Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families FROM THE PUBLISHER
Explore an ecological strength-based framework for the treatment of
gender-variant clients!
This comprehensive book provides you with a clinical and theoretical
overview of the issues facing transgendered/transsexual people and their
families. Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for Working with
Gender-Variant People and Their Families views assessment and treatment
through a nonpathologizing lens that honors human diversity and
acknowledges the role of oppression in the developmental process of gender
identity formation.
Specific sections of Transgender Emergence: Therapeutic Guidelines for
Working with Gender-Variant People and Their Families address the needs of
gender-variant people as well as transgendered children and youth. The
issues facing gender-variant populations who have not been the focus of
clinical care, such as intersexed people, female-to-male transgendered
people, and those who identify as bigendered, are also addressed.
The book examines:
the six stages of transgender emergence
coming out transgendered as a normative process of gender identity
development
thinking "outside the box" in the deconstruction of sex and gender
the difference between sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as
the convergence, overlap, and integration of these parts of the self
the power of personal narrative in gender identity development
etiology and typographies of transgenderism
treatment models that emerge from various clinical perspectives
alternative treatment modalities based on gender variance as a normative
lifecycle developmental process
Complete with fascinating case studies, a critique of diagnostic processes,
treatment recommendations, and a helpful glossary of relevant terms, this
book is an essential reference for anyone who works with gender-variant
people. Handy tables and figures make the information easier to access and
understand.
SYNOPSIS
Lev, a family therapist in Albany, NY, takes a feminist family- systems perspective that approaches transgenderism as a normal and potentially healthy variation of human expression. Positing that transgendered people are not "mentally ill," but rather are trying to adapt and cope with an untenable culture, she describes a therapeutic empowerment model for clinical assessment and advocacy on behalf of gender-variant people. Re-examining the historic therapeutic focus, she writes, "forces the clinical community to re-evaluate some of its cherished philosophies of treatment, including the validity of the diagnosis of gender identity disorder, the surgical treatment of intersexed babies, and the mandated treatment of gender-variant children and adolescents." Annotation © 2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
The information contained in this book is SO IMPORTANT THAT NO CLINICIAN
CAN AFFORD TO MISS IT. The book offers a clear, comprehensive, and cogent
review of the history of the mental health field's thinking about sexuality
and gender, and an extraordinarily thoughtful and extensive exploration of
assessment and intervention issues with gender-variant people and their
families. Lev's knowledge of the subject is phenomenal, and the breadth and
clarity of her writing are brilliant. This book lays out an enormous amount
of complex material in a highly readable and useful text. . . . BELONGS IN
THE LIBRARY OF EVERY PSYCHOTHERAPIST, COUNSELOR, AND HEALTH CARE
PROFESSIONAL. (Director, Multicultural Family Institute, Highland
Park, New Jersey)
— Monica McGoldrick
FINALLY, a book that does justice to the life-changing power of
psychotherapy in the transgender coming-out process. I recommend this book
to any psychotherapist called to work with transgender clients. I also
recommend it to transgender individuals who might benefit from
understanding how psychotherapy can play an invaluable role. COMPREHENSIVE
AND PASSIONATE. . . . TERRIFIC. . . . LONG OVERDUE. (Co-editor, "Transgender and HIV: Risks, Prevention, and Care"; Assistant Professor and Coordinator, Transgender Health Services,
Program in Human Sexuality, University of Minnesota Medical School)
— Walter Bockting
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