The reflections presented in this article are the result of ten years of clinical work with gender-diverse Brazilian adolescents in public and private outpatient treatment. Working with these adolescents makes psychoanalysts reconsider the fundamental principles or the theory that inspires them. In this respect, de-pathologizing and paying attention to the unique stories of transgender adolescents can greatly enrich the discussion.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 407-419.
In the context of the treatment of transgender and non-binary adolescents in a public psychological service in Brazil from 2022 to 2023, the author met youths with mental health issues who identified as trans during the coronavirus pandemic. She analyzed two clinical vignettes in which the adolescents made threats against their parents if the latter would not give permission for their child’s hormone treatments. The article offers some reflections on possible clinical strategies for handling such situations.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 393-406.
Using the subjective experience of the protagonists of the film Wolf & Dog (2023), the authors focus on the adolescent gender exploration on an island that is supposed to be totally cut off from globalization. Evolving in an area far from the society of consumption, where do these youth get their tendency to explore gender, which they do under the sometimes kindly, sometimes hostile eye of adults? How do the inhabitants of the island return – or not – to the normative systems set up by religious tradition?
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 367-377.
Current trans events should be connected with aspects of the societal evolution of western civilization’s models; this reveals their political dimension. Adolescents, as figures of modernity, are particularly apt to embody trans identity questionings. By bringing these into conflict with the subjectivation process proper to this time of life, they lead us to rethink our way of reading gendered identities, along with the binary logic on which sexual differentiation is based.
Adolescence, 2023, 41, 2, 325-337.