Jean Baker Miller Research Articles

Mentoring and Supervision for Women of Color Leaders in North American Higher Education

Reflecting on their mentoring and supervision experiences as Latina and Black women leaders in higher education, this article proposes that Women of Color employees are more effective when supervisors give them space to draw upon their own rich histories and cultural wealth in their professional lives. Viewed through the lens of Relational Cultural Theory, which grew out of the work of Jean Baker Miller and colleagues providing culturally relevant, affirmative supervision is a growth-fostering experience for both employee and supervisor. The tenants of RCT include authenticity, growth-fostering relationships, mutual empathy, and mutual empowerment as aspects of supervision that are particularly effective for employees with multiple intersected identities working in higher education spaces. The authors make recommendations for supervisor training that would allow supervisors to draw upon the cultural capital of their diverse employees to provide healing from oppression and build resilience through validation of cultural assets and approaches to leadership.

Relational-cultural Theory as a Framework for Mentoring in Academia: Toward Diversity and Growth-fostering Collaborative Scholarly Relationships

Mentoring in academia that encourages collaboration and interpersonal relationships is important in helping newer faculty members attain success. Developing such programs is challenging within our prevailing academic context that rewards competition and individually delineated success. We propose that Relational Cultural Theory, a feminist approach to healthy psychological growth, developed by Jean Baker Miller and colleagues at the Stone Center at Wellesley College, is an appropriate framework to guide effective mentoring programs, with a particular focus on cross-cultural mentoring of protégés in academia who are women and/or of color. We suggest the traditionally individual-oriented definition of success in academia could be modified toward more emphasis on collaboration, recognizing, and celebrating the rich diversity within academia. This emphasis can strengthen organizations by increasing and embracing diversity, adding to the richness of ideas and approaches to societal problems. Mentoring is defined through an expanded view that recognizes healthy collaboration as an indicator of success in academia.

Introduction to the Special Section on Relational‐Cultural Theory

20/20: A Vision for the Future of Counseling was task force of 31 member organizations sponsored by the American Counseling Association (ACA) and the American Association of State Counseling Boards designed to address the needs of the counseling profession. The task force focused on issues that would move the profession of counseling forward, including consensus around the definition of counseling (Kaplan, Tarvydas, & Gladding, 2014). Through this work, counseling was defined as a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families, and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals (Kaplan et al., 2014, p. 366). This definition is distinctive to professional counselors and salient in that the relationship is also empirically identified as integral to counseling success (Norcross & Wampold, 2011). In forums across the profession of counseling, counselors working in diverse settings and across all populations are encouraged to be mindful of the professional relationship and to ethically develop these relationships in their work with clients. Therefore, identifying theories that guide professional counselors in forming professional relationships is particularly significant. Relational-cultural theory (RCT), theory whose focus is on developing growth-fostering relationships, is the focus of this special section of the Journal of Counseling & Development (JCD). RCT pioneers Jean Baker Miller, Irene Stiver, Jan Surrey, and Judith Jordan created clinical study group in the 1970s in which they shared their thoughts and experiences related to how people grow. Over time, they developed RCT as model of human development and established the Stone Center at Wellesley College, where scholars continue to study, train, and practice RCT today (Jordan, 2010). Although RCT's initial and primary focus was on women and members of marginalized populations, it now includes men. Central to this theory is the premise that human growth develops in connection with others rather than through separation and individuation (Comstock et al., 2008; Duffey & Somody, 2011; Jordan, 2001, 2010). RCT (a) challenges traditional models of development with respect to the definition of growth, (b) speaks to ways that people respond to relational and cultural adversity, and (c) illustrates the impact that chronic loss and disconnection can have on people's lives and relationships (Jordan, 2010). Furthermore, RCT provides context for counselors when discussing multicultural and gender issues or when conceptualizing and humanizing challenging clinical cases. Its depathologizing perspective affords framework for the many issues that clients bring to counseling, including issues of power, privilege, marginalization, stigmatization, belonging, and acceptance. Although this introduction to the special section cannot provide an in-depth discussion on RCT, included is brief discourse on some of the approach's salient principles. Readers may consult other works (Jordan, 2010; Miller, 1976) for more nuanced and comprehensive coverage of RCT's development, evolution, and implementation. The Self: What Determines Growth Traditional models of mental health often focus on the concept of the self, or part of person that is first developed and nurtured, usually through socialization by the family of origin, and then through early social, cognitive, and emotional learning experiences (Jordan, 2010). This construct supports the primacy of self-sufficiency. From this premise, the separate self is developed and then protected until it reaches maturation and can thrive autonomously on its own (Jordan, 2010). Following this framework, person's achievements, thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are all framed from the perspective of the self (Jordan, 2010). Alternatively, RCT posits that growth occurs within relationships and identifies connection as the center point for growth (Jordan, 2010). …

