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Brief report: Female-to-male transsexual people and autistic traits
No full textThe ‘extreme male brain’ theory suggests females with Autism Spectrum Conditions are hyper-masculinized in certain aspects of behavior. We predicted that females with Gender Identity Disorder (who are masculinized) would have elevated Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) scores. AQ scores from five groups were compared: (1) n = 61 transmen (female-to-male transsexual people); (2) n = 198 transwomen (male-to-female transsexual people); (3) n = 76 typical males; (4) n = 98 typical females; and (5) n = 125 individuals with Asperger Syndrome (AS). Transmen had a higher mean AQ than typical females, typical males and transwomen, but lower than individuals with AS. Transmen have more autistic traits and may have had difficulty socializing with female peers and thus found it easier to identify with male peer groups
Emotion as personal relatedness
No full textIn this article, I consider the structure of interpersonal emotional relations. I argue that current cognitive-developmental theory has overestimated the role of conceptual thinking, and underestimated the role of intrinsic social-emotional organization, in the early development of such feelings as jealousy, shame, and concern. I suggest that human forms of social experience are shaped by a process through which one individual identifies with the bodily expressed attitudes of other people, and stress the diversity of self–other relational states. I draw on studies in developmental psychopathology, and specifically research in autism and borderline personality disorder, to illustrate some implications of this viewpoint
In the idiom of Tavistock practice. Approaches to public sector psychotherapy; Group relations; Organisational development and change and Board evaluation
No full textThis portfolio of published work consists of four sections that reflect my professional journey, bridging my work at the Tavistock Clinic from 1971 to 1976 - Public Sector Psychotherapy (Section 2) with my experiences at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations from 1997 to the present - Group Relations (Section 3); Organisational Development and Change (Section 4); and Board Evaluation
(Section 5.
The papers included in the portfolio are reflections of the important theories and approaches that have come out of both ‘Tavistock’ institutions 1 over the past 70 to
80 years - psychoanalysis (the role of thought); socio-technical systems (the interaction between people and technology in workplaces); theories of leadership,
research and evaluation methodologies; participant design and greater democratisation of the workplace.
This portfolio also gives me the opportunity to acknowledge the contributions of my supervisors and tutors in the work – Pierre Turquet, Robert Gosling and Mary
Barker at the Clinic and Eric Miller and Gordon Lawrence at the Institute. They were influential in generating the most recent theoretical idea of the Tavistock –
systems psychodynamics – the confluence of the dominant framing perspective of the structural aspects of organisational systems and the psychoanalytic perspectives on individual experiences and mental processes and the experiences of unconscious group and social processes.
This portfolio reflects my career of grappling with a central feature of systems psychodynamics – the existence of primitive anxieties and the mobilization of
social defense systems against them. The idea of social defenses that either facilitate or impede organisational task performance was one of the Tavistock’s earliest major organisational constructs that defined the Tavistock’s approach to organisational life. This construct has underpinned my work with individuals and organisations and the publications in this portfolio were selected on the basis of illustrating that in practice.
1 Unless used with their specific descriptor titles, the use of the word “Tavistock” refers to both the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations
Research off the couch: Revisiting the transsexual conundrum
No full textThis paper outlines the findings of a qualitative study involving interviews with eight transsexual individuals who had volunteered to take part in a television (TV) documentary about transsexuality. The participants were interviewed before taking part in the documentary and after its screening on national TV. The author proposes that for either biological and/or psychological reasons, some transsexual individuals experience early on a profound and disturbing incongruence at the level of the bodily self. In turn, this experience of incongruity is not contingently mirrored by primary attachment figures and remains unmentalized, thus disrupting self-coherence. In an attempt to restore self-coherence, the individual searches for the ‘right’ body that is anticipated to relieve the felt incongruity. The way this modified body relieves the incongruity is through the certainty it imparts that the image in the ‘mirror’ will match the subjective experience of the body. In this study, the experience of being mirrored through the group process during filming and the audience's response to the TV series, which was very positive, appeared to be associated with an attenuation in the urgency with which planned body modifications were being discussed post-TV screenings
Transitions in the early years: Educational and child psychologists working to reduce the impact of school culture shock
No full textThe impact of young children's biological, familial and social-cultural contexts on adjustments to school life is now well established. This includes the relationship between positive transition experiences from home or an early years setting to school and later outcomes for children and young people. This paper posits that transition is best conceptualised as an interactive cultural, ecological and dynamic process; experienced differently by different children, families and educational providers based on a unique interaction of cultural characteristics, expectations and goals. The fundamental requirement for educational and child psychologists, and those with whom they work, to understand transition within an ecological and dynamic framework is highlighted. Evidence-informed strategies which may be employed to minimise the potentially adverse impact of such a change for young children are discussed, with an emphasis on Ready Schools. Local case studies are described to illustrate these arguments. Finally, the paper explores key issues faced by psychologists applying the transitions research evidence to good practice in the current political and educational context
Metapsychological approaches to exclusion
No full textTackling the phenomenon of exclusion from a psychoanalytic viewpoint presents scholars with many difficulties. Ethically, it is a very compelling subject wherein any step taken and felt to be correct immediately turns out to be an insufficient account of the problem. The problem is: how to choose what to include and what to exclude from what is said. This is precisely the question I pose, not only to myself when being in a state of perplexity, but in the light of the present psychoanalytic investigation. I will take a preliminary detour into French psychoanalytic thinking with Piera Aulagnier's "metapsychology" in order to find the necessary discourse to find the way through this thorny subject. First I will explore her metapsychology, and then by bowing to French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan and Greek philosopher and psychoanalyst Comelius Castoriadis, I will explore the notions of exclusion and violence. I will do so by looking at them as they appear from three distinct perspectives. First, I will explore them as they appear in the act of representation; second, in the closure of meaning in social institutions; and third, I will attempt to describe the metapsychological dynamics of exclusion and violence from an intrapsychic perspective as they may unfold in an inter-subjective situation. This threefold perspective replicates the movement of the analysis from the representational to the social and from thence to situating the "subjective"