to the political problems inherent in the very concept of "feminist psychology" brand of psychology, or a discussion from within the discipline (e.g. Burack: 1992). Rather, its aim is to stand outside the disciplinary framework of psychology and to draw attention to the political problems inherent in the very concept of "feminist psychology" per se.

Second, "it doesn’t seem fair," said one referee, "to scoff at institutions that help women live their lives in less pain." Many women have been helped by therapy. I have heard enough women say "it saved my life" to feel almost guilty about challenging psychology. Many women say that it was only with the help of therapy that they became able to leave an abusive relationship, to rid themselves of incapacitating fears and anxieties, or to stop drug abuse. Anything that saves women’s lives, anything that makes women happier, most be feminist – mustn’t it? Well, no. It’s possible to patch women up and enable them to make changes in their lives without ever addressing the underlying political issues that cause these personal problems in the first place. "I used to bitch at my husband to do housework and nothing happened," a woman from Minnesota told Harriet Lerner (1990, p. 15); "Now I’m in an intensive treatment program for codependency and I’m asserting myself very strongly. My husband is more helpful because he knows I’m co-dependent and he supports my recovery." For this woman, the psychological explanation ("I’m codependent and need to recover") was more successful than the feminist explanation (women’s work as unpaid domestic labor for men, Mainardi: 1970) in creating change. With the idea of herself as sick, she was able to make him do housework. As Carol Tavris (1992) says, "Women get much more sympathy and support when they define their problems in medical or psychological than in political terms." The codependency explanation masks what feminists see as the real cause of our problems – male supremacy. Instead we are told that the cause lies in our own "codependency." This is not feminism. Although it’s clear that "many women have been helped by therapy," it is equally clear that many women have been helped, and feel better about themselves, as a result of (for example) dieting, buying new clothes, or joining a religious cult. Historically, as Bette Tallen (1990a, p. 390) points out, women have "sought refuge in such institutions as the Catholic church or the military. But does this mean that these are institutions that should be fully embraced by feminists?" The reasons behind the rush into psychology, and the benefits it offers (as well as the price it exacts) are discussed in more detail elsewhere (Kitzinger and Perkins: 1993). In this article, I focus more narrowly on psychological interpretations of "the personal is political," and the implications of these for feminism.

Personalizing the Political

In this interpretation of "the personal is political," instead of politicising the "personal," the "political" is personalised. Political concerns, national and international politics, and major social, economic, and ecological disasters are reduced to personal, individual psychological matters.

This wholesale translation of the political into the personal is characteristic, not just of feminist psychology, but of psychology generally. In the USA a group of twenty-two professionals spent three years and $73,500 in coming to the conclusion that lack of self-esteem is the root cause of "many of the major social ills that plague us today" (The Guardian: April 13, 1990). Sexual violence against women is addressed by setting up social skills training and anger management sessions for rapists (now available in sixty jails in England and Wales, The Guardian: May 21, 1991), and racism becomes something to get off your chest in a counselling workshop (Green: 1987). Many people now think of major social and political issues in psychological terms.

In fact, the whole of life can be seen as one great psychological exercise. Back in 1998, Judi Chamberlain pointed out that mental hospitals tend to use the term "therapy" to describe absolutely everything that goes on inside them:

…making the beds and sweeping the floor can be called "industrial therapy," going to a dance or movie "recreational therapy," stupefying patients with drugs "chemotherapy," and so forth. Custodial mental hospitals, which offer very little treatment, frequently make reference to "milieu therapy," as if the very hospital air were somehow curative (1977, p. 131).

