Feminist Theory And Gender Role Analysis

I am not a proponent of the feminist theory so my initial answer to whether the theory should be applied to Stan is no. However, I do think one of the techniques used could be beneficial to Stan. The technique of gender role analysis (Corey, 2015) may help Stan (Corey, 2015) to understand how his perception of male expectations are might be affecting his depression and addictions. Stan was open in sharing that his father and his mother continually tried to conform him to how they believed a real man should act or behave. One example given was when Stan (Corey, 2015) was young and he was being picked on by a neighborhood boy. His mother would not let him in the house until he punched him, this seemed to affect Stan (Corey, 2015). Another example
Stan (Corey, 2015) shared that there was a moment that another student had walked up to him at lunch and asked to eat with him and he accepted the offer without thinking. This was clearly the exception with Stan’s (Corey, 2015) situation in that normally he would suffer from social anxiety but in that moment he felt he could be who he is and did not overthink the situation like he usually tends to do. I believe this technique would be very successful with a real client because looking back, this technique was used on myself as a client. My husband and I went through a marital crisis four years ago. At that time I could not see our relationship as anything but a pile of ashes. I could not look forward nor did I even acknowledge the times past when the crisis was not present. There were also positive moments within the crisis that I did not recognize. Exception questions were quite beneficial for me in that it helped me envision a future where my current circumstances at that time would no longer
In an effort to separate the problem from the person, a therapist might use the narrative therapy technique of externalization with Stan (Corey, 2013). The goal is to focus on the internalized problem, that being Stan’s depression, and externalize it. Once the problem is externalized, there is a separation or a space so to speak between Stan (Corey, 2013) and the depression so Stan can recognize the problem outside of himself (Corey, 2013). Once Stan externalizes the depression, the therapist can guide him into putting the problem into a story-line. This could enable Stan (Corey, 2013) to deconstruct the story-line, take a stand against the story line and to stop blaming himself for everything. In doing so Stan would be able to reconstruct a new story, one that promotes positive change and healing (Corey, 2013).
Some externalizing questions that might be used with Stan (Corey, 2013) could be “How long has depression been influencing your life?”, “What does your depression say about you and your life?” or “how does the depression affect your