The missing
Exploring the use of photographs in “working through” the natal body with transgender youth
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 8972149 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Aklilu Lemma (0000-0002-9465-9054, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London, London, UK, corresponding author), Alessandra Lemma |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 104 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 809-828 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-03 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The International Journal of Psychoanalysis (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0020-7578 • E-ISSN: 1745-8315 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00207578.2023.2238040 |
| PMID | 37902490 |
| OpenAlex | W4388024864 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 29 |
This paper focuses on how for some young people who identify as transgender, the anticipation, and/or the actual process, of transitioning represents a movement away from something in themselves that feels wrong, painful, or traumatic and that has not yet been consciously recognised as such. This becomes a 'missing' part of the self's experience, locked into the body. I suggest that the process of identifying and restitution of 'the missing' part requires working through the natal body in its metaphorical and literal senses, in the service of expanding autonomous choice about how to find a hospitable home in the body. Building on Money-Kyrle's three 'facts of life', I propose a fourth one, namely the inescapable fact of our embodied nature, to underscore that our personal history always includes our embodied history, hence the importance of working through what the natal body unconsciously represents. I describe the use of photographs during psychoanalytic psychotherapy with young people who have commenced social transitioning, to work through visual representations of the natal body in the service of facilitating the working through, in its psychoanalytic sense, of the natal body's unconscious narrative. I suggest that deploying this visual mode may be especially helpful in engaging young people on the autistic spectrum who nowadays comprise a significant minority of transgender young people
Gender dysphoria · Psychoanalysis · Transgender · LGBTQ Health, Identity, and Policy · Posthumanist Ethics and Activism · Psychoanalysis and Psychopathology Research · Psychology
Autism Spectrum Disorders in Gender Dysphoric Children and Adolescents
On the Necessity of Distinguishing Between Unintentional and Intentional Mind Wandering
Towards a concept of embodied autonomy
To be, or not to be? The role of the unconscious in transgender transitioning
The Digital Age on the Couch
Whose photo? Whose voice? Who listens? ‘Giving,’ silencing and listening to voice in participatory visual projects
No selfies
Personal photography, digital technologies and the uses of the visual
The Memory of Photography
The communicology of Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida
The Seductions of Identity
Mirrors of Memory
Introduction to “Can we think psychoanalytically about transgenderism?”
First do no harm
Thinking psychoanalytically, thinking better
The body one has and the body one is
Traits of Autism Spectrum Disorders in Adults with Gender Dysphoria
What Happens When a Trans Patient Happens
Impairment, socialization and embodiment
The Fold
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1,5 |
| Citation span | 2024 - 2025 (2) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |