What About Men?

Abstract

518 pp., $44.95, In the history of women in psychology, representations of women of color have often been absent, marginal, or distorted. With the publication of Women of Color, a new era of understanding is likely to be facilitated. This edited volume critically expands the discourse on the complexity of women's lives by exploring life issues for women of color and how these issues relate to the therapeutic process.The professed goal of this book is to advance "gender sensitive and ethnoculturally relevant mental health treatments" (p. xvi). Comas-Diaz, Greene, and their accompanying authors have woven together a body of work that surpasses their goal. They have painstakingly blended themes of diversity with commonalities, individuality with collectivism, resiliency with risk factors, and essentialism with constructionism to transform and fortify our understandings not just of therapy, but of the richness and complexity of the lives of women of color as perceived from a variety of perspectives. A fundamental perspective in organizing this text is the view that women of color share the common bonds of racism, sexism, oppression, classism, and colonization. The unique historical and psychosocial environments of ethnocultural women are also revealed. This well-organized volume is divided into three sections. The first section is titled "Women of Color: A Portrait of Heterogeneity." This part of the volume offers an overview of significant clinical issues with specific women of color groups (African American, American Indian, Asian, and Asian American, Latinas, West Indian, and Women of the Indian Subcontinent). This section is made highly effective by the authors' conformity to a common format that details the historical, sociocultural, familial, gender, and developmental issues that each group faces in addition to case examples.The second section, "Theoretical and Applied Frameworks" critiques the appropriateness of various treatment orientations. This section gives a review of major paradigms and their relevance to the gender and ethnocultural issues these women face. Particularly useful in this component of the book are guidelines for the use of these treatment orientations and therapy vignettes.The final section, "The Labyrinth of Diversity: Special Populations of Women Published by Cambridge University Press 0361-6843195 $7.50 + .I0 REFERENCES Hill, M. (1990). On creating a theory of feminist therapy. In L. S. Brown & M. P. P. Root (Eds.), Dioersity and complexity in feminist therupy (pp. 129-150). New York: Harrington Park Press. Miller, J. B. (1988). Connections, disconnections and oiolations (Work in Progress No. 33). Wellesley, MA: Stone Center Working Papers Series. Janis V. Sanchez-Hucles is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Old Dominion University and does part-time private practice. She is a past chair of Division 35's Task Force on Mental Health and Women of Color. Her writing focuses on women of color, especially African American women.