Abstract

In this presentation, Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou urges psychoanalysts and psychoanalytically informed clinicians to let the debate about the validity of trans children take its place in the fossil record of analytic history. It is time, she suggests, to move beyond transantagonism: rather than sparring with colleagues who see trans existence as cause for alarm, we need to be working on developing the psychoanalytic theories we need and do not yet have to work towards the flourishing of trans and queer children.  Let us refuse, once and for all, the philanthropy of being “inclusive,” delving, instead, into the difficult task of seeing what pressures trans children and adults put on existing thinking about gender.  Starting with the premise that trans children deserve no less than a psychoanalysis that wants their transness and which does not treat their genders as undesirable or inauthentic requires our field to endure the twisting and re-making of our metapsychology’s very foundations. At stake is a psychoanalysis that is responsible and response-able to queer life. 

With clinical material, Dr. Saketopoulou will address what stands in the way of a psychoanalysis that works towards the flourishing of trans and queer children, taking on key concepts in child analysis. She will explain why the notion of core gender identity nests a ticking time bomb into the clinical process and why we need to relinquish our attachment to it; how we may reflect on gender not through the rubric of identity but under the aegis of contingency; why thinking about trauma as constitutive of some queer and some trans experience does not have to necessarily capsize into homotransphobia or conversion; how the demand for coherence and continuity overlooks the workings of important heteroclite psychic processes; and how we may think developmentally without collapsing into developmentalism.  The implications of this presentation extend far beyond the particularities of trans and queer childhoods, and gesture towards renewed foundations for child psychoanalysis overall.

Learning Objectives

While no CEs are attached to this event, the learning objectives, nevertheless, are as follow: 

• Attendees will be able to describe what psychoanalytic anti-trans clinical activism looks like and to identify approaches that may border on conversion practices
• Attendees will be able to explain a psychoanalytic theory of gender through the lens of Jean Laplanche and Fred Moten, and discuss its implications for our metapsychology overall
• Attendees will be able to discuss how we may think differently about the relationship between trauma and gender without falling into etiological traps that capsize the clinician into homotransphobia thinking 

Details

Date and Time:

• Saturday April 26, 930am – 1230pm PST / 1230pm – 330pm EST

Fees:

• Institute faculty: $180
• Institute graduates and licensed clinicians: $150
• Academics and general public: $100 
• Graduate students, candidates, pre-licensed clinicians: $80
• For those whom the above fee might pose financial strain: $40

This event is a fundraiser.  100% of tickets and donation proceeds will be directed to The Trevor Project, a nationally recognized organization that provides suicide prevention, advocacy, public education, and community for LGBTQ+ youth. 

If none of the above fee categories fit, choose the pricing tier that best reflect your financial situation.  And, if you are able, consider giving generously by adding an additional donation in the registration page. 

Virtual. On Zoom. No recordings available.