29 - Conversion Therapy: A Conversation with Bob Withers
Gender: A Wider Lens
Sasha Ayad and Stella O'Malley
4.6 • 961 Ratings
🗓️ 25 June 2021
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Jungian Analyst Bob Withers joins us to discuss the differences between gay conversion therapy and gender identity conversion therapy. We examine the possibility of misinformed therapists “transing the gay away” and suggest that perhaps the dark history of conversion therapy may not be over. Bob delves into his view of psychosomatic symptoms and draws on his background in philosophy and medical history to understand our current fixation with one’s subjective sense of identity. Bob also defines what he calls “detrans-phobic” responses to the experiences of detransitioners.
Links:
Winnicott: http://web-facstaff.sas.upenn.edu/~cavitch/pdf-library/Winnicott_PsycheSoma.pdf
Dr Az Hakeem:
http://www.drazhakeem.com/publications/
Vsauce Video: The Power of Suggestion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDCcuCHOIyY&feature=emb_title
Safeguard evidence-based therapy for children struggling with gender dysphoria:
Transgender Medicalization and the attempt to evade psych distress:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1468-5922.12641
The Seventh Penis: towards effective psychoanalytic work with pre-surgical transexuals
Cambridge Books:
Transgender Children and Young People: Born in Your Own Body:
https://www.cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-0398-4
Inventing Transgender Children:
https://cambridgescholars.com/product/978-1-5275-3638-8
One Size Does Not Fit All: In Support of Psychotherapy for Gender Dysphoria
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10508-020-01844-2
Extended Notes
- A little bit about Bob and his work.
- Bob met a biological man, now a woman, who wanted to detransition. He realized that becoming a woman did not solve his psychological problems. This was in 1990.
- Bob’s work would later spark a new set of clients and now Bob sees parents and gender dysphoria teens.
- How were the narrates about gender different back then?
- Bob’s first detransition client was attacked and vilivided by the community. He tried to write books about it, but the only way to get the bullying to stop was to say he made up the whole thing.
- This was the first time Bob saw de-trans phorbia. We know the mind through introspection, but we actually know the body
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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. |
| 0:38.0 | Hi Sasha. |
| 0:40.0 | Today we're going to speak about conversion therapy and what it is and also what it isn't and about the different nuances in relation to conversion therapy because a lot of people seem to presume |
| 0:53.1 | conversion therapy only has to do with sexual orientation while there's a whole |
| 0:57.6 | drive to include conversion therapy with gender identity and you know in relation to that we're going to be speaking to |
| 1:05.6 | Bob Withers the young analyst and also we want to lift up that James Yeseses who's a |
| 1:11.0 | psych therapist he has brought about a petition, which is the |
| 1:15.1 | petition to safeguard evidence-based therapy for children struggling with |
| 1:18.7 | gender dysphoria. And the idea on this petition is the kind of concern about the possibility of normal therapeutic practices being banned alongside conversion therapy. |
| 1:30.0 | So while conversion therapy has a horrible history to do with gay people being really, really treated very badly, |
| 1:36.7 | there is a whole new side that hasn't really been explored at all, and we're going to explore it in this episode. |
| 1:44.0 | Yes and I first encountered Bob Wither's work when I read the paper The Seventh Pines, |
| 1:50.0 | which is an excellent paper and we're going to link it in the show notes. |
| 1:53.4 | So Bob, thank you so much. |
... |
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