By Rich Simon
March/April 2016
I found talking to the transgender kids and their parents that I interviewed for this issue not only enlightening and educational, which I expected, but also viscerally moving. I was bowled over by the stubborn integrity of young kids who would insist upon being who they feel themselves to be, regardless of what anybody thought. Where, I wondered, did they find that spirit, that audacity, that sheer heroism, and at that age? But, then, talking to the parents of these kids, I began to understand a bit better.
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Welcome to the World of Gender Fluidity
March/April 2016
As cultural attitudes about gender variance have undergone a profound shift, much of what therapists believed about what it means to be transgender is now hopelessly outdated. But how do people know that they’re the wrong gender? And what does that kind of knowing mean for our assumptions about males and females as “opposite sexes”?
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What Role Should Therapists Play?
By Jean Malpas
March/April 2016
Parents typically view their children in the largely gendered terms society lays out for them. Rearranging that internal mind map requires tremendous effort and adjustment. Given the alarming suicide rates for transgender children, it can also be a matter of life and death.
What It's Like to Raise (or Be) a Transgender Child
By Marian Sandmaier
March/April 2016
Until very recently, most families with transgender children had never met another family like theirs. Now parents and children from the trailblazing Ackerman Institute’s Family & Gender Project talk about their experience of joining a healing community that offers acceptance and a validating mirror of their own experience.
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The Therapist in the Real World
By Jeffrey Kottler
March/April 2016
There was a time, not long ago, when all therapists needed to begin practicing their craft was a quiet room, an appointment book, a phone, and an answering machine. Since then, our field has gone through some truly seismic shifts.
The Aftermath of the Paris Attacks
By Chris Lyford
March/April 2016
Therapists reflect on the terror attack in Paris.
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Detoxifying Criticism: How to Help Clients Gain Perspective
By Steve Andreas
March/April 2016
An innovative way of working with people who are hypersensitive to criticism.
Supporting the Overwhelmed Child: Sometimes It Just Takes Time
By Howard Honigsfeld
March/April 2016
A school counselor’s patient work with a sad, uncommunicative young boy demonstrates what a difference just being there can make. * Commentary by Janet Sasson Edgette
New Technologies for Today’s Practitioners: Using Virtual Reality to treat PTSD
By Ryan Howes
March/April 2016
The increasingly accessible and inexpensive technology of virtual reality now enables us to incorporate digital Skinner boxes in our practices that can enhance healing for trauma survivors.
Examining the Science of Torture: The Price of Coercive Interrogation
By Diane Cole
March/April 2016
Why Torture Doesn’t Work: The Neuroscience of Interrogation. A startling new book exposes how much more the military’s embrace of enhanced interrogation tactics in the war on terror was influenced by Hollywood, rather than scientific evidence.
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The Bonds that Sustain Us: A Family Weathers a Time of Uncertainty
March/April 2016
What parent doesn’t know the ache of helplessness that comes when you can’t do anything for your child but feel entirely responsible anyway?