Gender Identity, Queer Theory, and Working With the Sociopolitical in Counseling and Psychotherapy: Why There Is No Such Thing As Neutral

Abstract

The authors consider the importance of working with sociopolitical issues in the therapy room with reference to gender identity, transgender identity, and gender politics. They describe the theoretical foundations of queer theory and critical theory and consider how these and associated concepts can be used to bridge the gaps between psychology, psychotherapy, and counseling as well as the sociopolitical field and identity politics. They pay particular attention to ways of holding a clinical and therapeutic focus within a queer philosophical context by distinguishing between a liberal rights approach to therapy and a more radical queer approach. They introduce the Lacanian concept of the sinthome to develop the transactional analysis concept of script.

Keywords:

• Transactional analysis
• transgender
• queer theory
• counseling
• psychotherapy
• sinthome
• psychology
• identity categories
• feminist theory
• homonormativity

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen Rowland

Helen Rowland, BA (Hons.), DipSw, is a Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy) in independent private practice in Scotland, United Kingdom, providing psychotherapy, training, and supervision. She also runs study groups and reading groups online for both trainees and experienced practitioners nationally and internationally. She is a coeditor of the Transactional Analysis Journal. Helen can be reached at 6, Caerlee Mill, Damside, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders, EH44 6AB, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].

William F. Cornell

William F. Cornell, MA, Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), maintains an independent private practice of psychotherapy and consultation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Having studied behavioral psychology at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, and phenomenological psychology at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he followed his graduate program with training in transactional analysis and body-centered psychotherapy and has studied with several mentors and consultants within diverse psychoanalytic perspectives. The consulting coeditor of the Transactional Analysis Journal, Bill is the author of Explorations in Transactional Analysis: The Meech Lake Papers; Somatic Experience in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: In the Expressive Language of the Living (Routledge); Self-Examination in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy: Countertransference and Subjectivity in Clinical Practice (Routledge); At the Interface of Transactional Analysis, Psychoanalysis, and Body Psychotherapy: Theoretical and Clinical Perspectives (Routledge); and Une Vie Pour Etre Soi (Payot). He is also a coauthor and editor of Into TA: A Comprehensive Textbook on Transactional Analysis (Karnac Books) as well as numerous articles and book chapters. With Helena Hargaden, he coedited From Transactions to Relations: The Emergence of a Relational Paradigm in Transactional Analysis. Bill edited and introduced The Healer’s Bent: Solitude and Dialogue in the Clinical Encounter, the collected papers of James T. McLaughlin, and Intimacy and Separateness in Psychoanalysis, the collected papers of Warren Poland. He is the editor of the Routledge book series Innovations in Transactional Analysis. Bill is a recipient of the Eric Berne Memorial Award and the European Association for Transactional Analysis Gold Medal in recognition of his writing. Bill can be reached at 145 44^th Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15201, United States; email: [email protected].