How Change Happens: Controlling Images, Mutuality, and Power

SUMMARY Change is inevitable but it can go in a positive direction toward growth or in a negative direction. Extending Patricia Hill Collins' concept of controlling images (2000), we can see how these images interact with relational images and strategies of disconnection to obstruct growth on both the societal and the personal level. In therapy, change is defined as movement-in-relationship toward better connection; and increased connection leads to growth. Several aspects of therapy that lead to deeper and wider connection are explored, especially increasing the patient's power. Prior versions of parts of this article were presented at the Jean Baker Miller Summer Training Institutes in 2001 and 2002 and at the 2002 Learning from Women Conference sponsored by the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute and the Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. As therapists, we're “in the business” of change–change for the better. That's our goal. Another word for change for the better is growth. Change is the essence of life. It is most obvious in children but it is a necessity through all of life. Change will occur inevitably but it can go in a positive or a negative direction. Further, I believe change toward growth creates pleasure. We feel most alive and zestful when we are engaged in this expanding activity.

Valuing Vulnerability: New Definitions of Courage

SUMMARY In a dominant, Western culture that celebrates strength in separation and holds unrealistic expectations for independent, autonomous functioning, vulnerability is seen as a handicap. This system creates the illusion of an invulnerable and separate self, and uses individualistic standards to measure a person's worth. Since these unrealistic expectations cannot be humanly attained, these controlling images become the source of shame and disconnection. RCT suggests that there is value in embracing vulnerability and in providing support, both at an individual and a societal level, for the inevitable vulnerability of all people. Rather than espousing the individual, mostly mythical, traits of a “lone hero,” RCT moves us toward new and important pathways to resilience and courage through connection. A version of this article was originally presented at the 2002 Learning from Women Conference, co-sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute.

Telling the Truth About Power

SUMMARY In this culture, those in power do not usually talk about it and the rest of us tend not to recognize it either. A similar situation exists in therapy, where the therapist herself may not be aware of her own power-over tactics. This article suggests methods that may help therapists to acknowledge their power and also to change from power-over actions to mutually empowering relationships. From this line of thinking, there follows an exploration of altering the concept of boundaries in therapy into mutually constructed agreements between patient and therapist. This article was presented at the Summer Training Institute of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute, June, 2003.

Learning at the Margin: New Models of Strength

SUMMARY This article was originally presented at the April, 2000 Learning from Women Conference sponsored by the Harvard Medical School and the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. It explores the ways in which marginalization and the use of power-over maneuvers and privilege contribute to disconnection at a personal and societal level. Strength in vulnerability is proposed as an alternative to strength in isolation. The author suggests that courage is created in connection and the distorting effects of the myth of the separate-self must be challenged in order to appreciate the power of connection. This article examines specific ways to resist the disconnecting and disempowering effects of hyper-individualistic values both in and out of therapy.

Commitment to Connection in a Culture of Fear

SUMMARY This article was originally presented at the May 2004 Learning from Women Conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School and the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute. It examines the ways in which cultural and personal denial of fear and vulnerability contribute to a sense of isolation. Fear is manipulated in hierarchical settings to ensure the preservation of existing power arrangements. In a culture built on exploitation of fear, people do not experience the safety necessary to let their inevitable vulnerabilities show. Unmitigated chronic fear is an unsafe context that leads to a traumatic sense of disempowerment and personal immobilization, whether it is in war, childhood sexual abuse, living with a battering partner, or, perhaps in a more subtle way, in being immersed in massages of un-safety, danger, and having no influence in the larger public domain. Through mutual empathy we can heal these places of fear and disconnection. Mutual empathy arises in a context of profound respect, authentic responsiveness, humility, non-defensiveness, an attitude of curiosity, mindfulness (staying with the “not knowing”), and an appreciation of the power of learning. Movement out of isolation helps us pass through fear to hope and ultimately leads to growth and more connection.

