Counseling women

the long version

In this signal volume, Christie Neuger offers a new feminist paradigm for radical, effective, empowering counseling for women. She contends that pastors must take up the challenge of pastoral counseling, especially in light of the revolutionary pastoral implications of gender studies and feminist theology, as well as the continuing personal and social effects of sexism. The most sustained and systematic account to date, Neuger's model employs narrative psychotherapy -- a short-term, contextually sensitive, and teachable counseling structure. She espouses counseling in four phases: coming to voice, gaining clarity, making choices, and staying connected. Each is masterfully sketched and illustrated by a common therapeutic problem (e.g., intimate violence, depression, aging). Neuger's work promises to aid counselors "to help women resist and transform the negative effects of a woman-unfriendly culture" and so to reclaim their stories, their strength, and their lives.