In and out the gender pail

Abstract

"Abstract Like Gestalt therapy, gender is not to be explained, but to be engaged with, and to engage with anything or anyone requires curiosity. For many of us, exploring our relationship to gender is arduous, messy, non-linear, personal work with no shortcuts. It can’t be made into generalised statements that would spare the person enquiring from doing the work of their own understanding. I believe some of the curiosity regarding gender is missing in our Gestalt-therapy community and we risk oversimplifying and polarising a complex phenomenon. As a Gestalt therapist who happens to be trans, my invitation is to move away from problematizing gender as if it only belonged to the trans community and begin to engage with it as something that concerns us all. Though gender is more figural for some clients than others, it is ever-present in our fields. Because it is always present, it is either organising our perceptions from the shadows, or being consciously held, named and worked with to deepen contact. I will start by describing current field conditions as I perceive them. I will share my own path to my current identity to illustrate how gender can be entangled in our hardships and growth. Using my personal narrative, I will outline implications for Gestalt therapy theory – exploring biopsychosocial and intersectional lenses to gender, differentiating self from gender identity, touching on gendered introjects and gender synthesis, and linking ontological insecurity with certain identities. Lastly, I point to more pragmatic implications for clinical practice, to support other Gestalt therapists as they will inevitably encounter clients for whom gender is figural. Keywords gender, Gestalt therapy, transgender, biopsychosocial, intersectional, gender identity, gendered introjects, gender synthesis, ontological insecurity "