Family and Systems Aggression Toward Therapists

ABSTRACT

Mental health professionals who work with transgender clients often report feeling unsupported by colleagues and/or the institutions that employ them. Moreover, family members of transgendered clients may aggress against the therapist, whom they see as assisting their family member in this shame-producing gender transition. To test the prevalence of direct and indirect acts of aggression against therapists who work with transgendered clients, a questionnaire was sent to members who work with this population. Results show that while threats and/or assaults from families of transgendered patients do occur, they are no more frequent than assaults perpetuated by relatives of non-transgendered clients. However, health care providers who work with this population are more likely to experience prejudice or administrative aggression from within mental health systems.

KEYWORDS:

• Aggression
• transgender
• system
• family
• mental health

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work was supported by the New Health Foundation. The authors would like to thank Cindy Wagner for her assistance with data entry.