Therapy groups for women

The author describes her experiences with two all-female psychotherapy groups, comparing these groups with both mixed-sex and consciousness-raising groups. Problems included a tendency of group members to drop out when dependency on the group became too intense and a lack of referrals to replace these dropouts, with resulting decreases in group size. The special strengths of such groups include the opportunity to concentrate on issues relevant to women, the possibility for development of a support system, the lack of sex-role divisions of labor, and the increased respect of members for other women and for themselves.