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Racism in the Lives of Women

Testimony, Theory, and Guides to Antiracist Practice

• By Ellen Cole, Esther D. Rothblum, Donald B. Mahoney, Martha Mahoney

• Price: $42.95
• Binding: Paperback (also available in Hardback)
• Pages: 385
• Published by: Routledge
• Publication Date: 8th May 1995
• ISBN: 978-1-56023-863-8

About the Book

This award-winning book touches the heart through its personal material as it engages the mind with its theoretical and practical approaches to antiracism in professional practice and in daily life. The authors are forthright and deal clearly with complex matters. Their insightful approach to anitracism earned the book the Distinguished Publication Award from the Association for Women in Psychology (1996).

The scope of Racism in the Lives of Women ranges from historic and contemporary life among the first nations on this continent to migrant and immigrant experiences in Canada and the U.S. Many, if not most, subjects are explored from the dual perspective of minority group members and of members of the dominant culture. The result is a spectrum with particular but not exclusive relevance for those who work with women in the area of mental health and for those in other disciplines who seek to enrich their work with psychological insights and understanding.

Both practitioners and advanced students of psychotherapy will find help in these pages for questions concerning racial and cultural differences and how to proceed without making matters worse. It is not merely a quick-fix book but rather a set of thought-provoking essays that can help well-meaning individuals turn good intentions into good behaviors.

Racism in the Lives of Women is important to mental health professionals and the topics covered include:

• issues of racism arising in teaching, training, and supervision
• connections between racism and violence against women
• critical analyses of essentialist theories of psychologies of women
• white women’s efforts to be antiracist
• difficulty and necessity of maintaining an antiracist perspective in antisexist family therapy
• biracial and bicultural identity formation
• developing an antiracist norm as part of feminist ethics

Table of Contents

Contents Preface

•  Part I: Testimony
•  Walking on Moonsands
• Salience of Loss and Marginality: Life Themes of “Immigrant Women of Color” in Canada
• Personal Recollections of an Anglo Therapist in Indian Country
•  A Bridge Over Troubled Waters: Being Eurasian in the U.S. of A.
• Racism in Academia: A Case Study
•  Some Painful Experiences of a White Feminist Therapist Doing Research With Women of Color
• A Japanese American Therapist Discovers Feminist Therapy
• Prison of Color
•  Raising White Children in a Racist Society
• Born Chinese and a Woman in America
•  Part II: Theory
• Institutional Racism in the Mental Health Professions
•  On Knowing You Are the Unknown: Women of Color Constructing Psychology
•  Anti-Racism as an Ethical Norm in Feminist Therapy Practice
•  Violence, Migration, and Compassionate Practice: Conversations With Some Latinas We Think We Know
• Double Positive: Lesbians and Race
• Sexism, Racism, and the Analogy Problem in Feminist Thought
•  Historical and Material Determinants of Psychodynamic Development
•  Part 3: Guides to Antiracist Practice
•  Cross-Cultural Awareness Development: An Aid to the Creation of Antiracist Feminist Therapy
•  Treatment Considerations When the Therapist Is the Minority in the Patient-Therapist Dyad
•  Racism and Violence Against Women
•  Psychotherapy With Chicanas at Midlife: Cultural/Clinical Considerations
•  Karuna Counseling: Transitions Within a Collective
•  The Full-Figured Black Woman: Issues of Racism and Sizism
• Understanding the Training Experiences of Asian American Women
•  Three Perspectives on Racism and Antisemitism in Feminist Organizations
•  1. Overcoming Bias Through Awareness, Mutual Encouragement and Commitment
• 2. An African American Perspective on Racism and Antisemitism
• 3. In the Beginning--Again
•  Rethinking the Role of Guilt and Shame in White Women’s Antiracism Work
•  On Becoming One’s Own Theorist: A Puerto Rican Journey Toward Antiracist and Antisexist Family Therapy
• Part IV: Testimony, Theory, and Practice
• So She May Walk in Balance: Integrating the Impact of Historical Trauma in the Treatment of Native American Women
•  Reference Notes Included
• Index