Beyond the ordinary

A feminist idea on counselling

 

While I was training to become a therapist I was astounded and to be honest, disgusted, that we were still using so many outdated and sexist ideas from people such a Freud, who from all accounts was addicted to cocaine and had sex with his clients; women who were "Hysterical" in a time when women's rights were non existent and a woman could be sent to an insane asylum by a male family member, for almost no reason at all. 

I remember reading a book Called Basic Freud that had been on our reading list, and him describing the electra complex, the idea that a child had unconscious sexual desire for the opposite sex parent and hated the same sex parent. He had gathered this information from clients who had described sexual abuse and rather than listening to them and believing them, he claimed were "fantasising". He said girls and women were essential immoral liars and needed to be controlled by a man. 

As a survivor of childhood trauma I was utterly enraged and from that moment could never get behind the ideas Freud was touting. To me they were the ideas of a deeply unethical sexually deviant man, who did not deserve his place on the therapy thrown. He was just another dirty old man who thought his ideas were above everyone else's, and shouted the loudest. Cos we haven't seen that dynamic played out recently, have we....

 

Move forward to the current day and we are seeing a huge amount of women deeply traumatised due to sexual abuse, domestic violence, every day sexist, a justice system also outdated, that does not protect us and women who are trying to do it all, as usual, while being shamed by the so-called manosphere.

Shamed for having children, shamed for not having children, having rights taken from us such as abortion health care. Medicine and medical research still not working with the female body in mind. Encouraging the use of contraceptives that harm us, and taking up to 10 years to diagnose gynaecological issues such a endometriosis while spending millions on erectile dysfunction research. 

This is why a feminist approach to therapy must exist, because to understand the mental load, the rage and the sadness, the utter shock, disbelief and trauma that our minds, bodies and souls have to endure, we need a therapeutic approach to see through the eyes of women. The healers, the creators, the community leaders and sharers, who keep this world turning whilst its burning.