Discuss about  A critique of journal article………….

Overview of Journal content      

Title: Unfinished business with feminist thinking and counseling and guidance

Practice by Jeannie Wright

This is a journal critique in the field of counseling and physiotherapy. The journal analyses the unfinished business with feminist thinking and how they impact on the field counseling and guidance. Feminist theory has continued to evolve, and their challenges to the field of counseling and therapy have changed over time. This journal presents personal opinion on the unfinished business of feminist theories and thinking and their impacts on counseling and guidance practice for the last thirty years. Different literatures on the feminist theories and practice were reviewed to form opinions presented by the researcher. The findings highlight how political and theoretical shifts have been reflected in some important feminist texts.

The study analyses women movements and devotion to each other as has been witnessed for the past thirty years, and their efforts to gain gender equality in the society. The influences of feminist thinking in the UK and other parts of the world on matters of gender discrimination were analyzed by the researcher to determine their impacts to the society in matters of economic, education and professional domain. The Author of this article analyses the feminist thinking in relation to guiding and counseling discipline over the past thirty years to give an overview of what is expected of feminism in the future.

The study findings disputes that there exist a distinct feminist therapy and finds a great overlap between proposed feminist therapies with other practices. The purpose of this article was among others to assist the researcher to initiate a conversation on the relevance and shortcomings of feminist thinking in the field of counseling and guidance. It attempts to illustrate how feminist ideas, theories have influenced the field of counseling and guidance in different settings over a period of time. Feminism has influenced gender related counseling and guidance, by attending to rape and women violence victims among others.

 Appraisal of article

The title of this article is ‘unfinished business with feminist thinking and counseling and guidance practice’. The unfinished business of feminist thinking is not properly highlighted in the journal as should be the case in any research work. The readers of these articles cannot easily identify the problem being addressed by the researcher in the journal. The objectives of this study are not clearly stated as required hence it lacks direction and relevance. The research topic has not been introduced; this denies the reader an opportunity to foresee what the research is all about. A brief overview of research components has also not been provided.

Feminist thinking is the main component of this article; however it is not clearly coming out. Although there are a variety of literatures on feminist thinking and theories in the journal article, they are scattered all over the article. The researcher is   expected to systematically highlight feminist thinking for the last thirty years and state their unfinished business and reasons for their shortfalls and how they have impact on the discipline of counseling and guidance. He was supposed to state the expected and the achieved impacts of feminist thinking and women activism. The difference between the expected and achieved results forms the unfinished business the researcher was supposed to address in the research.

Literatures are extensively used in the article, however the author does point out relevant literatures for his study. The paper does not clearly review literatures but selectively used to support his perceived personal opinions on feminism thinking. A good research article should have a critical review and analysis of theories and empirical literatures that are relevant to the topic of study to give the researcher a firm foundation for the research as well as the methods of analysis to be employed. The used literatures fail to adequately connect the unfinished business with feminism and counseling.

Theoretical coherence and logical structure

Different theories on feminism women activism have been discussed in the study. The opinions of the researcher are based on feminism theories, literatures and his own personal experience as a practitioner in counseling and guidance. However, feminism theories and challenges are continually evolving making it difficult for the practitioners in selecting the most applicable. The author’s opinions on feminism thinking encompass a combination of feminism theories for the last three decades. Surprisingly, feminism issues have not changed as such for the last thirty years despite emergence and evolution of feminists.

The article is illogically structured. The introduction part is missing, despite its supposed importance of guiding the reader on what research entails. A brief background of research components is missing, it lays research foundation. There are no clear research objectives and research questions or hypothesis, though they are necessary in defining the study problem. The article does not provide the mechanism of solving the problems identified in the study. For instance the conclusions states problems encountered by women yet do not provide solutions.

According to the topic of research, there ought to be a clear connection between three important items contained in the research title to form a logical structure of the study; unfinished business, feminism thinking and counseling and guidance. The connections are missing in the journal article hence making its structure illogical. In the logical structure, the researcher would have shown the unfinished business of feminism thinking and how they have impacted on counseling and guidance for the last three decades.

