Celebrating the 10th anniversary of its foundation, the Feminist Counseling Research Society under the Korean Society of Woman Psychology organized a special talk, “KimMin Yea-sook, Have a dialogue with Laura Brown about feminist counseling”, to examine the history and the vision of feminist counseling in the U.S. that has developed ahead of Korea. By conveying the contents of this special talk that impressed the participants as it is, this paper aims to present women’s voices and the position of feminist counseling within counseling psychology in a real voice. KimMin Yea-sook is one of the second generation of Korean feminist counselors and a pioneer who has led Korean feminist counseling through the feminist counseling lab and the feminist counseling research society, and is the author of『A Structured Model of Feminist Counseling(2013)』. Dr. Laura Brown is an American feminist counselor and trauma survivor counselor who has served as chairman of the Society for the Psychology of Women in the U.S. and is widely known in Korea as the author of『Subversive Dialogue(1994)』 and『Feminist Therapy(2018)』. In the talk, we can see how Laura Brown and KimMin Yea-sook have become feminist counselors in the early and mid 1970s, the development of feminist counseling in the United States, and the difference between the position of feminist counseling in Korea and that of in the United States. In addition, we can sense the firm belief and value of a counselor who has devoted herself to feminist counseling and trauma therapy for more than 50 years. It is clear that this will be a great echo not only to feminist counselors, but also to counselors who has other theoretical background and woman psychology researchers.
The purpose of this study is to explore and systematize the process of practicing feminist counseling by counseling activists in sexual violence counseling centers. To this end, in-depth interviews were conducted with five counseling activists working with feminist counseling identity at the sexual violence counseling center, and the analysis was conducted using Strauss and Corbin’s grounded theory methodology among qualitative studies. As a result of the study, 80 concepts, 24 subcategories, and 13 upper categories were derived through open coding, and the relationship between categories was analyzed based on a paradigm model through axial coding. Through selective coding, the core category ‘feels of pride and a sense of vocation while seeing individual and social changes despite skepticism due to difficulties in practicing the principles of feminist counseling, strengthening feminist counseling capabilities, and responding to sexual violence issues’ was derived. Based on the results of this study, the process of practicing feminist counseling by counseling activists at sexual violence counseling centers was discussed, and the significance of the study and suggestions for further research were made.
