Phyllis Chesler

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Phyllis Chesler bigraphy, stories - Psychotherapist, college professor, and author

Phyllis Chesler : biography

01 October 1940 –

Phyllis Chesler (born October 1, 1940) is an American writer, psychotherapist, and professor emerita of psychology and women’s studies at the College of Staten Island (CUNY). She is known as a feminist psychologist, and is the author of 14 books, including the best-seller Women and Madness (1972), About Men (1978), With Child: A Diary of Motherhood (1979), Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (1986), Sacred Bond: the Legacy of Baby M (1988), and the recent publications Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman (2002), Women of the Wall: Claiming Sacred Ground at Judaism’s Holy Site (2002), The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It (2003), The Death of Feminism (2005), and a 25th Anniversary Edition of Mothers on Trial: The Battle for Children and Custody (2011) with eight new chapters and a new introduction. Her work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Hebrew, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/cv.pdf

For more than 40 years, Chesler has written on topics such as gender and mental illness, gender bias among mental health professionals, male psychology, the nature of motherhood, divorce and child custody, surrogacy, the legacy of second-wave feminism, pornography, prostitution, incest, and violence against women.

In the last decade, she has written about academic freedom, free speech, hate speech, new forms of censorship, women’s rights, including religious rights, human and civil rights, woman’s internalized sexism and consequent inhumanity to woman, jihad, and the dangers of terrorism. Chesler argues that many western intellectuals, including leftists and feminists have abandoned Western values in the name of multicultural relativism, and that this has led to an alliance with Islamists, an increase in antisemitism, and to the abandonment of Muslim women, Muslim and ex-Muslim feminists and human rights activists, as well as religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries.

Career

Psychologist

In 1969, she cofounded the Association for Women in Psychology.Feminist Foremothers in Women’s Studies, Psychology, and Mental Health, Phyllis Chesler, Esther D. Rothblum, Ellen Cole, Haworth Press, 1995, p. 1. ISBN 1-56023-078-9 In 1972, she published Women and Madness, whose thesis is "that double standards of mental health and illness exist and that women are often punitively labeled as a function of gender, race, class, or sexual preference". The book sold more than 3 million copies worldwide.Phyllis Chesler Organization Web site The book received a front page New York Times review by Adrienne Rich, who described it as "intense, rapid, brilliant, controversial … a pioneer contribution to the feminization of psychiatric thinking and practice".Adrienne Rich, rev. of Women and Madness, The New York Times, Dec. 31, 1972.

Chesler has been consulted by lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists on diverse subjects including sex between patient and therapist, rape, incest, domestic violence, custody, honor killings, and the mistreatment of women in jails and in psychiatric institutions.Phyllis Chesler, Patriarchy: Notes of an Expert Witness. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1994.

In 1997, she taught a course in Forensic Psychology at John Jay College.

In 1997, she was the sole expert witness in a class action lawsuit in Nebraska on behalf of female psychiatric patients who had been sexually, physically, medically, and psychologically abused.Phyllis Chesler, "No Safe Place", On The Issues, Winter 1998.

In 1998, she taught a course in Advanced Psychology and Women’s Studies at Brandeis University.

From 2008-2012, Chesler submitted courtroom affidavits in cases where girls and women have fled being honor killed and applied for asylum in America.Phyllis Chesler, "On the 100th Anniversary of International Women’s Day — What Are Feminists Doing About Honor Killings?", http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/08/100th-anniversary-international-womens-day-feminists-doing-honor-killings/#ixzz2C1fbuw9B,Fox News, March 3rd, 2011.