Counseling Women Across the Life Span: Empowerment, Advocacy, and Intervention

This book, the first comprehensive text to focus specifically on counseling women and girls, provides a sweeping overview of female lifespan development and issues and offers a unique integration of prevention, advocacy, and interventions. Containing contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in diverse fields, it provides information, resources, and practical suggestions for how counselors can both help individual women and girls to be empowered to live as their authentic selves, as well as engage as effective collaborators in addressing societal inequities. With a strong focus on empowerment and adherence to a social justice framework, the book highlights the value of mental health practitioners employing strengths-based approaches and advocating for systemic change. Based on a foundation of understanding females' diverse, holistic development, the text explores the major theoretical approaches relevant to counseling and psychotherapy with women and girls. It then discusses the key issues faced by females at different developmental stages and describes appropriate counseling strategies for each, focusing on prevention as well as intervention. Specific concerns and strategies for women in different contexts, such as educational, physical health and body image concerns, and violence, are emphasized. Unique to the text is coverage of how men specifically can serve as allies and advocates in creating healthier and safer societies for women and girls. Replete with supporting features such as learning objectives, self-reflection prompts, personal narratives, discussion questions, abundant resources, and strategies for how professionals can serve as advocates and change agents, this book is an ideal core text for courses on counseling women or gender issues in counseling, social work, psychology, marriage and family therapy, and women's studies programs, as well as a useful resource for mental health practitioners. Key Features: Uniquely covers lifespan development and counseling issues, needs, and application for females across the lifespan Emphasizes advocacy, prevention, and practical intervention strategies Examines the contextual elements that affect the female experience including the oppressive structures in which they live Addresses global perspectives, diverse women, a social justice framework, and empowerment Includes learning objectives, first-person accounts, "Calls to Action," and self-reflection and discussion questions