Would you Support me? Introduction to Radical Feminist Therapy
Presentation
On May 17th we will present the work Aktionsposter FORT by Feminist Health Care Research Group (Inga Zimprich) with illustrations by Joris Bas Bakker
Workshop
"Do people with problems in living really have an 'illness'? The medical model makes psychiatrists a healthy élite. It makes the patients an oppressed class." (Michael Glenn: On Training Therapists. In The Radical Therapist. Therapy means Change not adjustment. 1974, Penguin)
Radical Therapy emerged during the 70ies amongst American therapists who were aiming to share therapeutic skills as means of social empowerment. In Radical Therapy problem solving skills were perceived as liberating tools in social struggles, as means to analyze and rework patterns of internalized oppression collectively while taking their social dimension into view. Applied to feminist practice Hogie Wyckhoff’s handbook Solving Women’s Problems – Through Awareness, Action & Contact (1977) also inspired European feminists to set up and run numerous self-help groups and problem solving groups for women*.
Today Radical Therapy groups are in practice and are newly initiated on a continuous bases. FORT (Radical Therapy for Women), Queer and Trans groups and Radical Therapy for Men (MRT) exist. Radical Therapy today is a self-organized, leaderless and self-empowering therapeutic practice, which is passed on non-commercially.
In this workshop we would like to speak about Radical Therapy as a means which enables us to rework patterns, role models and internalized oppression collectively; as a tool if you will, which enables us to attend to needed emotional labour. We would like to share perspectives on Radical Therapy’s historic background and we will practically try out methods, games and tools of Radical Therapy. We’d like to speak about how RT groups can be set up and run.
