Counseling the Contemporary Woman

This book provides a comprehensive exploration of the challenges women may face as they navigate the multiple roles that they carry. Attention is given to the unique cultural identities that women embody and suggestions are provided to help counselors acknowledge the various aspects of each client's intersectional identity. In addition to theory, we provide suggestions for practical application of relevant interventions and strategies for helping women achieve their goals. A foundation is provided that explore the multiple layers of development that occur during adolescence, adulthood, midlife, and older adulthood.
Women face numerous challenges related to identity development and relationships. These challenges can generate psychological and emotional distress that lead women to seek professional assistance in finding solutions to their issues. With more choices than in generations past, women can face unexpected and unanticipated challenges and barriers to their individual and relational development. This book is organized around contemporary developmental and relational rites of passage women experience in adulthood.
Traditional rites of passage include birth, menarche, marriage, and death. These events still hold significance but women's lives today follow expanded and complex trajectories. Numerous transitions, such as attending college, navigating employment opportunities and the relational challenges that women face in various areas of life, are presented and addressed in this book from a clinician's perspective providing practitioners with insight and practical knowledge.
In this book, we cover choices related to such topics as career, relationships, parenthood, and support networks. We also explore the struggles that women face including abuse, depression, anxiety, feelings of low self-worth, loss, and addictions.
Best practices in counseling women are highlighted and utilized in case study examples. The relationships created by women impact their lives and this book helps the reader to gain insight into how women can take ownership for their relationships and choices.

Suzanne Degges-White is professor and chair of the Department of Counseling, Adult and Higher Education at Northern Illinois University. She writes a blog for Psychology Today magazine and is a regular contributor on NIU's NPR radio station's Perspectives program.

Table of Contents
Contributors
Acknowledgement
Part I: Foundational Perspectives and Theory
1 Re-envisioning the Feminine Ideal: Women are the Sum of Many Diverse Parts
Adrienne N. Erby
2 Integrating Feminist Theory into Counseling Practice
Suzanne Degges-White
3 Integrating Relational Cultural Therapy into Counseling Practice
Katherine Hermann-Turner
Part II: Development from Adolescence through Older Adulthood
4 Counseling Adolescent Girls
Marcela Kepic
5 Counseling Emerging Adult Women
Marcela Kepic
6 Counseling Midlife Women
Suzanne Degges-White
7 Counseling Older Women
Marcela Kepic
Part III: Career Counseling
8 Career Counseling over the Careerspan
Wendy Killam
Part IV: Counseling Concerns of Relational Focus
9 Counseling Women facing Family-of-Origin Issues
Lucy Parker and Dana Isawi
10 Counseling Contemporary Couples
Rebecca Meeks, Jessica Shull, Ana Ulloa Estrada, and Bonnie Cardillo
11 Counseling Women facing Contemporary Family Challenges
Elizabeth O'Brien
12 Counseling Women Survivors of Physical and Emotional Abuse
Anne Shragal
13 Counseling Strategies to Help Women Build Healthy Support Networks
Suzanne Degges-White
Part V: Individual Concerns
14 Counseling Women with Body Image Concerns
Rachel Brandoff and Marcela Kepic
15 Counseling Women with Low Self-Esteem
Lucy Parker
16 Counseling Women with Depression
Marcela Kepic and Wendy Killam
17 Counseling Women with Anxiety
Lucy Parker and Nina Mendez
18 Counseling Women with Addictions
Suzanne Degges-White
Part VI: Caring for Self and Caring for Others
19 Counseling with Chronic Illness and Disability
Yuleinys A. Castillo
20 Counseling Women who Caregive
Marcela Kepic and Kim Tassinari
Part VII: Coping with Grief and Loss over the Lifespan
21 Counseling Women who have Lost their Mothers
Suzy Wise and Elisa Woodruff
22 Counseling Women who have Lost a Partner
Marcela Kepic
23 Counseling Women suffering from Fetal or Perinatal Loss
Donna Gibson
24 Counseling Women who have Lost a Child
Suzanne Degges-White