E. Kitch Childs

Ellen Kitch Childs (April 11, 1937 – January 10, 1993) was an American clinical psychologist and a lesbian activist known for her participation in the women's liberation movement in North America and for advocating for minority women, prostitutes, gays and lesbians.

E. Kitch Childs
Born
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
OccupationClinical Psychologist
AwardsChicago LGBT Hall of Fame
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of Chicago; University of Pittsburgh
Academic work
InstitutionsPrivate Practice, Oakland, California

Childs was a founding member of the University of Chicago's Gay Liberation[1] and, along with Vernita Gray and Michal Brody, co-founded the Women's Caucus of Chicago Gay Liberation, later re-named the Chicago Lesbian Liberation.[2] Childs was inducted into the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame in 1993. This honor was given in recognition of her efforts to dismantle the American Psychiatric Association's position on homosexuality, which was listed as a psychological disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders until 1973.[3]

Childs was the first African American woman to earn her doctorate degree in Human Development at the University of Chicago.[2] She was one of several notably women in psychology, including Phyllis Chesler and Dorothy Riddle, who co-founded the Association for Women in Psychology in 1969.[1]

Biography

Ellen Kitch Childs was born in 1937 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was the youngest child and her old brothers included the jazz musician Kenny Clarke.[4] As a young girl, she experienced racism and lost two of her brothers to racial violence.[1] Childs received her B.S. degree in Chemistry at the University of Pittsburgh and subsequently served in the United States Navy.[1] She attended graduate school at the University of Chicago where she obtained a Masters degree and a Ph.D in Human Development in 1972.

She opened up a private practice in Oakland, California, and was one of the first to do therapy sessions in her home and her clients' homes. She used a sliding-scale fee structure and gave free therapy sessions to communities that didn't have access to it, with priority given to Black people, sex workers, people with AIDS, and people living in poverty.[3] Childs advocated for the decriminalization of prostitution through her involvement the sex worker’s rights group COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics) and anti-racist social movements.[3] Childs was heavily invested in feminist therapy, and aimed to create a treatment model for therapy where her clients would feel included.[5] She created a client-therapist model where she treated her clients on an equal level and made them feel comfortable.

Representative publications
  • Childs, E. K. (1966). Careers in the Military Service: A Review of the Literature. National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago.
  • Childs, E. K. (1972). Prediction of Outcome in Encounter Groups: Outcome as a Function of Selected Personality Correlates (Doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, Committee on Human Development).
  • Childs, E. K. (1976). An Annotated Bibliography on Prison Health Care. Prisoners' Health Project, San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center.
  • Childs, E. K. (1990). Therapy, feminist ethics, and the community of color with particular emphasis on the treatment of Black women. In H. Lerman & N. Porter (Eds.), Feminist ethics in psychotherapy (p. 195–203). Springer Publishing Company.

References
  1. "E. KITCH CHILDS – Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame". Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  2. Tribune, Chicago. "E. KITCH CHILDS". chicagotribune.com. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  3. "Feminist Voices Exhibit - E. Kitch Childs (1937-1993)". Feminist Voices. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  4. "Feminist Voices - E. Kitch Childs". Feminist Voices. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  5. Richardson, Wytress (2017-10-02). "Feminist Therapy Pioneer: E. Kitch Childs". Women & Therapy. 40 (3–4): 301–307. doi:10.1080/02703149.2017.1241562. ISSN 0270-3149.
    This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.