Feminism & Psychology

Moral issues have rarely been an explicit topic when family violence has been discussed in psychological literature. This article contributes to this topic through a detailed analysis of the transcripts of a counselling session on domestic violence, with special emphasis placed on how complex issues of morality are dialogically managed by the participants. It is shown that the morality of counselling is not explicit, but is constructed by various cautious and indirect conversational devices. In the analysed conversation it was possible for the counsellor to ‘prescribe’ a normative morality only if this was done indirectly and discreetly. The function of these various delicate discursive techniques was to avoid attributing to the client the notion of ‘weak agency’, which was regarded as morally undesirable. We argue that on a global level the discursive techniques in use functioned to reinstate the institution of counselling as a liberal practice that respects the client’s autonomy. It is argued that the morality of counselling is constructed so as to preserve the moral agency of a client, while at the same time ‘prescribing’ the ideal of a ‘good life’. The analysis draws attention to how the counsellor manages the tension between the notions of a good life, as constructed by normative and public ethics, and, on the other hand, the consideration of the client’s right to make her own decisions in her personal life, as advocated in recent discussions in the field of counselling on domestic violence. The implications for good practice are discussed.

Feminist research methodology is a subject that is often under wide debate, with both theorists and researchers offering various guidelines for conducting feminist research. Current writings in the field suggest that feminist research is moving towards pluralistic models that acknowledge and take into account the fact that feminism is not monolithic in its politics or philosophy. However, a review of the literature suggests that, within this pluralistic framework, there are some common principles of feminist research that cut across the different methodologies used in social science. The focus of this article is to discuss these common principles of feminist research and illustrate how they guided the development of a cognitive scale for functional bowel disorders.

This article explores the ways in which the DSM-IV Casebook constructs gender and race/ethnicity in depictions of individuals with mental illness. Analyses indicated that the case studies were gendered in accordance with socially sanctioned descriptions of women and men, with women more likely to be described negatively and in terms of physical attractiveness, and that women of color in particular were more likely to be sexualized. We argue that the studies in the Casebook contribute to a gendered and raced conceptualization of mental illness, and that these explicit definitions of pathology reflect implicit definitions of normalcy.