This is who I am: psychotherapy with gender questioning and transgender adolescents

ABSTRACT

The paper draws on fictionalised composite case histories to explore themes in psychotherapeutic work with gender questioning and transgender young people. Gender and transgender are examined from psychoanalytic, cultural and philosophical perspectives. It is argued that the meaning of gender and transgender as an identity is rooted in unconscious processes and patterns of relationship. An ethical argument is made for a therapeutic stance, which remains curious about and receptive to complexity in therapeutic work with gender questioning young people and their families. The need for the therapist to be aware of their own blind spots in work with gender questioning young people is discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Gender
• gender identity
• transgender
• adolescence
• psychoanalytic child psychotherapy
• reflexive psychotherapy

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (https://doi.org/10.1080/0075417X.2024.2329426).

Additional information

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Anna Cohen

Anna Cohen works independently as a psychoanalytic child and adolescent psychotherapist. She worked for twenty years in the NHS, specialising in work with traumatised children and young people, particularly refugees. Over the last ten years she has also worked extensively with gender questioning children and young people and their parents. She has a doctorate in Social Anthropology from the London School of Economics which she draws on in her clinical work to explore the social and cultural aspects of mental distress. She helped set up a counselling service for young women in rural Rajasthan, India. She is the co-author of Time and Memory in the therapeutic journey with unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and the author of Hanging on the telephone: reflections on conducting psychotherapy over the phone during the Covid pandemic, both published in the JCP.