Women's Growth In Diversity: More Writings from the Stone Center / Edition 1

by Judith V. Jordan PhD

Overview

In a society that attaches prime importance to individual achievement, the connectedness of women's experience has traditionally been undervalued. Striving toward a more accurate representation of women's psychological development, the Stone Center at Wellesley College has become well known for its exploration of women's ways of defining themselves in relation to others. This new collection builds on the foundations laid by the widely acclaimed Women's Growth In Connection to further describe the relational perspective, devoting special attention to the diversity of women's experience. Its 15 thoughtful and clearly written chapters offer fresh insights on vital issues including sexuality, shame, anger, depression, power relations between women, and women's experiences in therapy, and make engaging reading for anyone/m-/female or male/m-/interested in increasing connectedness at a personal and societal level.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781572302068
Publisher:	Guilford Publications, Inc.
Publication date:	03/15/1997
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	342
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Judith Jordan, Ph.D., is Director of Training and Founding Scholar at the Jean Baker Miller Institute, the Stone Center, Wellesley College, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.

Table of Contents

Introduction, Judith V. Jordan
1. A Relational Perspective for Understanding Women's Development, Judith V. Jordan
2. Some Misconceptions and Reconceptions of a Relational Approach, Jean Baker Miller, Judith V. Jordan, Alexandra G. Kaplan, Irene P. Stiver, and Janet L. Surrey
3. Clarity in Connection: Empathic Knowing, Desire, and Sexuality, Judith V. Jordan
4. Clinical Applications of the Stone Center Theoretical Approach to Minority Women, Clevonne W. Turner
5. Racial Identity Development and Relational Theory: The Case of Black Women in White Communities, Beverly Daniel Tatum
6. The Conundrum of Mutuality: A Lesbian Dialogue, Natalie S. Eldridge, Julie Mencher, and Suzanne Slater
7. Relational Development: Therapeutic Implications of Empathy and Shame, Judith V. Jordan
8. Psychosocial Barriers to Black Women's Career Development, Clevonne W. Turner
9. Building Connection through Diversity, Cynthia Garcia Coll, Robin Cook-Nobles, and Janet L. Surrey
10. Revisioning Women's Anger: The Personal and the Global, Jean Baker Miller and Janet L. Surrey
11. From Depression to Sadness in Women's Psychotherapy, Irene P. Stiver and Jean Baker Miller
12. The Integration of Sexuality: Lesbians and Their Mothers, Wendy B. Rosen
13. The Woman-Man Relationship: Impasses and Possibilities, Stephen J. Bergman and Janet L. Surrey
14. A Relational Approach to Therapeutic Impasses, Irene P. Stiver
15. Intimacy in Lesbian Relationships: A Critical Reexamination of Fusion, Julie Mencher

Interviews

For anyone interested in the psychology of women, while also serving as a text for undergraduate and graduate-level courses in women's studies, the psychology of women, the psychology of gender, and developmental psychology.

Editorial Reviews

"A significant contribution to the psychological literature. This work advances the move toward more inclusive conceptualizations of women's psychologies, their relationships and their experiences. An excellent book for course adoption in graduate and undergraduate courses in women's studies." —Beverly Greene, PhD, Professor of Psychology, St. John's University; Private Clinical Practice

"This excellent, important collection shows the vitality of the Stone Center Project and reveals the development of a revolutionary women's psychology. Diversity is the human condition and these papers take substantial steps toward bringing it into central focus." —Carol Gilligan, PhD, Author of In A Different Voice; Professor, Harvard School of Education

"A brilliant and essential book, grounded in compassion and rooted in the real world of female experience. Once again the work of the Stone Center gives us a more accurate and enriched view of women, charting provocative new directions not only for therapists, but for all who seek a deeper understanding of female development and the human condition." —Harriet Lerner, PhD, Author of The Dance of Anger; Senior staff psychologist, Menninger Clinic
 

From the Publisher

"Explores women in relation to their social environment, and their relationships as well as their inner lives....It is a veritable breath of fresh air and a necessary tool to effect change and growth for women."

Herizons

The psychologists at the Stone Center, a learning and counseling center at Wellesley College, Massachusetts, first published Women's Growth in Connection (Guilford, 1991). Like that book, their new work on women's psychological developmentalong with the work of other well-known theorists Jean Baker Miller and Carol Gilliganis part of a revolution in our ideas about self-development. Instead of believing that a strong self is developed by becoming as independent as possible, editor Jordan and her colleagues feel that a woman's sense of self grows "in becoming a part of relationship rather than apart from relationship." This second volume of essays addresses the experiences of women who are diverse in terms of ethnicity, culture, sexual orientation, age, and class in such pieces as "Racial Identity Development and Relational Theory: The Case of Black Women in White Communities" and "Building Connection through Diversity." Representing some of the more interesting radical ideas in psychological theory today, this collection is highly recommended for all libraries.Barbara O'Hara, Free Lib. of Philadelphia

Library Journal