A Psychoanalytic Exploration of Female to Male Transition [Paperback]

Introduction  1. The Melancholy of Anatomy 2. Body of Guilt  3. Matricide: Femininity Revoked  4. Bespoke Masculinity 5. Bespoke Temporality 6. No Mans Land  Conclusion

Serena Heller has successfully extended the classical psychoanalytic position of benevolent neutrality and free curiosity from her psychotherapeutic work to her writing. The result is a much-needed book presenting a clear and clinical exploration of the psychic meaning and function of female to male transition. It will be an important source of reflection for any clinician working with transgender individuals.

Lionel Bailly, Honorary Associate Professor at University College, London, UK and child and adolescent consultant psychiatrist for the NHS. 

 

Coming to the question of female-to-male transitioning with a curious and open mind, Serena Heller makes a strong case for a psychoanalytic contribution to an understanding of gender as it is lived now. In return, she asks psychoanalytic clinicians encountering the current gender climate to put aside rigid conceptualisations of gender and sexuality. This book approaches these complex and often contentious issues with admirable thoughtfulness, balance and respect.

Rachel Chaplin, Training Analyst, British Psychoanalytical Society.

Serena Heller offers us a timely gift: a thoughtful, thoroughly researched, and balanced engagement with one of the most controversial subjects in contemporary times: transgender identities. Focusing specifically on trans men and drawing on her own research in this area, Heller manages to strike that difficult balance between the need to 'unstraighten' the classical psychoanalytic understandings of gender whilst remaining firmly rooted in the best that psychoanalytic theory halC,