Ellyn Kaschak

No stereotypes welcome. I will try to clarify certain aspects of feminist therapy and address certain misconceptions that many readers may have. The first is that feminist therapy is political rather than personal. The second is that it is only…

Explaining the difference between gender transitioning and gender fluidity. Human sex differences are binary, as is human reproduction. Sex differences are based in biology and genetics and, at this point in scientific development, are immutable as they are present in…

Is feminist therapy only for women? Feminist psychotherapy adheres to the carefully researched and well-established fact that gender is a social construct. This means that it is not necessarily related to sex except by cultural customs and decree. The pinks…

The pressures on young people today. One of the hallmarks of feminist therapy is the insistence that pain not be privatized. First described by the useful and perhaps necessary trope that “the personal is political,” feminist psychology dismisses common boundaries…

Is Gender Sex and Sex Gender? I want to tread somewhat lightly into controversial territory, but I do want to try to disentangle what has become of late a highly charged, epistemologically and pragmatically confusing set of issues. My primary…

It has become popular among politicians and comedians. Feminist psychology and feminism in general have been at the forefront of the discussion of the dynamics of shame. Shame is used in many cultures as a behavioral and psychological system of…

Are mass murderers mentally ill? Are the white supremacist shooters mentally ill? The answer to this question rests on a foundation of observations and cultural assumptions. In reality, the term “mental illness” is an aspiration rather than a reality used…

What is a woman? What is a man? I am among those psychologists and other professionals who introduced the use of the term “gender” into the lexicon of the social sciences 50 years ago—in my case and by those feminists…

Sometimes, forgiveness seems impossible. You, someone close to you or that you loved has been abused, raped or even murdered. You are severely traumatized and are advised that forgiving the perpetrator will help you heal. Do you forgive them? What…