Teaching Feminist Counseling Skills: An Evaluation

Feminist counseling was analyzed into four core skills: social analysis, androgyny encouragement, self-disclosure, and behavior feedback. A 5-week feminist skill-training program was developed for 45 counselors divided into two groups, matched on years of counseling experience and scores on Spence and Helmreich's Attitude Toward Women Scale (AWS). Training of the second group was delayed for 5 weeks to provide a control for the training of the first group. Participants' attitudes and skill levels before, after, and at a 5-week follow-up were monitored. Counseling simulations were used for skill monitoring. Training resulted in significant increases in social analysis and self-disclosure skills as well as increments in AWS scores. Social analysis skill increments were the only changes maintained at follow-up.