Feminist Principles
Andrea’s difficulties and problems in her two worlds show that she could not able to perform her duties, obligations, plans, and goals in her life. The main issue about Andrea is that she wanted to have both worlds – having a perfect family and a successful career. However, this became her shadow of darkness because both of these worlds suffer right through her hands. That is why the most basic situation that happened to Andrea is to become depress with her situation as a person, a mother, a wife, and a career woman.
1. Andrea’s marriage is merely the basic problem in this context. Her family and career life joined together to ruin her identity and individuality as a woman. Her husband did not support her anxieties and problems that occurred within her. That is why it can be said that her partner was a non-participant in her situation. ” When marital arrangements are inequitable in terms of power and decision-making, and household workloads are unevenly distributed, women continue to be disadvantaged (Worrel and Remer, 182).
” In opposition to what Andrea is trying to testify, she thought that she was discriminated and disadvantaged because she did not obtain what she think is ‘for her. ’ These issues are part of Andrea’s being and tangled situations. However, based on Andrea’s description of her present scenario, it can be seen that marriage for her in the beginning is not a major conflict for her goals and aspiration because she sets aside the needs of her partner for the thinking that he is just there by her side but her career could not wait.
It is then a justification that Andrea tried so hard to eliminate the social idea or notion towards women. Nevertheless, she became unsuccessful because she herself could not able to undermine the stress and difficulties that she currently experiencing. There are several factors emerged to Andrea’s depression – her personality, her family, her career, and her social environment. All of these issues are part of her depression that led her to uncontrollable weeping. Based on my own observation, I have seen three main issues that should be addressed to Andrea’s situation.
First, her personality – she wanted to level herself with the situation of her husband. In the field of Women Studies, it was said that women from the past and up to this generation are still behind or beneath men. Andrea wanted to deconstruct this idea so she strived hard to achieve her goal. However, nothing has change in the society because like Andrea’s case, the modern society still put women at the bottom of men’s victory and female prejudice. Second, her goals and plans in life – she wanted to aim and live higher than what she needs to expect.
She wanted perfection to be able to gain power. She is in need of self-satisfaction to be able to prove that she has the capability to be more than what other women can. “The low rate of positive outcomes is assumed to result in increasingly passive behavior and dysphoric mood, as the individual feels incapable of reaching personal goals and reacts with withdrawal and despair (Ibid, 184). ” Because of these factors, she became focused to her self-perfection and blinded by her personal plans and goals in life.
Lastly, her social environment – because she wanted to pursue the standard of the society, she tends to forget that small details of her life. She transferred her mind into a notion that she can disregard her being a mother for a while because she is in the level of her success in her job. 2. Feminist Principles and therapy will help Andrea to understand the underlying factors in her situation as a woman. This is to make Andrea understand why she is experiencing difficulties in life that brought failure to her individuality as woman and a wife.
The best principle that can be used towards Andrea’s issues is the Egalitarian relationship. This principle helps her to recognize the differences of being a man and a woman in a society. This is also to recognize how a person is capable of being what she truly wanted despite of the dictations of the society towards or against her. However, the main conflict here is that the relationship between Andrea and her husband that cannot be avoided by Andrea because her husband is not part of her growth and circumstances.
“In advocating egalitarian client–counselor relationships and counselor self-disclosure, Empowerment Feminist Therapy embraces a female perspective on the therapeutic process that conflicts with many beliefs of traditional therapies which are based on stereotyped male values (Feminist Transformation and Counseling Theories, 95). ” 3. Based on my understanding to Andrea’s situation and the cognitive-behavioral procedures, the most relevant among all the procedures are the coping skills, self-instructions, and stress inoculation. These three procedures are the best ways to make Andrea become more comfortable with her situation.
Because life is always a changing world, it shows that Andrea’s life and environment also changes. It only means that coping-skills, self-instructions, and stress inoculation will let Andrea feel her true side – her identity and the ways on how to ease the pain that she continue to comprehend. In coping skills, Andrea can have the understanding how she has gone through her life. She needs to strengthen her feelings and ideology to become aware of the things in her environment to be able to accept the facts of life. In self-instruction, Andrea needs to choose her path with freedom.
She needs to accelerate her mind and thoughts towards her obligations and purpose in life not on what she needs to become. In stress inoculation, Andrea needs to realize that stress builds all her anxieties in life. Therefore, to be able to recover from extreme stress that she experienced, she needs to be vaccinated with good ambiance and aura coming from other people and her environment. 4. Because Andrea’s husband is a non-participant of her situation, it is a big circumstance or problem for her. However, the main thing that needs to consider is the need to know Andrea’s wholeness.
The most basic thing that needs to construct in Andrea’s life is her being. It is more important that making her husband capable of knowing her as a wife and a woman. “Women are frequently unaware of how their automatic thoughts and behaviors are shaped and maintained by the gender-driven expectations of others (Ibid, 185). ” It is true as what Worrel and Remer said in their research. Therefore, it is important to make Andrea feel that despite of her husband’s criticism and being a non-participant, she needs to move her life and exit from the darkness of stress and defeat. 5.
I can say that based on Worell and Remer’s model of intervention, the best crisis intervention approach that fits to women who experience depression is the conflicted interpersonal behavior because it is a wide range that talks about the social conflicts and beings of a person within her environment. Feminist Principles become included in this crisis intervention because it gives the probability to gain the strength and new identity of women during their extreme stress. As the feminist principles work, the crisis intervention will make each understanding reliable and conducive to the patient.
For me, the crisis intervention that might not fit is the material burden because this is not really a problem at all because big percentage of women are already stable because of their husband or partner. Therefore, it is less pressure for women to think of their finances rather than their personal needs and achievements. References Worrel and Remer. (date). Feminist Perspective in Therapy. pp. 171-194. (date). “A Feminist View of Counseling and Therapy. ” pp. 91-134.
