St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Psychology and Dean of the Core Curriculum and First Year Experience, Elizabeth Nutt Williams, along with Carolyn Zerbe Enns of Cornell College, explore multicultural and feminist perspectives in their recently published book, “The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Multicultural Counseling Psychology” (Oxford Library of Psychology). The integration of multicultural and feminist perspectives in counseling psychology has been proven challenging, complicated by the different historical developments within feminist and multicultural theory and practice. “The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Multicultural Counseling Psychology” rises to the challenge and affectively blends multicultural and feminist approaches.
Focusing on the theme of social justice for all people, the book provides insights and perspectives about varied groups of women—African American women, Latinas, women with disabilities, women in poverty, women who have experienced trauma, and American Muslim women. Emphasis is placed on the intersections among social identities related to gender, ethnicity/race, sexual orientation, social class and socioeconomic status, religion, disability, and nationality. The book features accumulated knowledge of approximately 40 years of scholarship in feminist and multicultural efforts within counseling psychology.
Dr. Elizabeth (Libby) Nutt Williams received her bachelor’s degree with honors in psychology at Stanford University, and her Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Counseling Psychology from the University of Maryland. Dr. Williams joined the Psychology department at St. Mary’s College of Maryland in 1997, where she served as coordinator for the Women’s Studies Program and as department chair in Psychology before becoming dean of the Core Curriculum and First Year Experience in 2007. Dr. Williams received the Homer L. Dodge Award for Teaching Excellence in 2003 and two Early Career Awards in 2006 for her research on psychotherapy process, including a national award from the Division of Psychotherapy of the American Psychological Association and an international award from the Society for Psychotherapy Research. She is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association (APA) and served as president of the Division of Psychotherapy of the APA in 2011. She has served on the editorial boards for the journals Psychotherapy, Psychotherapy Research, and the Psychology of Women Quarterly. Her scholarly interests focus primarily on psychotherapy process, qualitative research methods, and feminist/multicultural approaches to counseling. Dr. Williams is currently professor of psychology and dean of the Core Curriculum at St. Mary’s and lives in Calvert County, Maryland with her husband and two children.
“The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Multicultural Counseling Psychology” is available on Amazon and at Oxford University Press.