G. Aitken et E. Burman, Keeping and crossing professional and racialized boundaries - Implicationsfor feminist practice, PSYCHOL WOM, 23(2), 1999, pp. 277-297
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.