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SCIENTIFIC MEETING – Ruthlessness and the Transitioning of the Analyst’s Mind

SCIENTIFIC MEETING - Ruthlessness and the Transitioning of the Analyst’s Mind

Presenter: Oren Gozlan, PsyD, CPsych, ABPP

Wednesday, March 10, 2021: 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

TPS Scientific Meeting: Open to All.

** DISTANCE PARTICIPATION ONLY – This Scientific Meeting is available via Zoom meeting only. Preregistration is required. Please RSVP via email at psychoanalyst@bellnet.ca. Please note that registration closes 48 hours prior to the meeting date.

More and more we see adolescents coming into the therapeutic space with precise and clear demand to be supported through their transition. What is new is that it is no longer their parents sending them. These adolescents are working on their own accord; they take advice from media, internet, from other adolescents and from TV shows. What is also new is that the decision to transition does not seem to be accompanied by anxiety or ambivalence. Instead, enthusiasm follows a form of adolescent ruthlessness that is grounded in the conviction of being born “in the wrong body”. Given the supple nature of the adolescent, when thinking about treatment, how do therapists understand the desire for gender transitioning? The concern over the transitioning adolescent’s future involve, on the one hand, a worry over regret, and on the other, the fear that the child’s agony over gender may lead to suicide. Both concerns present a challenge to the analyst’s neutrality. How does the analyst meet the ruthlessness of the adolescent patient’s demand? Can the analyst be ruthless in his thinking and reorienting of his work?

Learning Objectives:

At the end of this presentation participants will be able to:

  1. Expansion of understanding of the dilemmas analyst might face in treating non-binary/ non-normative adolescents.
  2. Consideration of a frame of thinking about the challenges to the analyst’s neutrality through the idea of analytic temporality.
  3. Understanding analytic concepts of ruthlessness, anthropological situation and dispersal and their application on a clinical case with a non-binary patient.
Oren Gozlan, PsyD, ABPP

Oren Gozlan, PsyD, ABPP, is a clinical psychologist and a psychoanalyst in private practice in Toronto. His book Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning: A Lacanian Approach won the American Academy & Board of Psychoanalysis’ annual book prize for books published in 2015. He is also the winner of the Symonds Prize (2016). His recently published edited collection titled Critical Debates in the Transsexual Studies Field: In Transition (Routledge) was a runner up for the 2019 Gradiva Award.

The Scientific Meetings are eligible for Section 1 CME credits (0.5 credits/hour).

For more information about and for registration in the tps&i Extension Programs, Scientific Meetings, Training Programs, Study and Supervision groups and Special Presentations, please visit our website: torontopsychoanalysis.com or email info@torontopsychoanalysis.com

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