Sex Inequality in the Training of Dutch Clinical Psychologists

A Feminist Critique of Clinical Psychology Training Programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…Participants' comments throughout this research suggest that the lack of inclusion of gender and other analyses of power primarily reflect the aftitudes, knowledge and priorities of academic staff. This finding is consistent with discussions by other feminist psychologists concerning the limited way gender education is included in clinical psychology (Bekker, 1991;Boyle, 1997;Hare-Mustin and Marecek, 1997; lgg1, Z000a; Williams and Watson, l99lb, l99lc). Feminist research indicates that the exclusion of gender education in clinical psychology has little to do with resources, although many trainers claim that a lack of resources accounts for the lack of inclusion of gender content (Bekker, l99l; Williams and Watson, l99lb)' Given the ample body of feminist, Maori and other critical literature available to inform the clinical curricula, and the availability of a diverse array of people whose expertise could be utilised in training programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand., claims by clinical trainers that there is a lack ofresources seem unfounded.…”

“…Responses to Williams and Watson's (l99lb) Survey Feminist clinical psychologists working in Hong Kong (Cheung, 1991), the Netherlands (Bekker, 1991) and the USA (Brown, 1991) have made similar observations about clinical psychology training. For example, Brown (1991) and Marie Bekker (1991) point to the paucity of education about the effects of gender inequalities in clinical psychology training in the USA and the Netherlands, Brown (1991) suggests that the findings of Williams and Watson's survey (1991b) are consistent with her experience of clinical psychology training in the USA. While there is an expectation that education about gender would have improved considerably in the intervening period, it is apparent that this is not the case (Brown, 1991).…”

“…Jessie commented that the only real barriers are 'people's ignorance and not paying attention to what needs to be talked about, what's important and prioritising that'. lndeed, feminist writers have also drawn attention to baniers in terms of the interplay between negative staff attitudes, a lack of staff interest and knowledge and psychology's male dominant institutional structure (Bekker, 1991;Nicolson, 1992;Ussher, 1992;Williams and Watson, 1991b).…”

“…In addition, institutional sanctioning could give feminist psychologists better leverage to lobby for appropriate representation in the executive of psychology's professional organisations and provide a formal mechanism for contributing to the standards of training and education directorates which affect academic psychology courses such as clinical psychology training. As Bekker (1991) and ethnicity (Ginorio and Martinez, l99g Madden and Hyde, l99g; okazaki, l99g), and the integration of race, class, gender and sexuality (Weber, 1998). Work in this area is gaining increasing recognition within feminist psychology, although until recently has often been ignored or marginalised within both feminist and mainstream psychology (Greene and Sanchez-Hucles, 1997).…”

A Feminist Critique of Clinical Psychology Training Programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand

“…Brown argues that when gender education does occur, it remains an optional extra and is regarded as a 'special' interest for women, not an essential and integral education for all psychologists (Brown,l99l: 91). Bekker (1991) reports a similar scenario in the Netherlan'ds. She found that less than half of all pre-doctoral programmes addressed issues relating to sexual inequality and these courses were optional.…”