Gender, Panic and Relational Scaffolding in the Therapy of a Latency-Aged Boy

Abstract

This paper presents clinical material from work with a latency-aged boy, the son of lesbian parents, who presented with an unformulated panic around his experience of gender. While one might expect that lesbian, bisexual, gay, transgender, and queer parents might be especially comfortable with such concerns, the paper argues the opposite: that such concerns almost invariably trigger historical traumas and normative messages about gender, both within parents and in clinicians. Grappling with those messages and the attendant panic, both in patients and in the clinician's countertransference, is viewed as a crucial part of the unfolding work.

KEYWORDS:

• gender
• panic
• transgender
• gay parents
• child
• homophobia
• play therapy
• countertransference

Notes

1. Though neither of the mothers were especially “girly” as children, they both described fond memories of doll play with their older daughter, seven years Milo's senior.