A decade or so later, with psychology’s major clientele not in mental hospitals but in the community, everything in our lives is translated into "therapy." Reading books becomes "bibliotherapy;" writing (Wenz: 198), journal keeping (Hagan: 1988), and art are all ascribed therapeutic functions. Even taking photographs is now a psychological technique. Feminist "phototherapist" Jo Spence drew on the psychoanalytic theories of Alice Miller (1987) and advocates healing (among other "wounds") "the wound of class shame" through photography. And although reading, writing, and taking photographs are ordinary activities, in their therapeutic manifestation they require expert guidance: "I don’t think people can do this with friends or by themselves…they’ll never have the safety working alone that they’ll get working with a therapist because they will encounter their own blockages and be unable to get past them" (Spence: 1990, p. 39). While not wishing to deny that reading, writing, art, photography, and so on might make some people feel better about themselves, it is disturbing to find such activities assessed in purely psychological terms. As feminists, we used to read in order to learn more about feminist history and culture; write and paint to communicate with others. These were social activities directed outwards; now they are treated as explorations of the self. The success of what we do is evaluated in terms of how it makes us feel. Social conditions are assessed in terms of how the inner life of individuals responds to them. Political and ethical commitments are judged by the degree to which they enhance or detract from our individual sense of well being.

Feminist therapists now "prescribe" political activities for their clients – not for their inherent political value, but as cure-alls. The "Guidelines for Feminist Therapy" offered by therapist Marylou Butler in the Handbook of Feminist Therapy (1985) includes the suggestion that feminist therapists should make referrals to women’s centres, CR groups, and feminist organisations, when that would be therapeutic for clients" (p. 37). Consciousness Raising – the practice of making the personal political – was never intended to be "therapy" (Sarachild: 1978). Women who participate in feminist activism with the goal of feeling better about themselves are likely to be disappointed. In sending women to feminist groups, the primary aims of which are activist rather than therapeutic, therapists are doing a disservice to both their clients and to feminism.

Our relationships, too, are considered not in terms of their political implications, but rather, in terms of their therapeutic functions. Therapy used to name what happened between a therapist and a client. Now, as Bonnie Mann points out, it accurately describes what happens between many women in daily interactions: "any activity organised by women is boxed into a therapeutic framework. Its value is determined on the basis of whether or not it is ‘healing’:"

I have often seen an honest conversation turn into a therapeutic interaction before my eyes. For instance, I mention something that has bothered, hurt, or been difficult for me in some way. Something shifts. I see the woman I am with take on The Role of the Supportive Friend. It is as if a tape clicks into her brain, her voice changes, I can see her begin to see me differently, as a victim. She begins to recite the lines, "That must have been very difficult for you," or "That must have felt so invalidating," or "What do you think you need to feel better about that?" I know very well the corresponding tape that is supposed to click into my own brain: "I think I just needed to let you know what was going on for me," or "It helps to hear you say that, it feels very validating," or "I guess I just need to go off alone and nurture myself a little" (1987, p. 47).

Psychological ways of thinking have spilled out of the therapists office, the AA groups, and self-help books, the experiential workshops and rebirthing sessions to invade all aspects of our lives. The political has been thoroughly personalised.

Revolution from Within

Another common feminist psychologising of "the personal is political" goes something like this:

The supposedly "personal activity of therapy is deeply political because learning to feel better about ourselves, raising our self-esteem, accepting our sexualities and coming to terms with who we really are – all these are political acts in a heteropatriarchal world. With woman-hating all around us, it is revolutionary to love ourselves, to heal the wounds of patriarchy, and to overcome self-oppression. If everyone loved and accepted themselves, so that women (and men) no longer projected on to each other their own repressed self-hatreds, we would have real social change.

This is a very common argument, most recently rehearsed in Gloria Steinem’s Revolution from Within. As Carol Sternhall points out in a critical review, "The point of all this trendy, tied-dyed [sic] shrinkery isn’t simply feeling better about yourself – or rather, it is, because feeling better about all our selves is now the key to worldwide revolution" (1992, p. 5).

