The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy

International Examinations of Family Policy

Address the issues vital for women and their families

To be most effective, family therapists need to understand precisely what policies are in place and how they influence families and their relationships. The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy: International Examinations of Family Policy provides an interdisciplinary look at family public and social policies and the influence they have on families around the globe-all from a feminist perspective. Diverse international family policy experts discuss policies family therapists need to know covering gender, ethnicity, religion, and age, and the effects on women and their families.

As international family public policy shifts and changes, women and their families’ lives are altered in substantial and very personal ways. The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy gives therapists a clear view of policies and diverse issues involving family policy, family relationships, and mental health. The book reveals the interaction between policy and practice, interdependence as a principle of child and family policy, ways to increase women’s labor force participation without causing a fall in birth rates, and intergenerational equity debates around the world. Qualitative studies are presented detailing women’s experiences of family policies’ effects on their lives, including their resiliency in times of disruption and their viewpoints on life-altering events that are used to disempower them.

Topics in The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy include:

• the interaction of British social policy with feminist practice

• supportive rather than punitive interventions in the lives of families

• an examination of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s Babies and Bosses report

• evaluation of international family policies of elder care

• research into women’s roles and the way they are shaped in areas of conflict

• research on Puerto Rican and Dominican women’s perceptions of divorce

The Politics of the Personal in Feminist Family Therapy is timely, stimulating reading for psychotherapists, family therapists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, feminists/womanists, sociologists, educators and students in family studies, women’s studies, gender studies, and war studies, and professionals in family policy and family law.