Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Overly emotional, hysterical, dependent, frivolous, fickle... Why have women been so consistently defined as deficient in maturity, self-mastery, and independence according to the models of human development inspired by male culture? The authors of WOMEN'S GROWTH IN CONNECTION, a sampling of the influential working papers from the Stone Center, Wellesley College, have sought to answer this question by studying developmental theory and reformulating it to reflect women's experience more accurately. These papers, about women's ways of being in the world, frame an innovative relational perspective on women's psychological development. The authors--clinicians, clinical supervisors, and teachers--have been searching for therapeutic models that take into account women's meaning systems, values, and organization of experiences, all of which often revolves around relationships rather than the self. By offering a new perspective on women's development, WOMEN'S GROWTH IN CONNECTION stands at the forefront of the ongoing feminist movement to examine and reshape psychological theory and practice. The authors offer this volume as an invitation to the reader to join in the building of new models of women's development.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Part I, A Developmental Perspective
• The Development of Women's Sense of Self
• Women and Empathy: A Basic Concept in Development
• The ""Self-in-Relation: A Theory of Women's Development
• Empathy and Self Boundaries
• The Meaning of Mutuality
• Beyond the Oedipus Complex: Mothers and Daughters
• Women's Self-Development in Late Adolescence
• Part II, Applications
• The Meanings of Dependency in Female-Male Relationships
• Rel

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This clear series of working papers, carefully illustrated with clinical case examples, presents key elements of the model of women's development that has evolved over the last decade at Wellesley College's Stone Center. In contrast to traditional models of development that describe a process of separation and achievement of autonomy, this model describes growth as it takes place within and through relationship. The authors, each of whom blends academic and clinical experience, explore women's relational sense of self, the developmental origins and implications of empathy, and the relational path of women's development, as well as complex and unresolved issues such as power, anger, work, eating patterns, and the effectiveness of traditional and more empathic therapeutic methods with women clients. Extending the work of David C. McClelland (Power: the Inner Experience, CH, Sep'76) and Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice, CH, Oct'82), these papers describe how cultural denigration of relational qualities and objectives has restricted women's effectiveness, and even their development, with depression a frequent result. Although it poses more questions than answers, this compilation makes a significant contribution to enriching our model of human nature and development. Advanced readers. L. M. C. Abbott California State University, Fresno

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Judith Jordan, Ph.D., is Director of Training and Founding Scholar at the Jean Baker Miller Institute, the Stone Center, Wellesley College, and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School.