What price 'rights'?

Continued from Page 1 A woman in her mid 40s came to see Dr. Miriam Rosenthal, a psychiatrist at University Hospitals. She was divorced with three children and had started to study accounting. She was typical of the group Dr. Moulton described.

"They have trouble seeing themselves as capable of being self--supporting," Dr. Rosenthal said. This woman needed encouragement to finish school, and Dr. Rosenthal's support was important to her.

"She found a job and feels better about herself now. One problem she had was that she was working in a male environment and needed the support of other women."

Sexual problems are often a ticket of admission to therapy. That's often a cover-up, Dr. Rosenthal said, "It's a way to ask for help. But 10 years ago, women wouldn't be willing to admit that.”

At the Gestalt Institute of Cleveland, psychologist Rainette Fantz reports seeing more lesbian and bisexual women today and more women who admit liking sex for its own sake.

Her clients are less interested in marriage, she says, remembering

the

'50s and '60s when women were seeking advice on how to find a Than

Dr. Ruth Moulton, comparing 25 women she treated in the '50s with

the same number in the '70s in her New York practice, documents the same trend.

"Traditionally, women have looked to marriage as a source of security and a desirable way of life. In a stunning reversal, some women now view marriage as a trap an attitude once attributed exclusively to men...

"In the '50s, many women were literally phobic about self-assertion. Ten women in my early group had crippling work blocks. In contrast, 20 of the group treated in the 1970s were established professionals. Four in this group felt stuck at home; three of them enrolled in adult education courses, and one went back to work."

In the '50s, Dr. Fantz reported that women who did not work often came in with make-believe illnesses. They would see a physician, and there was nothing wrong.

"I worked in the area of selfrealization even then," said Dr. Fantz, "in terms of what the need was and how to satisfy it. Even then, those phobic, hypochondriac women were the braver ones. Now I get them at age 60. Their children have left; their husbands may have died. And sometimes I send them back to school."

Despite the rhetoric of the women's movement and the fact that women are being admitted to

the professions in greater numbers, psychological barriers have not disappeared.

Women today are still getting conflicting messages from society -messages that provoke enormous anxiety. In the past, fewer choices meant more frustration, but women experienced far less anxiety about their role.

Depression is still the most common symptom presented to the therapist. Some therapists see it as a punishment to the self and an angry message to others. Dr. Moulton sees it as the price for cultural change.

"I think cultural change always brings anxiety," she said. “The more rapid the changes, the worse the anxiety. Just because there is legalized freedom to work in a field doesn't make it easy to work in that field."

Dr. Fantz remembers a professional woman who came to her office in Cleveland 20 years ago. "She would have to go back home to turn off the gas a number of times," the psychologist said. "She had a job, but it was a desperate struggle.

A Manhattan therapist who wrote a book, "Notes of a Feminist Therapist," said she often gets calls on a Saturday night voices with no introduction or recommendation requesting an appointment.

Dr. George Ritz: "All the head shrinkers in this town used to live

on the East Side, but now they have

even moved to would you believe-

Parma.'

The Plain Dealer/David 1. Andersen