Research Methodology  

This article presents a personal opinion on issues of feminism; arguments are based on feminism theories, thinking and personal experience of the researcher.   The researcher positions himself as part of feminist movement despite not being one of them. This is not scientifically accepted because he cannot represent the opinions of real feminists and his opinions may not representative of the population of study.

The methodological approach is not systematic with the research title. It does not state how it will identify the unfinished business which is the main theme of the study, but instead identifies the overlaps of feminism therapy with other forms of therapies. The researcher highlights various approaches touching on the field of feminism such as narrative practices and pluralistic frameworks touching on counseling and guidance. However, he fails to relate how they influence each other and how they will be used to determine unfinished business of feminism.

The author further recommends the use of pluralism framework for counseling as proposed by Cooper and McLeod, (2007), this model is applicable in studies comprising both women and men respondents. The review of literatures should not form the findings but they should aid the researcher in carrying out his work. The methodology does not show how the researcher got and used data from the three settings and three decades of study to form his opinions and recommendation.

 

Relevance to clinical practice.

The study identifies gender problems that have persisted over time despite emergence of feminists’ movement and activism. Counseling in gender based violence and sexual abuse has drastically reduced their occurrences. Counseling has helped abused victims to stay healthy. Counseling has reduced overweight and related health problems, perceived to be a feminist problem, (Orbach, 1984).

Feminism therapy and findings in this article shall equip many women with skills necessary to cope with cultural, social and political challenges they are subjected in the society hence reducing emotional and psychological tortures. For instance It greatly promoted the liberation of black American women from oppression and discrimination in the US by reducing the associated health problems, (Walker, 1983). Mental health cases among women in the UK have reduced as a result of feminism and women activism, (Bondi & Burman, 2001) hence this study will equally help reduce cases of mental health among women in other parts of the world.

 

Recommendation to improve the study

The study structure needs to be re arranged to meet the recommended standard for scientific research. The research topic should be introduced in brief to enable the users to know what will be addressed. The background of the research is necessary and should systematically address all issues of the study; that is unfinished business, feminism thinking and counseling. The study problems and objectives need to be clearly stated to enable the users to know the issues that are being addressed by the author.

The research presents a personal opinion on unfinished business of feminism thinking on the field of counseling and guiding. There is need to carry out a scientific study on the impact of feminism on counseling and guidance. The unfinished business of feminism should be clearly identified for they form a crucial part of the study. This will be necessary for the users of study findings to understand why the current feminism movements have not been successful hence taking necessary measures of addressing the problems.

The research methodology is not clear. There is need to develop appropriate research design and instruments of data collection and analysis and their justification. Appropriate methods of analyzing time series data are necessary in assessing the impact of feminism on counseling and guidance displine.The findings and implications of the research should be discussed in detail to help in designing a strong and convincing conclusions and recommendations.

 

Conclusions and constructive contributions

The study is both cross sectional, (three different settings) and time series (covers a period of thirty years). From the research we cannot really tell which ideas have been adopted from which settings and also from what period of time. This should be clearly addressed in the research. There is need to undertake a similar research but covering one particular setting.

 

References

Bondi, L. & Burman, E. (2001).Women and mental health: A feminist review. Feminist Review, 68, 6_33.

 

Cooper, M. & McLeod, J. (2007). A pluralistic framework for counselling and psychotherapy: Implications for research. Counselling and Psychotherapy Research, 7(3), 135_143.

 

Orbach, S. (1984). Fat is a feminist issue 2: How to free yourself from feeling obsessive about food. London: Arrow Books.

 

Walker, A. (1983). In search of our mothers’ gardens: Womanist prose. New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

Wright. J. (2009): Unfinished business with feminist thinking and counselling and guidance

Practice British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 37, No. 1, February 2009, 73_82

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