A Workshop presented by Sam Guzzardi, LCSW

The presentation is free and open to the public. 

Continued Education (CEU/CME): 2.0 credits

Event Price: $40 members, $75 non-members which includes CEs

In Person and Virtual Options. In Person is limited to 25 attendees. Masks are required.

This presentation will describe psychoanalytically-informed clinical work with a patient who, borrowing a term from psychoanalyst Griffin Hansbury, occupies space in and around the "transgender edge." Through the presentation and analysis of several extended excerpts of verbatim process from the treatment, it will be argued that therapist-patient play, conceptualized here as a fundamentally intersubjective phenomenon, was the primary driver of the patient's progress towards coming to terms with his gender experience. Alongside questions of play, intersubjectivity, and therapeutic action, this presentation will also address the expanding understanding of gender within the psychoanalytic literature. Building on the work of Adrienne Harris, the utility of play in making psychoanalytic meaning of softly assembled gender states-both with regard to masculinity and femininity as well as with regard to cisness and transness-will be explored.

Learning Objectives:

At the conclusion of this session, participants will be able to:

1. Explicate the ways in which adult psychoanalytic play may be conceptualized as an intersubjective phenomenon, and make links between this conceptualization and play’s utility as a driver of relational therapeutic action.

2. Define the term “transgender edge”; describe the ways in which adult psychoanalytic play may be an intervention with specific utility for patients whose gender experience may be described as existing on the transgender edge.

3. Contrast between, one the one hand, gender as polarly constructed around the masculine and feminine and cisness and transness, and, on the other hand, gender as softly assembled with constructions of masculine, feminine, cisness, and transness fluidly co-ocurring.

Sam Guzzardi is a psychoanalyst trained at the Institute for the Psychoanalytic Study of Subjectivity (IPSS) in New York City. Prior to his analytic training, Sam studied at the Silberman School of Social Work at Hunter College and at the Yale Child Study Center. He maintains a practice in New York City where he focuses on issues of gender, sexuality, identity, trauma and grief. Sam is the winner of the 2019 Ralph Roughton Award of the American Psychoanalytic Association for his paper “The Only Fag Around: Twinship in Gay Childhood,” published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association (JAPA) this summer. He is a member of the teaching faculty at the National Institute for the Psychotherapies (NIP) in New York.

 This activity has been planned and implemented in accordance with the accreditation requirements and policies of the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME) through the joint providership of American Psychoanalytic Association and the Association for Child Psychoanalysis. The American Psychoanalytic Association is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The American Psychoanalytic Association designates this Live Activity for a maximum of 2 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

IMPORTANT DISCLOSURE INFORMATION FOR ALL LEARNERS: None of the planners and presenters of this CME program have any relevant financial relationships to disclose.