Feminist therapy has revolutionized counseling practice and offered a model of empowerment for all therapy approaches for the past three decades. However, the long-assumed claim that feminist therapists are more likely to engage in power-sharing behaviors with their clients has never been subjected to quantitative research. The current investigation, conducted with 42 therapists and their clients, was an attempt to address this gap in the research. Female practicing therapists and one of their female clients were asked to complete self-report measures.

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Gender theories provide a critical framework for considerations of heterosexual identity. Patriarchal power rests on the social meanings given to biological sex differences and to their reproduction as societal discourses regarding what it means to be a woman or a man. This is a crucial point and one that we believe is not fully recognized in the proposed models. Implications for practice—namely, the need to recognize the interplay of gender with the power dynamics between men and women, and between therapists and clients—are briefly explored. In addition, the contributions of the proposed models—their combined attempt to address a critical gap in the sexual identity development literature, to deprivilege heterosexuality, and to disrupt heterosexist practice—are also noted and lauded.

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