Blog

While much contemporary therapy emphasises the importance of establishing a sense of safety, depth psychological traditions spoke instead of containment. Informed by their experience of gender transition and of kink/BDSM practices, as well as Winnicott, Bion and Jung, therapist and Trans Sex author Lucie Fielding discusses fear, risk, play and states of therapeutic chaos – and suggests clinicians should aim instead to offer clients an experience of ‘boundedness’.

Curiosity is an invaluable therapist tool. But it also has a shadow side. As therapist and sex educator Lucie Fielding explains, trans and gender expansive people are only the latest to experience invasive and objectifying questioning in the guise of clinical curiosity – especially when it comes to sex and bodies. Here, the author of Trans Sex proposes a new curiosity framework to benefit all clients, and shares three principles for practising with ‘ethical curiosity’.

When it comes to sexual issues, some of us may be avoiding the subject with clients while others are in danger of working beyond our competency. Where do the borders lie between ‘regular’ therapy and sex therapy? What kinds of physical difficulties and relational concerns can we listen out for? How might we make informed choices about professional development and referral? Beginning a new blog series, psychosexual therapist, supervisor and author Cate Campbell outlines the numerous ways that sexual issues may show up in therapy – or be lurking just out of sight.

How can we help our trans clients to feel ‘seen’, and feel safe, in therapy? On Trans Day of Visibility, Ellis J. Johnson discusses the simultaneous experience of invisibility and hypervisibility for many gender diverse people – and urges therapists to stop recreating oppressive structures and expectations in the therapeutic space, starting with a simple reframing.