British Journal of Psychotherapy最新文献

The increasing prevalence of gender dysphoria or transgender identity in children and adolescents has raised clinical, ethical and psychological concerns, particularly regarding the efficacy and appropriateness of medical interventions. This paper explores the critical role of thorough psychological assessment in addressing gender dysphoria, with a focus on the closure of the Tavistock NHS Gender Identity Service (GIDS) and the findings of the Cass Review. The author draws on her clinical experience to argue for a comprehensive, individualized approach to the treatment of children and young adults with gender identity conflicts. Key issues discussed include the lack of a robust evidence base for early medical treatments, such as puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, and the ethical implications of medicalising the bodies of children before psychological and physical maturity. The paper argues that many children presenting with gender confusion may be navigating complex psychological conflicts, including issues of identity, sexual orientation, anxiety and trauma, and that rushing into potentially harmful and life-changing medical treatments may remove opportunities for addressing these emotional struggles. The author critiques the affirmative model of treatment, advocating for a more cautious, holistic and empathetic framework that prioritises improved assessment, psychological support and the time required between early adolescent pubertal changes and full sexual, psychological maturation. The paper highlights the implications of the Bell v. Tavistock Judicial Review and questions the issue of informed consent to hormone treatments. The author calls for the restoration of ethical clinical practices aiming to reduce potential harm and improve long-term outcomes.

This article will argue that there is no war on gender, in the context of the so-called ‘gender wars’. The dominant binary model of gender as male, masculine, heterosexual or female, feminine, heterosexual is not under scrutiny. There is an old and ongoing attempt to control sex, gender and sexuality and constrain and construct what these mean for the benefit of the patriarchal status quo. Rather than a war on gender, there is a war on identities, relationships and families that are the ‘wrong’ gender, other to the heterosexual nuclear family.

This paper discusses the challenges and perspectives of psychoanalytic, psychodynamic and Jungian psychotherapists in thinking about and working clinically with transgender clients, based on interviews conducted by the author as part of a PhD study.

Kazuo Ishiguro's dystopian novel Never Let Me Go takes place, as the author tells us in ‘England, the late 1990s’ and follows the lives of a group of clones who had been created with the sole purpose of harvesting their organs for transplant. The novel is steeped in an atmosphere of illusion and self-deception while remaining deeply rooted in human emotions. I argue that to some extent it represents all of us, our illusions and self-deceptions. At another level, however, I argue that the novel is a sharp critique of a culture of narcissism and self-interest where human beings are treated as commodities, while creating the illusion that they are special and that ‘they never had it so good’, a saying from another time when self-deception was equally promoted. The paper concentrates on one aspect of this multilayered novel—the misrepresentation of reality and the human wish not to know about painful truths, but instead to create an illusory world. It examines this aspect of the novel in terms of the current neoliberal framework, and the culture of illusion that it promotes by ignoring the violence that underlies it. In particular, it examines how this pervasive aspect of contemporary culture affects the ability of the individual to ask questions and to pursue the truth, what Bion called ‘K.’