Power and Effectiveness: Envisioning an Alternate Paradigm

SUMMARY Relational-Cultural Theory provides a straightforward and elegant definition of power; it is the capacity to produce change. The implication of this framework is that power is the energy of competence in everyday living. However, in a culture stratified along multiple dimensions-race, class, and sexual orientation to name a few–power is associated with hyper-competitiveness and deterministic control. The article begins by examining the “protective illusions” of the power-over paradigm, where humanity is rank ordered according to perceived cultural value and is stratified into groups of greater than and less than. In addition to exposing the false dichotomies of power-over arrangements, the article examines the destructive consequences of cultural disconnection, on both the putative winners and the losers. Examples from organizational practice, clinical relationships, and socio-political contexts are used to illustrate the Relational-Cultural Model in action. Specifically, scenarios are presented from the standpoint of the politically disempowered to demonstrate the relational competencies of empathic attunement, authenticity, and accountability that foster healing, resilience, and mutual empowerment. This article was originally presented at the 2002 Spring Training Institute sponsored by the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute at Wellesley College.

II. Personal Reflections on the Impact of Jean Baker Miller's Work

On a variety of occasions throughout the second edition of Toward a New Psychology of Women (1986), Jean Baker Miller refers to women who spoke or wrote to her following the publication of the first edition (1976). They had contacted her to let her know how the book had impacted on their lives, altering the way they understood the world and themselves, even when they didn't agree with all aspects of her analysis. In this article, we present reflections from two such individuals, whose personal and professional perspectives were deeply affected by the ideas presented in a book only 150 pages in length. The fact that the authors come from two different countries demonstrates that, even early on, Miller's ideas were having an international impact.

III. `Superserviceable Feminism': Revisiting Toward a New Psychology of Women

In the academy, it has become customary to deconstruct, critique, and ultimately dismiss much of the academic production that precedes us. But viewing classic writings with a critical, contemporary eye can, regrettably, lead to the dismissal of some great contributions by earlier writers who may have captured nascent insights into their subject of study. This trend of debunking earlier academic work has, from my perspective, increased perilously in the past decade, stifling the field of feminist studies in general and feminist psychology in particular. When the current debates on feminism center on whether the field and the social movement should exist at all (Scott, 2008), it is refreshing to return to a more radical era when, as we say in Spanish, someone wrote ‘sin pelos en la lengua’.1 In Toward a New Psychology of Women (1986[1976]), Jean Baker Miller writes frankly about gender differences and distributions of power between wellto-do, heterosexual, white women and men. The limitations of Miller’s sample in no way diminishes the importance of her astute observations and the usefulness of her scholarship. My assertions about the value of her work are based on three overarching principles of intellectual production – the use of relational dovetailing as method, the connection between personal disadvantage and structural disadvantage, and the persistent devaluation of ‘women’s work’ – all principal mechanisms that unfortunately have been lost or marginalized in contemporary debates in feminist scholarship but all still deserving of merit. Miller’s prescient thoughts on women’s work reflect the thinking that exists even today regarding women’s values and their wide-ranging service to society.

Editor's Introduction: Reflections on the Work of Feminist Theorist Jean Baker Miller

Editor's Introduction: Reflections on the Work of Feminist Theorist Jean Baker Miller

This Changes Everything: The Relational Revolution in Psychology

This Changes Everything: The Relational Revolution in Psychology

The Complexity of connection: writings from the Stone Center's Jean Baker Miller Training Institute

The Complexity of connection: writings from the Stone Center's Jean Baker Miller Training Institute

Maslow and Miller: An Exploration of Gender and Affiliation in the Journey to Competence

This article shows that although neither Abraham Maslow nor Jean Baker Miller reference each other in their writings, they are following different paths to the same conclusion: competence proceeds from connection. Miller and Maslow both describe a developmental model that applies equally to women and men. The conclusion of the authors of this article is that there is no need for separate developmental models for men and women because all self-actualization and optimum mental health evolves from affiliation.

Abortion in the Web of Relationship: Negotiating the Abortion Decision Through a Lens of Care

Does the public abortion debate in the United States bear any relation to women’s private discourse about their abortion experiences? In this work—a qualitative study of the abortion narratives of 20 women—I argue that the familiar pro-choice and pro-life frameworks that have dominated public abortion discourse do not begin to provide a suitable forum for the collective expression and understanding of women’s personal abortion stories. By focusing on the conflicting rights of the parties involved, these frameworks leave us poorly equipped to understand how women experience abortion as members of social networks where interdependence and connection are important. While the debate emphasizes conflicting rights, women articulate their experiences with abortion in ways that emphasize relationship, care, and connection to others. By drawing on the work of theorists such as Dorothy Smith, Jean Baker Miller, Carol Gilligan, and Georg Simmel, I illuminate the misappropriation of women’s abortion experience in the public debate, relating this phenomenon to the social-structural context in which it and other exclusions of subordinate groups occur.

The Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to Kristeva

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book Forum: Mood DisordersFull AccessThe Nature of Melancholy: From Aristotle to KristevaGORDON PARKER, M.D., PH.D., D.SC., GORDON PARKERSearch for more papers by this author, M.D., PH.D., D.SC., Sydney, AustraliaPublished Online:1 Aug 2002https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.159.8.1444AboutSectionsPDF/EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail Jennifer Radden, a professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, has produced an informative anthology capturing nuances of melancholy and melancholia. Part 1 of this book (Aristotle to Freud) has 25 authors, joining (in part 2, After Freud) seven post-Freud writers. In addition to expected contributors, Radden includes literary passages by Goethe, Keats, and Baudelaire, as well as more polemical pieces by Jean Baker Miller and Julia Kristeva.Such a heterogeneous mix is not unreasonable when “melancholy” (as a temperament style with romantic and creative connotations) was often intertwined with clinical “melancholia.” Radden’s inclusion of many artistic depictions underscores that point and distinctly enriches the introduction.As in any anthology, it is tempting to quibble with the inclusion and exclusion criteria—here the inclusion of some authors whose model of “depression” does not stretch to melancholia and the exclusion of the more contemporary writings of Stanley Jackson and German Berrios. Jackson’s monograph (1) remains a classic, providing a rich historical overview of the same topic.Both Jackson and Berrios (2) emphasized the long-standing historical description of melancholia (from the time of the Ancients to early in the 20th century) as being as much a movement disorder as a mood disorder—a view recently reargued (3). Radden is critical of any such view, stating that “a disorder increasingly understood in terms of its behavioral manifestations will also serve to ‘silence’ its sufferers” (p. 35). No argument is offered to advance such a perturbing judgment, although Radden declares a preference for “subjective” above behavioral analyses. Her definition of “melancholy” as “both a normal disposition and a sign of mental disturbance…a nebulous mood but also a set of self-accusing beliefs” (p. ix) does not inspire confidence about her preference for subjective analysis.Other polemical thrusts in her introduction detract and distract. Her imputation that melancholia is overrepresented in women is factually incorrect but provides a springboard for rococo asides such as, “Melancholy, with it loquacious male subject, leaves little room for the mute suffering of women” (pp. 48–49).Radden’s historical interpretation that melancholy/melancholia was long defined by “states of fear and sadness” (p. 10) risks trivializing the gravid clinical picture of melancholia. Further, it cannot be reconciled with her own primary text pieces. For Burton, the “fear” descriptors focus on psychotic and overvalued ideas. “Sadness” or “sorrow” are limp words for capturing Burton’s descriptions of tortured thinking and “perpetual agony” (p. 144).Reviewers risk being viewed as prissy when they point out sloppy editorial work. Nevertheless, misspelling the name of the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry on the opening page of the introduction heralds a general sloppiness. Together with a minimalist “index,” Oxford University Press deserves to swallow some “black bile” and have the shadow of the managing editor fall on the ego of some staffers.The book is, nevertheless, useful in having the rich pickings of so many seminal writers captured in one volume. The opportunity to reread many classic pieces by, for instance, Burton, Kraepelin, Maudsley, and Freud is welcomed. The long-observed link between mania and melancholic depression provides a good example of how we are condemned to report derivative research if we fail to respect history. Finally, the book reminds us of the rich clinical descriptions provided for so long in the European literature before the global adoption of criteria-based diagnostic systems.Edited by Jennifer Radden. New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, 373 pp., $35.00.

Relational Teaching

This article proposes the application of Relational/Cultural theory to social work education, in response to the authors' concern that the process of social work education has become too individualistic. The article points to the need to move beyond theoretical constructs which emphasize the development of the self to theoretical frameworks that stress the development of the self-with-others. The authors suggest that Relational/Cultural theory, as developed by Jean Baker Miller, provides the conceptual framework needed in social work practice and teaching. The major components of Relational/Cultural theory, mutual engagement, mutual empathy, and mutual empowerment, are essential in the development of client-worker relationships. The authors contend that these components are equally important in the student-teacher relationship, and present a reconceptualization of social work education: Relational teaching.

