ABSTRACT
At a recent conference of a national psychological association, there was an animated discussion on the appropriateness of usage of the term “feminist psychological counselling” 1 following my paper presentation on the topic. Though the reservations about a term such as feminism are well-worn history by now (Einwohner et al., 2000), the reluctance to accept a feminism-informed and influenced counselling intervention in India must be located in the context of a virtually absent relationship between feminism as a guiding philosophy and the teaching and practice of psychotherapies/counselling. Given the fact that there is, to all intents and purposes, no information available so far on whether and how feminist counselling is practised in India, this chapter attempts, first, to highlight the importance and need of employing feminist values in psychological practice by elaborating on the values and goals of feminist counselling and, second, to underscore what I consider to be primary issues that women in psychological distress bring to the counselling situation. Once again, as in Chapter 5, a key caveat is that the chapter focuses centrally on women, considering that the origins of feminist counselling lay in addressing women’s psychological distress. The purpose of including this chapter in this volume is to provide an illustration of a psychological intervention that has spawned from feminist philosophy, is closely associated with its goals, and, as such, bridges the structural and the personal.
