Kathryn L. Norsworthy

Women of Burma Speak Out: Workshops to Deconstruct Gender-Based Violence and Build Systems of Peace and Justice

Refugee and internally displaced women of Burma examined structural and institutional violence against women within their communities within workshop formats. Group members also discussed strategies for transforming systems supporting gender-based violence into structures of peace and gender justice. The authors describe their methodology, based on principles from liberation theory and feminist psychology, in collaborating with the women of Burma to articulate culturally relevant information and recommendations. Common themes generated by workshop participants are presented, including forms of violence against women, the structures and institutions that support and reinforce gender-based violence, and strategies for social change. Examples of follow-up projects emerging from this work are provided.

Understanding Violence Against Women in Southeast Asia: A Group Approach in Social Justice Work

Using a liberatory group approach, women and men from three countries in Southeast Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, and among refugees of Burma, analyzed gender-based violence within their cultural contexts. Group members also discussed strategies for transforming systems supporting violence against women into structures of peace and gender justice. The author briefly describes the group model employed in the project, based on principles from liberation theory and feminist psychology. Themes emerging from the analyses generated by group members are also presented along with preliminary recommendations for social change at the personal, family, community, institutional, and societal levels.

Issues in group work with HIV-infected gay and bisexual men

Abstract Gay and bisexual men with HIV-infection face significant challenges. This article focuses on factors to consider in the formulation of a group for this population and the critical issues that may emerge during the group counseling process.

Counseling and Building Communities of Peace: The Interconnections

This article introduces Kurt Lewins (1948) concept of force field analysis as a useful method of diagnosing the current global crisis and in conceptualizing points of intervention, advocacy, and activism in relation to peace work. Perspectives on counseling and building cultures of peace and justice are discussed. An overview of the contributions of this special issue is also provided.

Women Healers: Global and Local Women’s Knowledge in Psychology—An Introduction

ABSTRACT This article briefly addresses key events throughout recorded history of indigenous healing, highlighting the role of women and their work despite predominant patriarchal, societal views and subsequent hardships for women engaging in healing roles. Additionally, this article identifies terms and definitions that will be used throughout the special issue and introduces articles for the special issue which have been written by women around the world. The editors invite readers to question Western dominant discourse about healing, and, in particular, indigenous healing by women.

Introduction: Border Crossings: Feminist Activists and Peace Workers Collaborating across Cultures

The aim of this special issue of Women & Therapy is to assemble the writings of a group of feminist activists, psychologists and peace workers, who are engaging in a variety of “border crossings.” We have been particularly interested in what they would have to say about their partnerships, collaborations and connections across the “great divides” of Global South and Global North.

Crossing Borders, Building Bridges, and Swimming Upstream: Feminist Liberatory Work within South Thailand Communities in Conflict

In this article we discuss and illustrate a feminist liberatory methodology we (Nuch and Kathryn) employ in our work around South and Southeast Asia, and particularly in this case, in our partnerships with communities in southern Thailand who are experiencing serious and violent ethno-political conflict. The methodology takes into account the complex processes of multiple border crossings inherent in these peace building projects. Over the past 5 years, we have been invited to collaborate with groups of women and men ethnic-Thai Buddhist and Malay Muslim leaders from the southern three provinces who are expressly committed to social action in their efforts to bring peace to their communities. Typically, the projects involve mixedgender groups though from time to time we work with women’s groups and once, a group of nearly all men. We want to show how our feminist liberation based methodology is relevant and effective in working with people of all genders in the south of Thailand and opens up spaces and processes in which participants occupying both mainstream and marginalized positions, including women, voice their diverse ideas and perspectives, engage in critical consciousness development, create possibilities for peace, and as compassionate witnesses, offer one another opportunities for healing from the