24 - Behind the Curtain: Getting Started In Gender Exploratory Therapy

Gender: A Wider Lens

Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley

Health & Fitness, Society & Culture, Mental Health

4.6 • 961 Ratings

🗓️ 21 May 2021

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This is the first episode in a short series which takes listeners behind the scenes of a gender exploratory therapy process. Although there has been plenty written about Gender Affirmative Therapy, very little has been written about a concept often described as Gender Exploratory Therapy. Sasha and Stella discuss the specifics of establishing a therapeutic alliance when a person is questioning their gender identity. They describe different strategies involving issues such as names, pronouns, clothes and hairstyles and reflect on the different stages of therapy, which they’ll discuss in subsequent series episodes.

Anastassis Spiliadis: ‘Taking the lid off the box’: The value of extended clinical assessment for adolescents presenting with gender identity difficulties

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1359104518825288

Sasha Ayad: How do I work with gender questioning teens: https://gdworkinggroup.org/2018/11/12/how-i-work-with-rogd-teens/

Sasha Ayad, Stella O’Malley and Lisa Marchiano: ‘Effective Relationships and Clinical Relationships’ https://youtu.be/Sy1VuuN6V2g

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.widerlenspod.com/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to gender, a wider lens.
0:04.0	I'm Stella O'Malley, a psychotherapist in Ireland.
0:06.5	And I'm Sasha Ayad, an adolescent therapist in the United States.
0:10.6	Since 2016, my practice has been exclusively dedicated to gender questioning teens
0:16.1	and families impacted by gender dysphoria. I also work with gender questioning
0:20.7	teenagers and I facilitated support meetings for families and
0:24.2	individuals who have been impacted by gender issues. We're curious about the
0:28.1	concept of gender and how it's unfolding in the wider culture. Join us as we look at gender through a wider lens.
0:35.0	Hi Stella, how are you doing?
0:39.0	I'm good, how are you?
0:41.0	I'm doing really well. Today we're kind of opening something up. We're going behind the curtain.
0:48.0	Yes. And this is something I've wanted to do almost since I first become a therapist because people I often think like what goes on in the therapist's office what goes on in there and I often say like you know you think where the
1:05.0	Wizard of Oz behind the curtain like with you know doing all sorts when actually
1:10.1	it's it's I think it's very warm and it's very understanding there's a lot of there's
1:17.6	a real I feel especially I love doing face-to-face you know in person therapy and there's a real warmth in the room and there's a real
1:25.0	authenticity in the room that I thrive from.
1:28.5	But I don't think much magic is going on.
1:31.6	I don't think I'm not, like not like we're not standing on one foot
1:34.4	and closing her eyes and clapping three times to get rid of something. Oh wait you don't start your
1:39.5	therapy sessions that way? No I remember a friend of my when he found out that I remember I remember a friend of my money found out that I had candles all over the place
1:45.7	he was like you don't have candles and I was like I do. Yeah yeah so today's session
1:52.2	is about what is the work the therapist does when something comes in with gender related challenges.
	...

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