Points of connection and disconnection: A look at feminism and postmodernism in family therapy

Throughout the family therapy field, feminism and postmodernism have intersected both theoretically and therapeutically. Both perspectives confront patriarchy and other oppressive attitudes in families and society. At the same time, feminism and postmodernism have points of disconnection. While a feminist stance actively targets inequalities related to gender and other minority groups, a postmodern paradigm emphasizes the relativity of personal truths and hesitates to place values on others. We address this tension as female family therapists who hold both postmodern and feminist ideologies. In order to expand the dialogue on feminism and postmodernism, we explore these points of connection and disconnection in a family therapy context. Given that both of us assume postmodernist and feminist paradigms, we cannot present our ideas without including our context; therefore, we take the last section of our paper to describe how we individually integrate feminist and postmodern ideologies both personally and therapeutically.