What makes feminist knowledge legitimate for therapists? A study of Swedish child psychotherapists

Abstract

This study investigated what it is like to be a feminist clinical psychologist in a country with a long commitment to gender equality. We studied how two Swedish clinical child psychologists committed to promoting gender equality talked about issues of gender and inequality in their clinical work. We identified three interpretative repertoires that formed the basis of these clinicians' talk about gender and gender equality: a repertoire built on ideas about basic inherent differences between boys and girls, but nonetheless valuing boys and girls equally; a repertoire emphasizing similar treatment, built on the assumption that gender is of no importance, and that everybody has equal value; and a repertoire built on views of girls and boys as unequally valued by society at large. Both clinicians drew upon all three repertoires. However, they used the repertoires in starkly different ways depending on whether they assumed that knowledge that presupposes gendered power structures can be considered legitimate professional knowledge.