Working Psychoanalytically with Gender Diversity and Sexualities

Frances Thomson-Salo, Ph.D., is an adult and child psychoanalyst, European co-chair of the IPA Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies committee, and member of the International Journal of Psychoanalysis Board. She was an Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Melbourne, specialising in infant mental health.Marco Posadas, RSW, MSW, PhD is a psychoanalyst based in Toronto, and inaugural chair of the IPA Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee. He received the 2018 Sue Fairbanks Excellence in Psychoanalytic Knowledge Distinguished Lecturer award, the 2022 Distinguished Social Worker for Toronto award, and is the 2024-2025 Antoinette Calabria visiting scholar for the Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas.Silvia R. Acosta, PsyD, PhD is an Argentinian psychoanalyst, member of the SPP and the APC, a member of the IPA Sexual and Gender Diversity Studies Committee, and a co-founder of the FEPAL Working Party on drive constellations and subjectivation processes. She has published psychoanalytic articles and teaches on sexual and gender diversity in Europe and Latin America.

“At a time when free thinking and a democratically legitimate, diverse culture are increasingly under threat worldwide, this book provides a scientifically sound wake-up call to preserve open thinking not only in our culture and society, but also within our psychoanalytic community. With their consistent plea for an opening and fluidity of psychoanalytic theory and practice in the realm of sexuality and gender, the authors repeatedly touch on the original field of psychoanalysis. At the same time, their multi-layered message is: we need resistance to arbitrariness in our psychoanalytic concepts, but also resistance to normative restriction in the diversity of innovative theories on socially new, often still incomprehended forms of sexuality and gender. This is an excellent book that cannot be pigeonholed into any psychoanalytic cliché, but opens up creative spaces for thought and life.” - Dr. med. Heribert Blass, IPA President elect“The paradox at the heart of psychoanalysis--without resistance, there can be no cure; yet when resistance calcifies, the analytic process stalls--shapes every treatment, implicating both analyst and analysand. With candor and precision, the ten essays in this volume—authored by a distinguished group of international clinicians—trace the evolving contours of resistance as it intersects with gender, embodiment, and the enduring question of sexual difference. It is, unmistakably, essential reading for the contemporary psychoanalyst.” - Patricia Gherovici, Ph.D. psychoanalyst, Sigourney Award winner, and author of Transgender Psychoanalysis.

• List of ContributorsSeries editor prefaceIntroductionMarco Posadas, Silvia Acosta and Frances Thomson-SaloPart 1. Gender diversity and sexuality: theoretical revisions that include diversity Introduction Angela Vila-Real1. The Oedipus complex: an expanded approach on sexual and gender polyphoniesLeticia Glocer Fiorini2. Psychosexuality and the problem of (mis)representation: A mentalizing perspectiveLiz Allison3. Encountering otherness: On the ability (and inability) for psychic movement within sexual states of mindAnat Schumann4. Shapes of gender identity: Three stories with an impactDomenico di CegliePart 2. Psychoanalytic ethics and depathologising gender diversities and sexualities: Intolerance as an unconscious response to violence in analytic fieldIntroductionMarco Posadas 5. The many colours of the rainbow: Depathologising sexual diversitySergio Lewkowicz6. Towards a psychoanalytic ethics-based practice with transgender individualsAlessandra Lemma7. A history of reception: Falling apart as the ground for learningOren GozlanPart 3. In search of complexityIntroductionNicolas Evzonas 8. Gender fluid and fixed: gender and suffering, gender and transformationAdrienne Harris9. Gender crossing as caesura versus gender crossing as cut Dana Amira) Eva Reichelt Discussionb) Elda Abrevaya Discussion10. On Trying to Pass off Transphobia as Psychoanalysis and Cruelty as “Clinical Logic”: Gender DysphoriaAvgi Saketopoulou