This program is subject to change.
Trans Children and the Failure of Mirrors
Workshop Description
The session will examine the developmental trajectory of TGNC children. This is an interactional, interpersonal developmental theory of being gender diverse, focused on how mirroring affects perception security, attachment and shame. Furthermore, it will explore the consequences of the ways in which the mirroring of gender complicates these states for the individual. By mirroring I mean to include the active and tacit verbal and embodied attunement of caregivers to the child. Mirroring contributes to the construction of perceiving and identifying one’s internal cues. We are not subjects alone but always inter-subjectively connected. Working from this interactional model of how the core self begins to be shaped by others, I will to draw on Fotopoulou & Tsakiris’ work which proposes that the burgeoning self is created as an embodied interactional dance with primary caregivers. In the case of TGNC children, their multisensory experience of their gender will most likely not be understood or integrated for them by a caregiver. We will explore how this contributes to one's attachment, development of shame and internalized transphobia.
Conference Track
Professional
Topic
Mental Health - Youth
Workshop Outline/Powerpoint
Primary Contact
School of Visual Arts S.J. Langer, LCSW-R, School of Visual Arts
Workshop Presenters
S.J. Langer, School of Visual Arts
Pronouns
He
Presenter Bio
S.J. Langer is a writer and psychotherapist in private practice in New York City. He is faculty at School of Visual Arts in both the MPS Art Therapy and Humanities & Sciences departments. His article Trans Bodies and the Failure of Mirrors was the co-winner of the Symonds Prize from Studies in Gender and Sexuality. His first book Theorizing Transgender Identity for Clinical Practice: A New Model for Understanding Gender is available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers.