MIRRORING AND THE TRUE GENDER SELF

This is a pivotal time for psychoanalysis to re-tool itself and offer both comprehension and best care to children and youth who experience and express themselves outside our normative gender structures. Dr. Ehrensaft will present the interdisciplinary gender affirmative model of care developed collectively by experts at four major U.S. pediatric gender clinics, including UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, where she is Director of Mental Health of the Child and Adolescent Gender Center. 
Using clinical material from clinic patients, this course will demonstrate how the tools of psychoanalysis can be linked to the rubrics of the gender-affirmative model to provide optimal care for gender expansive and transgender children and youth, along with their families. Participants will  discuss experiences in their own clinical practices and critique the gender affirmative-model as to its potential strengths and weaknesses in providing in-depth psychoanalytically informed treatment of children and youth.