Keeping and crossing professional and racialized boundaries - Implicationsfor feminist practice

Citation
G. Aitken et E. Burman, Keeping and crossing professional and racialized boundaries - Implicationsfor feminist practice, PSYCHOL WOM, 23(2), 1999, pp. 277-297
Citations number
37
Categorie Soggetti
Psycology
Journal title
PSYCHOLOGY OF WOMEN QUARTERLY
ISSN journal
03616843 → ACNP
Volume
23
Issue
2
Year of publication
1999
Pages
277 - 297
Database
ISI
SICI code
0361-6843(199906)23:2<277:KACPAR>2.0.ZU;2-P
Abstract
In this article we reflect on the process of a white woman researching a Bl ack woman's experiences of engaging in clinical psychology services. This i nvolved interviewing both a Black woman client and her white woman therapis t four times over an 11-month therapy period. We discuss issues of identifi cations and relationships, the interface between research and therapy, and professional and ethical responsibilities of disclosures arising from this particular study in relation to general debates about feminist research. Ra ther than presuming that feminist research involves identifications between women or the aim of dissolving power relations, we highlight how issues of power and difference form a continuous topic and site of negotiation withi n the research relationship. We explore how this parallels and informs the therapy process. Despite differences in structural relations of privilege a nd power and reservations about feminist research practices around disclosu re, we argue that fruitful consequences can follow from an explicit acknowl edgment of the multiple identifications and institutional positions all par ticipants occupy within research relationships. These include dimensions of difference between women structured around race, class, and professional-c lient relations.