Against Transantagonism: A Metapsychology for the Flourishing of Trans Children (Zoom Registration)
In this presentation, Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou urges psychoanalysts to let the debate about the validity of trans children take its place in the fossil record of analytic history. Encouraging us to stop squandering our energies sparring with colleagues who see trans existence as cause for alarm, she suggests it is time to move beyond transantagonism to create, instead, the psychoanalytic theories we need and do not yet have to work towards the flourishing of trans and queer children.
Registration is required for this program. All registrants will receive a Zoom link.
In this presentation, Dr. Avgi Saketopoulou urges psychoanalysts to let the debate about the validity of trans children take its place in the fossil record of analytic history. Encouraging us to stop squandering our energies sparring with colleagues who see trans existence as cause for alarm, she suggests it is time to move beyond transantagonism to create, instead, 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”: trans children, Dr. Saketopoulou emphasizes, deserve no less than a psychoanalysis that wants their transness and which does not treat their genders as undesirable or inauthentic. Such a project, she cautions, will require us to endure the twisting and re-making of our metapsychology’s very foundations. It is only then that we may enjoy a psychoanalysis that is responsible and response-able to queer life, and which will not feel threatened by it or work to straighten or cis-iffy our patients.
Through a series of case vignettes, 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 to 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.
Speakers
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Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD, Presenter is on faculty at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and also teaches at the William Alanson White Institute. Her published work has received the Ralph Roughton award, the Ruth Stein Prize, the annual JAPA Essay Prize, and she is Div. 39’s 2022 recipient of the Scholarship and Research Award. Her interview on relational psychoanalysis is in the permanent collection of the Freud Museum in Vienna and she is co-recipient of the IPA’s First Tiresias Prize. Her monograph, Sexuality Beyond Consent: Risk, Race, Traumatophilia was published earlier this year by NYU Press, and her book, Gender Without Identity, co-authored with Dr. Ann Pellegrini which includes their Tiresias essay, came out in June from The Unconscious in Translation Press. |
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Lisa Price, MD, Moderator is a faculty member in the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital and is an Instructor at Harvard Medical School. At BPSI, she is a Faculty Member, Director of BPSI’s Programs in Psychodynamics and Travel Grants, as well as an Advanced Child Analytic Candidate. In her Cambridge private practice, she sees children, adolescents, and adults across the lifespan. |
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this program, participants will be able to:
- List two reasons why it is clinically important to be able to consider how trauma may have a share in the constitution of queer and trans life.
- Describe how it is possible to think developmentally about the constitution of trans subjectivities without falling into developmentalism and without capsizing into transphobic thinking or conversion therapies.
- Identify the ethical issues involved in thinking traumatophilically about queer and trans child patients.
- Explain why it is psychoanalytically important to name trans childhoods as such and will be able to demonstrate an understanding of how it is possible to do so without collapsing transness into fixed identity or ontological claims.
Schedule
10:00 Welcome and Introductions; 10:10 Presentation; 11:10 Discussion with the audience
This program is made possible by the generous support of BPSI members and friends. Your gift to BPSI supports psychoanalytic and psychotherapy education and ensures the future of our field. To make a gift, please visit www.bpsi.org.
Recording
A recording of this event will not be available.
Continuing Education
Physicians: This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint provider ship of American Psychoanalytic Association and The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute . The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.”
The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters for this educational activity have relevant financial relationship(s)* to disclose with ineligible companies* whose primary business is producing, marketing, selling, re-selling, or distributing healthcare products used by or on patients.
*Financial relationships are relevant if the educational content an individual can control is related to the business lines or products of the ineligible company. -Updated July 2021-
Psychologists: The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. This course offers 2 hours of CE credits for psychologists.
Social Workers: Application for social work continuing education credits has been submitted. Please contact us at team@bpsi.org or 617-266-0953 for the status of social work CE accreditation.
Please note: Per NASW requirements, social workers must attend 80% of a course in order to be eligible for continuing education credit.
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Licensed Mental Health Clinicians: The Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (BPSI) has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 6913. BPSI is solely responsible for all aspects of the programs. This program offers 2 NBCC Clock Hours. |
Event Cancellation Policies & Procedures
Any program participant requesting their individual program registration be canceled must submit their request in writing via email to Stephanie Cavanaugh at scavanaugh@bpsi.org. For fee-based events, a request for cancellation (and refund using the original form of payment) must be received no later than 48 hours in advance of the event. Requests received later than 48 hours prior to the event will not be processed or accepted. All approved refunds are subject to a $10.00 administrative fee. If BPSI cancels an event, all registrants will receive a full refund of fees paid (no administration charge) no later than two business days following the scheduled date of the event, using the original form of payment.
Grievance Policy
Please address any questions or concerns about your experience at this or any program or event you have attended at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute to the Program Chair, via the Senior Administrator/Continuing Education Administrator, BPSI,141 Herrick Road, Newton Centre, MA 02459; team@bpsi.org; 617.266.0953.
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