In this model, the "self" is naturally good, but has to be uncovered from beneath the layers of internalised oppression and healed from the wounds inflicted on it by a heteropatriarchal society. Despite her manifest differences from Gloria Steinem in other areas, lesbian feminist therapist Laura Brown (1992) shares Steinem’s notion of the "true self." She writes, for example, of a client’s "struggle to recover her self from the snares of patriarchy" (pp. 241-42), by "peel(ing) away the layers of patriarchal training" (p. 242) and "heal(ing) the wounds of … childhood" (p. 245); in therapy with Laura Brown, a woman is helped to "know herself" (p. 246), to move beyond her "accommodated self" (p. 243) and discover her "true self" (p. 243) (or "shammed [sic] inner self" p. 245) and live "at harmony with herself" (p. 243). In most feminist psychology, this inner self is characterised as a beautiful, spontaneous little girl. Getting in touch with and nurturing her is a first step in creating social change. It is "revolution from within."

This set of ideas has its roots in the "growth movement" of the 1960s, which emphasised personal liberation and "human potential." Back then, the central image was of a vaguely defined "sick society."

"The System" was poisoned by its materialism, consumerism, and lack of concern for the individual. These things were internalised by people; but underneath the layers of "shit" in each person lay an essential "natural self" which could be reached through various therapeutic techniques. What this suggests is that revolutionary change is not something that has to be built, created or invented with other people, but that it is somehow natural, dormant in each of us individually and only has to be released (Scott and Payne: 1984, p. 22).

The absurdity of taking this "revolution from within" argument to its logical conclusion is illustrated by one project, the offspring of a popular therapeutic program, which proposed to end starvation. Not, as might seem sensible, by organising soup kitchens, distributing food parcels to the hungry, campaigning for impoverished countries to be released from their national debts, or sponsoring farming cooperatives. Instead, it offers the simple expedient of getting individuals to sign cards saying that they are "willing to be responsible for making the end of starvation an idea whose time has come." When an undisclosed number of people have signed such cards, a "context" will have been created in which hunger will somehow end (cited in Zilbergeld: 1983, pp. 5-6). Of course, Laura Brown, along with many other feminist therapists, would probably also want to challenge the obscenity of this project. Yet the logic of her own arguments permits precisely this kind of interpretation.

Such approaches are a very long way from my own understanding of "the personal is political." I don’t think social change happens from the inside out. I don’t think people have inner children somewhere inside waiting to be nurtured, reparented, and their natural goodness released into the world. On the contrary, as I have argued elsewhere (Kitzinger: 1987; Kitzinger and Perkins: 1993), our inner selves are constructed by the social and political contexts in which we live, and if we want to alter people’s behavior it is far more effective to change the environment than to psychologise individuals. Yet as Sarah Scott and Tracey Payne (1984, p. 24) point out, "when it comes to doing therapy it is essential to each and every technique that women see their ‘real’ selves and their ‘social’ selves as distinct." This means that the process of making ethical and political decisions about our lives is reduced to the supposed ‘discovery’ of our true selves, the honouring of our "hearts desires." Political understandings of our thoughts and feelings is occluded, and our ethical choices are cast within a therapeutic rather than a political framework. A set of repressive social conditions has made life hard for women and lesbians. Yet the "revolution from within" solution is to improve the individuals, rather than change the conditions.

Psychology suggests that only after healing yourself can you begin to heal the world. I disagree. People do not have to be perfectly functioning, self-actualised human beings in order to create social change. Think of the feminists you know who have been influential in the world, and who have worked hard and effectively for social justice: Have they all loved and accepted themselves? The vast majority of those admired for their political work go on struggling for change not because they have achieved self-fulfilment (nor in order to attain it), but because of their ethical and political commitments, and often in spite of their own fears, self-doubts, personal angst, and self-hatreds. Those who work for "revolution without" are often no more "in touch with their real selves" than those fixated on inner change: this observation should not be used (as it sometimes is) to discredit their activism, but rather to demonstrate that political action is an option for all of us, whatever our state of psychological well-being. Wait until your inner world is sorted out before shifting your attention to the outer, and you are, indeed "waiting for the revolution" (Brown: 1992).

Validating Women’s Experience

A third psychological version of "the personal is political" as applied to therapy goes something like this:

Politics develops out of personal experience. Feminism is derived from women’s own life stories, and must reflect and validate those. Women’s realities have always been ignored, denied, or invalidated under heteropatriarchy; therapy serves to witness, affirm, and validate women’s experience. As such, it makes the personal, political.

