47. The Scapegoated Body: Transition Regret in Psychotherapy with Bob Withers
You Must Be Some Kind of Therapist
Introduction
This chapter delves into the complexities and harms associated with gender affirming care and detransitioning. The speaker introduces Bob Withers, a psychoanalyst, who provides insight into the trauma and difficulties experienced by detransitioners.
If you appreciate conversations about detransition, you’re not going to want to miss this episode. Today we are graced by an elder psychotherapist who has been helping people with transition regret, including men who have had irreversible surgeries, revert to living as their biological sex ever since I was a child.
Bob Withers is a Jungian analyst with over 35 years’ experience as a psychotherapist. During that time he has worked with several transgender people in various stages of transition and detransition. He has written a series of articles about that work including the 2020 article ‘Transgender Medicalization’. Bob is a former senior lecturer on the University of Westminster’s master’s program, where he specialized in the history and philosophy of the mind/body relationship in medicine. He is also co-founder of The Rock Clinic, a charitable, community based psychotherapy and counseling service in Brighton England, where he lives.
In this episode, we explore from a depth psychology perspective the various reasons people seek “transition,” ranging from internalized homophobia and auto gynephilia, to abusive fathers and fear of toxic masculinity, to insecure attachment and even psychosis. Plus: what are therapists trying to avoid in ourselves by colluding with trans medicalization? And what can we learn from therapists who worked during the era of lobotomies?
In this conversation, Bob mentioned two books, both by Michele Moore and Heather Brunskell-Evans, which Bob wrote chapters of. You can find these books and many more in my bookshop or using these Amazon affiliate links below. Either way, your purchase supports the show. Thank you!
Transgender Children and Young People: Born in your own body
Inventing Transgender Children and Young People
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Show notes & transcript provided with the help of SwellAI.
Special thanks to Joey Pecoraro for our theme song, “Half Awake,” used with gratitude and permission.
Watch NO WAY BACK: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care (our medical ethics documentary, formerly known as Affirmation Generation). Stream the film or purchase a DVD. Use code SOMETHERAPIST to take 20% off your order. Follow us on X @2022affirmation or Instagram at @affirmationgeneration.
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