The Metropolitan Institute for Training in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy The Metropolitan Center for Mental Health and The Metropolitan Society of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapists

This event addresses: Gender Identity

PRESENTER: SUSAN McNAMARA, MD

At a time when various states are criminalizing transgender care, it is important for clinicians to be well-educated about gender identity and gender expression, as well as how gender and sexuality may be interwoven. Misinformation and disinformation are widely prevalent in media sources. This talk discusses basic concepts about the development of one’s gender identity, mental health concerns, evidence-based treatments for transgender people, and current psychoanalytic concepts about gender identity.

Learning objectives:

Participants will: 1) define terms and constructs associated with gender identity and gender roles, 2) understand current evidence-based Standards of Care for the Health of Transsexual, Transgender, and Gender Nonconforming People and 3) understand how mental health concerns may or may not be related to a person’s gender identity.

Dr. McNamara recently retired as Medical Director at Connecticut Valley Hospital, a long-term public psychiatric hospital, where she treated patients with serious mental illness, including severe trauma and profound schizophrenia. Dr. McNamara was prior Co-Chair of the Committee on Gender and Sexuality of the American Psychoanalytic Association and a past winner, with Dr. Barbara Marcus, of the Roughton Paper Award for “Strange and Otherwise Unaccountable Actions”: Category, Conundrum, and Trans Identities. She is board certified in psychiatry and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.