Feminism and Talking Therapies
Hattie Ocal; Counsellor, Supervisor, and Feminist https://hattieocal.co.uk
I have always been thinking outside of the box and standing up for justice, liberty, and equality in the way I have seen conceivable. Since living in London, I have been quietly observing and examining the way that different cultures work in the UK: the English, Irish, Wales, Scottish, as well as other ethnic minorities e.g., Black and Indian communities. In particular, it is political identities and their intersectional dynamics that have fascinated me for a long time because I am interested in meaningful interactions and political debates. I gained a great deal of strength and energy by getting to know and better understand British political history. My personal political position lied on the left and mainly the Labour Party line until Tony Blair came on to the political scene. I witnessed the destruction of the Labour Party by Tony Blair when he fabricated lies to invade Iraq with his very right-wing American ally, George W. Bush.
Growing up in Turkey in the 1960s with more than a few ethics and dogmas imposed on women; and as a young woman at the time, I constantly felt repressed and stifled. I had been trying to figure out why. I thought I was too young to understand what it meant to be a girl so I waited to grow up and continued to do so with deep pain going through my veins every day. This has never lessened as I grew and learned more about who I was and why I felt the way I did. Whilst constant belittling and undermining of women was an everyday experience that I had to go through, I became a rebel or a supposedly badly-behaved child in my family and also a misfit amongst my social circle because girls were supposed to be nice and obedient. During the ebbs and flows in my struggle to find a way through, I concluded that I was born and brought up in the wrong place. It was a matter of ‘in the wrong place at the wrong time’, as I was surrounded by a deeply misogynist and patriarchal culture.
Along my journey to find a better place, I ended up in London mid-1980s. I was euphoric in the first few months and years of my arrival which reflected the time and spirit in London and in the western world in general: the continuation of the sexual revolution of the 1960s and 1970s—‘sex, drugs, and rock and roll’. I loved it: the clubs and the dance scene and freedom to an infinite degree. A life here in London was my dream come true: it became my sanctuary until not so long before I began to feel that it is not any different than the culture I escaped from – except, it is more deceptive and subtle in its formation in which women have been seen and treated on a daily basis. I saw women made to look like sex objects, pushed around on dance floors, hassled and harassed for sex, and so on. I realised that it is the same old misogyny and male power all around me. Since being in therapy to heal myself and since I decided to become a person-centred therapist in the UK, I could not help the sense of fury running through my body and my mind. I sensed that it was through my therapeutic work I manage to cope with the incessant degrading of my own sense of self and women in general: in everyday sexism which is deeply ingrained in the culture and sadly has been normalised to an extent it is implanted in each individual’s subconscious.
Over the years of my practice, the concept of ‘congruence’ has lost its credibility for me—when I know that almost everything the system tells me is a lie. When I am with my client and I know from the deeper level of my consciousness that fairness and gender equality is lacking in my client’s life. I know that every female client is objectively disadvantaged in life due to the misogynist culture. It seems to me that the constant systemic focus on wars is an intentional deviation from the real issue of global gender inequality. I can’t help feeling that my congruence is naturally in tatters unless I find a channel through venting one way or another. Above all, do I do my job as a therapist in the way that I say I do? From the point of view of my feminism, I question the integrity of some of the therapeutic modalities, as critiqued in the past by various feminist scholars like Juliet Mitchel and Luce Irigaray. For example; psychodynamic/psychoanalytic theory was rooted in Freud’s sexist ideas, and traces of this sexism still remain in the theory and practice of it today. But, most importantly, do we dare critique it? Freudian psychotherapy remains one of the most respected therapeutic model in the field of psychotherapy today.
Feminist movements, in particular, the second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s, were belligerent to psychoanalysis: they viewed it as a major factor in the oppression of women within misogynist culture. The issues that feminists challenged mainly centred on the association of masculinity with activity and femininity with passivity; Freud’s emphasis on ‘penis envy’ in women, female masochism, and other theories have their roots in the fabrication of a patriarchal society—not only in the UK but in the Western world in general. In the same way when psychologist and self-help author John Gray wrote Men are from Mars and women are from Venus, men are portrayed as fundamentally strong, aggressive, logical, emotionally cool, and socially dominant risk takers whereas women are empathic, compassionate, communicative, and nurturing. These old stereotypic characterizations did not seem to strike any resistance at the time in the field of psychology. In addition, evolutionary psychologist dressed it up as scientific fact to maintain men as a dominant gender and women as less likely to resist domination. I remember, myself, liking Gray’s book and recommending it to my clients or friends. The field of psychotherapy today remain naturally part of the mainstream culture which is male dominated, chauvinist, and unchallenged by the majority. This, to me, is the calamity of our time and is so sad.
It is hard not to resent the system for the treatment of women—not only where I come from but globally, and especially in the UK where talking therapies are likely to be considered one of the primary approaches to mental health and wellbeing. I am hopeful that challenging the existing sexist therapeutic models become a cultural norm: easily and without reservation discussed to give way to more progressive and more gendered-balanced approaches. Can we then collaboratively practice an ethical and effective therapy? This can help us towards an ultimately authentic and congruent state of being. I do so hope that we can move towards building enough trust in each other to take meaningful steps towards becoming a stronger therapeutic community.
I leave you with Maya Angelou, whose books have captivated my imagination for so long:
I am a FEMINIST. I have been female for a long time now. I’d be stupid not to be on my side”.