Women's Reading in Britain : 1750-1835 : A Dangerous Recreation... by Jacquelyn Pearson (review)

Book Reviews273 Although I lack the competence to evaluate the importance of the scientific materials at hand, I can say that some of Renooz's ideas are appealing, such as the interconnectedness of what are routinely defined as separate disciplines . Allen's approach to these writers has a certain resonance with the ideas ofsuch thinkers as contemporary psychologist, Jean Baker Miller, with her theory ofthe self-in-relation, and the Franco-Antillian critic and novelist, Edouard Glissant, whose Poetics ofRelation looks for a synthesis-genesis of continued connection. Although there are some minor proofreading problems ("Renooz would broach no opposition" should be "Renooz would brook no opposition" 1 1 7), Allen's work shows a meticulous reading. He is clearly taken with his subjects and writes lovingly of their struggles to create an enduring discursive self-in-relation, entering into dialogue with each ofthem in relating their poignant stories. The book should provoke interest in nineteenth-century literary history or women's studies. Margot MillerHood College Pearson, Jacquelyn. Women's Reading in Britain :1750-1835 : A Dangerous Recreation... Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. ISBN: 0-521-58439-6. Pp. 300. In Women's Reading in Britain: 1750-1835, Jacqueline Pearson examines the symbolic nature ofthe reading woman during a period of increasing female literacy. Her analysis of both fictional and historical women readers seeks to ". . . clarif[y] our understanding of women's cultural position in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. . ." while at the same time allowing us to comprehend ". . . better the authors, male as well as female, who wrote with this audience in mind" (iv). As the book's subtitle, "A Dangerous Recreation ," reminds us, reading women were not always viewed favorably in contemporary novels, essays and conduct books or even in the testimonies of women readers themselves. Nevertheless, female literacy and the art of reading were often credited by these same sources as contributing to the creation of the "domestic woman" of the nineteenth century. This persistent ambivalence to the image ofthe reading woman serves as the book's primary focus and reflects cultural transformations in early nineteenth-century Britain which reach beyond the question ofgender and literacy. Through well-documented examples from a wide range of texts, Pearson aptly demonstrates that the contradictory attitudes in this debate resist classification either by gender or political perspective. Women writers may treat the subject of the reading woman with greater skepticism than do their male colleagues. Similarly , both liberal and conservative writers adopt ambiguous stances on the value ofreading novels. As Pearson's argument develops, however, it appears that the contested area is not the act of reading itself, but rather the choice of texts and the circumstances in which reading occurs. The conservative Hannah More's 274Women in French Studies ideal woman is "a reader, but a reader compliant to both domestic ideology and the authority ofthe author" (89). Thus, the ability to read is often associated with the qualities of a good wife and mother. Literacy may even be consider an asset for servants as documented in a 1773 manual where it is noted that a lady's maid should be able to "read well aloud" (186). Concerning the types ofreading appropriate for women, it is not surprising that the novel provokes the most contentious responses. Pearson lays out the parameters of this cultural debate convincingly in a chapter devoted to women and novel reading. By concentrating on four specific texts (Lennox's The Female Quixote, Barrett's The Heroine, Austen's Northanger Abbey, and Green's Scotch Novel Reading), she assists her readers in following the evolution ofthis debate over the almost 100 year time span under study. Similarly, chapters on where and how women should read or the "perils and pleasures" of reading as documented in the memoirs and correspondence of historical women readers offer fascinating insights into both the real and symbolic value of a woman engaged in the act of reading. For example, the "elision oftextuality and sexuality," (ix) a recurrent motifthroughout the book, takes on a new dimension when we discover that the prohibition against reading in bed relates not only to a metaphorical presumption ofsensuality but also to the risk offalling asleep while...

On the Margin: Power and Women's HIV Risk Reduction Strategies

HIV risk and prevention research has failed to investigate adequately the effects of gender-related factors such as relationship power, sexual communication, abuse, and gender roles on women's abilities to engage in protective actions. We propose that women's HIV risk from heterosexual transmission is embedded in the context of gender, race/ethnicity, and class oppression. This context has central implications for interpersonal relationship factors relevant to women's HIV risk. We suggest a framework for understanding women's HIV risk within the context of oppression and the role of power in intimate sexual relationships. Three common dynamics of oppression are considered: (1) Silencing, (2) Violence and Fear of Violence, and (3) Internalized Oppression. These dynamics are based on characteristics of oppression discussed in the work of Jean Baker Miller on gender, Hussain Bulhan on race, and Paulo Freire on class. These dynamics are discussed in the context of findings reported in this journal issue and those of other authors. Finally, the discussion identifies common patterns across studies, as well as areas of disagreement and directions for future research and public health prevention efforts.