From: urk_vagh@yahoo.com

To: POWR-L@LISTSERV.URI.EDU

Subject: Re: feminist therapy referral

Date: Friday, April 9, 2010, 9:47 PM -0700

 

Thanks Gjm:

On Fri, 4/9/10, Gjm wrote:

I was just wondering if when asking for referrals, we can be a little more vague on a client's/potential client's personal details, e.g. instead of specific occupations say something more generic like "professional". I just worry about personal information on the internet, particularly private mental health information.

I'm not a clinical practitioner, but rather an advocate. In the "client/survivor" movement, we engage the question of "what is personal" differently than in the professional psychology world. We feel that we tend to be stereotyped by the psychodiagnostic approach to our ways of being. (For an insightful commentary, see Paula Caplan's page on the AWPSYCH.ORG website, regarding "Bias in Psychiatric Diagnosis.")

Generically I agree with you about "personal information on the internet." But here we are hoping for a kind of linkage that goes back strongly to the values of feminism and where the relating question won't get hidden behind what Foucault calls the "clinical gaze." I imagine true privacy will have to be constructed by the joint efforts of my friend and her therapist.

So I will respect your concern; it's just that as "client/survivor" activists we commonly find ourselves "out there" more than is easy or straightforward to manage.

 

Best

Andrew Phelps