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RE-EVALUATION COUNSELING AS A TOOL TO OVERCOME THE INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION OF AN EXPLOITATIVE SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF THIRD WORLD WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES
Abstract
This dissertation explores the impact of a counseling model on the lives of a group of Third World women residing in the United States. The model is Re-Evaluation Counseling (RC), an emotional/educational growth and awareness process. Its main focus is on the existing oppressive and socioeconomic and political environment, its effects on people and the possibilities RC holds for self- and social transformation. The premise of this thesis is that the distresses which limit the human potential to be loving, intelligent, cooperative, powerful and effective result from the competitive and exploitative nature of capitalism. In the quest to remain human, people struggle against oppression, transcend adverse circumstances, grow, and influence their environment. Yet, to varying degrees, the system dehumanizes and causes people to internalize negative experiences and adopt distress patterns involving false values and distorted views of self and others. Consequently, people lose elements of themselves which are crucial to their wholeness as human beings. The study explores these dynamics. Qualitative methodology, based on in-depth interviewing, is used. The impact of this study results from the depth of the information that it presents on oppression experienced by the participants--in the intertwining of external oppression with their personal/psychic limitations which are manifested as internalized oppression. The experiences are recounted by the women who speak on their own behalf. The results indicate that through RC the participants in the study: (1) eliminated many of the inner blocks created by oppression; (2) became fully aware that their personal problems (internalized oppression) were the effects of an exploitative society; (3) recognized and recovered lost aspects of themselves (e.g., intelligence), and regained some of their creative powers to become more effective in changing their lives and society. In using RC, Third World women overcome the pull to adjust to a repressive society and begin to realize that the attainment of full human potential requires a collective effort directed toward the transformation and reconstruction of the socioeconomic and political environment. The harmful effects of oppression can be overcome with the use of RC. The model can be of significance in reaching world-wide populations. The simultaneous development in people of deeper self-awareness and new political awareness can generate greater strengths toward the creation of a more just and humane society.
Subject Area
Educational psychology
Recommended Citation
RAMOS-DIAZ, EMMA I, "RE-EVALUATION COUNSELING AS A TOOL TO OVERCOME THE INTERNALIZED OPPRESSION OF AN EXPLOITATIVE SOCIETY: A CASE STUDY OF THIRD WORLD WOMEN IN THE UNITED STATES" (1985). Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest. AAI8509596.
https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI8509596