The reflections presented in this article are the result of ten years of clinical work with gender-diverse Brazilian adolescents in public and private outpatient treatment. Working with these adolescents makes psychoanalysts reconsider the fundamental principles or the theory that inspires them. In this respect, de-pathologizing and paying attention to the unique stories of transgender adolescents can greatly enrich the discussion.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 407-419.
In the context of the treatment of transgender and non-binary adolescents in a public psychological service in Brazil from 2022 to 2023, the author met youths with mental health issues who identified as trans during the coronavirus pandemic. She analyzed two clinical vignettes in which the adolescents made threats against their parents if the latter would not give permission for their child’s hormone treatments. The article offers some reflections on possible clinical strategies for handling such situations.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 393-406.
An adolescent’s demand for support in undertaking medical transitioning goes against traditional psychoanalytic theories. In this article, the author gives an overview of the metaphors that occur most frequently in discussions about gender transitioning. Through the notions of contagion, naturalness of gender, and amputation, he will attempt to reveal the anxieties of analysts, on the one hand, and, on the other, the anxieties of the psychoanalysis as a theoretical field.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 379-3691.
Using the subjective experience of the protagonists of the film Wolf & Dog (2023), the authors focus on the adolescent gender exploration on an island that is supposed to be totally cut off from globalization. Evolving in an area far from the society of consumption, where do these youth get their tendency to explore gender, which they do under the sometimes kindly, sometimes hostile eye of adults? How do the inhabitants of the island return – or not – to the normative systems set up by religious tradition?
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 367-377.
Today, the adolescent’s search for identity meets with new suggestions in terms of identification. By disentangling the issue of gender from that of sex, gender theories open up new perspectives for individual affirmation, thus opening up “man/woman” and “homosexual/heterosexual” binarities to other variations. The possibility of “choosing your gender” thus encounters the adolescent demand for the “right to self-determination”.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 353-365.
Nowadays, the metamorphoses of Éros are causing us to rethink the thesis according to which sexual binarism is the key to the order of the symbolic. The corpus of psychoanalysis and even more so the practice of psychoanalysis have been rocked by this. How can we keep analytical listening and intervention alive, and maintain the connection between analysis and what is happening in the field of culture? Could a dialogue with anthropology help with this?
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 339-351.
Current trans events should be connected with aspects of the societal evolution of western civilization’s models; this reveals their political dimension. Adolescents, as figures of modernity, are particularly apt to embody trans identity questionings. By bringing these into conflict with the subjectivation process proper to this time of life, they lead us to rethink our way of reading gendered identities, along with the binary logic on which sexual differentiation is based.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 325-337.
In studies on trans identity, sexuality is still largely unexplored territory. While sex and gender cover heterogenous data, it is hard not to hear the intertwining questions. The author relies on what transitioning or gender-fluid youths, or those who seeking to escape being categorized as man/woman, homo/hetero, cis/trans, are saying about their sexual practices. How does the agency of these bodies undergoing transformation fit into the development of our theories?
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 311-323.
This article examines questions raised by creative adolescents’ exploration of binarity in their gender identity, by bringing psychoanalysis into a dialogue with trans-identity issues, queer studies, and feminist theories. Moreover, it shows that we should be wary of the current trend towards psychic normativity and must let go of our own knowledge in order to better listen to what transgender and non-binary adolescents are telling us.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 301-310.
In this article, the authors and coordinators of the Binary/Non-Binary issue examine the questions raised by adolescent exploration of gender-identity and non-binarity from three angles: through the prism of the patients, that of their parents, and that of the caregivers who encounter them. In doing this, a Freudian approach leads them towards a subversive creativity rather than towards a set of reactionary dogmas.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 293-300.