The politics of therapy, according to this approach, involves no more than "validating," "respecting," "honouring," "celebrating," "affirming," attending to," or "witnessing" (these buzz words are generally used interchangeably) another woman’s "experience" or "reality."

This "validation" process is supposed to have enormous implications: "When we honour our clients, they transform themselves" (Hill: 1990, p. 56).

There is obviously a lot of sense in listening to each other and in being willing to understand the meaning of other women’s experience. We used to do this in Consciousness Raising groups; now we do it in therapy. Because it has been transformed into a therapeutic activity, it now carries all the risks of abuse and power endemic to the therapeutic enterprise (Kitzinger and Perkins: 1993, chapter 3; Silveira: 1985). In particular, therapists are selective about which experiences they will or won’t validate in therapy. Those of a client’s feelings and beliefs which are most similar to those of the therapist are "validated"; the others are more or less subtly "invalidated."

Few feminist therapists, for example, will uncritically validate a survivor of child sexual abuse who talks of being to blame for her childhood rape because of her seductive behaviour; instead, she is likely to be offered an analysis of the way in which victim-blaming operates under heteropatriarchy. Similarly, few feminist therapists will validate the experience of a woman who says she is sick and perverted for being lesbian; instead, as Laura Brown (1992) herself argues, her "dysfunctional thoughts" (p. 243) will be challenged and therapy geared towards modifying them to the belief that "patriarchy teaches that lesbianism is evil as a means of socially controlling all women and reserving emotional resources for men and dominant institutions (an analysis that I have offered, in various forms, to women wondering out loud in my office why they hate themselves so for being lesbian)" (Brown: 1992, p. 249). While claiming to "validate" all women’s realities, in fact only a subset, consisting of those realities with which the therapist is in agreement, are accepted as "true" reflections of the way things are. The others are "invalidated," whether as "faulty cognitions" (Padesky: 1989) or as "patriarchal distortions" (Brown: 1992, p. 242). In other words, all this talk about "validating" and "honouring" clients’ reality is thin disguise for the therapeutic shaping of women’s experience in terms of the therapists’s own theories.

In any case, "experience" is always perceived through at theoretical framework (implicit or explicit) within which it gains meaning. Feelings and emotions are not simply immediate, unsocialised, self-authenticating responses. They are socially constructed, and presuppose certain social norms. "Experience" is never "raw"; it is embedded in a social web of interpretation and reinterpretation. In encouraging and perpetuating the notion of pure, unsullied, presocialised "experience" and natural emotion welling up from inside, therapists have disguised or obscured the social roots of our "inner selves." Placing "experience" beyond debate in this way is deeply anti-feminist because it denies the political sources of experience and renders them purely personal. When psychology simply validates particular emotions, it removes them from an ethical and political framework.

Empowerment

A fourth psychological interpretation of "the personal is political" relies on the notion of "empowerment." It goes something like this:

Therapy empowers us to act politically. Raising one’s personal awareness through therapy enables individuals to release their psychic energies towards creative social change. Through therapy, lesbians can gain both the feminist consciousness and the self-confidence to engage in political action. Many radical feminist political activists are empowered to continue through their ongoing self-nurturing in therapy.

Those in therapy often use this justification: according to Angela Johnson (1992, p. 8), therapy (along with rock-climbing) "gives me the energy to continue my activism with renewed excitement." And therapists concur. According to clinical psychologist Jan Burns (1992, p. 230), writing on the psychology of lesbian health care, "It seems intuitively reasonable that an individual may prefer to engage in self-exploration prior to choosing to engage in more political action, and may in fact need to, before being able to take other action." Laura Brown (1992) says that many of her clients "have precious little to give to the larger struggle from which many are disengaged when I first see them" (p. 245). Her client "Ruth" was helped to understand that "ultimate healing lies in her participation in cultural, not only personal change" (p. 246) and was shown by Laura Brown "how to move her healing process into a broader sphere" (p. 245). As a result of therapy, her "energies" were "freed" (p. 245) and she became a speaker, poet, and teacher about women and war, and engaged in public anti-war activism. Similarly, clinical psychologist Sue Holland (1991), in an article entitled "From private symptoms to public action," promotes a model of therapy in which the client moves from "passive, ‘ill’ patient/victim" at the start of treatment to a "recognition of … oppression as located in the objective environment" which leads to a "collective desire for change" in which "psychic energies can … be addressed outward onto structural enemies" (p. 59).

