“We are doing this together”: Processes of Feminist Identity Among Professional Counsellors

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atmire.migration.oldid6019
dc.contributor.advisorStrong, Dr. Tom
dc.contributor.authorVegter, Vanessa
dc.contributor.committeememberKassan, Dr. Anusha
dc.contributor.committeememberRadtke, Dr. H. Lorraine
dc.date.accessioned2017-09-22T15:24:20Z
dc.date.available2017-09-22T15:24:20Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.date.submitted2017en
dc.description.abstractFeminist counsellors can quite simply be understood as counsellors, therapists, or psychologists whose professional identities and related practices are aligned with the values, beliefs, aims, and theoretical underpinnings of feminist ideology. However, feminist ideology, or rather ideologies, are not monolithic or unified undertakings. Instead, feminist counsellor professional identity is informed by feminism(s)’ complex history, rife with incommeasurabilities, heterogeneities, and tensions among the various discourses informing the ideology. As a result, feminist counsellor professional identities represent ongoing relational negotiations that involve encountering and navigating ideological dilemmas − a complexity often overlooked in feminist counselling research. Using social constructionist, situational analysis (SA), I explored the messiness of feminist counsellor professional identity construction and maintenance through an analysis of interviews with nine self-identified feminist counsellors. Through the analytic mapping of participants’ rich descriptions, I identified human and non-human elements related to feminist counsellor professional identity, including “hot-button” tensions: power, feminist values, and responsibility/accountability − sites of discursive contest over the thinking, saying, and doing of feminist counsellors. Through a juxtaposition of these results with a commonly cited developmental model, I invite new conversations regarding what is involved in processes of feminist identity among professional counsellors, advocate for pluralism in the counselling profession, and offer sentiments of feminist solidarity across differences.en_US
dc.identifier.citationVegter, V. (2017). “We are doing this together”: Processes of Feminist Identity Among Professional Counsellors (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/28678en_US
dc.identifier.doihttp://dx.doi.org/10.11575/PRISM/28678
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11023/4129
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisher.facultyGraduate Studies
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Calgaryen
dc.publisher.placeCalgaryen
dc.rightsUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.
dc.subjectEducational Psychology
dc.subjectEducation--Guidance and Counseling
dc.subject.otherfeminist counsellor
dc.subject.otherprofessional identity
dc.subject.othersituational analysis
dc.subject.otheridentity processes
dc.subject.otherdiscourse
dc.title“We are doing this together”: Processes of Feminist Identity Among Professional Counsellors
dc.typemaster thesis
thesis.degree.disciplineEducational Psychology
thesis.degree.grantorUniversity of Calgary
thesis.degree.nameMaster of Science (MSc)
ucalgary.item.requestcopytrue
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