According to this interpretation, the "personal" consists of "psychic energies" (never clearly defined) which operate according to a hydraulic model. There is a fixed amount of "energy" which can be blocked, freed, or redirected along other channels. The "political" is simply one of these "channels." Therapy can (and some would say should) direct feminist energy along "political" channels. Often, of course, it does not, and women remain perpetually focussed within – a problem noted with regret by the more radical lesbian/feminist therapists. But their therapy (they say) does result in their clients’ becoming politically active.

Far from embodying the notion of "the personal is political," these ideas rely on a radical separation of the two. The "personal" business of doing therapy is distinguished from the "political" work of going on marches, and having severed the "personal" and "political" in this way, the two are then inspected for degree of correlation.

The "empowerment" argument totally ignores the politics of therapy itself. It is seen simply as a hobby (like rock climbing) or personal activity with no particular ethical or political implications in and of itself. Shorn of intrinsic political meaning, it is assessed only in terms of its presumed consequences for "politics" – defined in terms of the old male left banner-waving variety. If "the personal is political," the very process of doing therapy is political, and this process (not simply its alleged outcomes) must be critically evaluated in political terms.

In conclusion, and despite the frequency with which feminist therapists routinely state that "the personal is political," it seems utterly wrong to claim that this aim is a "cornerstone of feminist therapy" (Gilbert: 1980). Certainly the notions of "revolution from within," the importance of "validating" women’s reality, and "empowering" women for political activism are central to the thinking of many feminist psychologists. These overlapping and interrelated ideas are braided throughout a great deal of lesbian/feminist psychological theory and practice. But such notions are a long way from the radical feminist insight that "the personal is political," and are often interpreted in direct contradiction to it. They often foster naïve concepts of the mechanisms whereby social change is achieved; involve uncritical acceptance of "true feelings" and/or manipulative "reinterpretation" of women’s lives in terms preferred by the psychologist; lead women to revert to "external" definitions of politics in contradistinction to the "personal" business of therapy; and leave us shorn of ethical and political language. Acknowledging that the personal really is political means rejecting psychology.

I recognise that some women whose politics I admire and respect have not rejected psychology: Many are "in therapy" or are providers of therapy. This observation is sometimes used to counter our arguments. After reading a chapter (Kitzinger and Perkins: 1993) which cites Nancy Johnson’s class action suit against the US government for condemning the people of Utah to cancer (because of nuclear testing), one reader commented that Nancy Johnson now works as a psychic healer in a manner which I was likely to find politically problematic. "I think the situation is more complicated than you’ve presented it: Feminism and psychology don’t seem to be mutually exclusive," she said. Obviously, feminist activists are sometimes practitioners or consumers of psychology; many feminists clearly find it possible to include both in their lives. But then, health campaigners sometimes smoke cigarettes; ecologists sometimes drop litter; and pacifists sometimes slap their children. The observed coexistence of two views or behaviors in the same person does not render them logically, ethically or politically compatible.

Argument about the ethical and political compatibility of people’s different ideas and behavior is an important part of what feminist political discussion is all about. My argument is that feminism and psychology are not ethically or politically compatible. It’s not, necessarily, that women involved in psychology are apolitical or anti-feminist. Many are serious about their feminism and deeply engaged in political activities. But in-so-far as they organise their lives with reference to psychological ideas, and in-so-far as they limit their thoughts and actions to what they learn from psychology, they are denying the fundamental feminist principle that "the personal is political."

Feminist Reprise thanks Kya for her help in readying this article for the site.