February 2024: “On Taking Sides: Clinical Encounters With Nonbinary Genders” presented by Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD

February 2024: “On Taking Sides: Clinical Encounters With Nonbinary Genders” presented by Avgi Saketopoulou, PsyD This presentation revolves around genders that self-describe as nonbinary, while also tracking the particular types of anxieties and difficulties that many analysts confront when encountering such patients who identify. Dr. Saketopoulou offers a psychoanalytic way of thinking about nonbinary genders, not through the idea of gender identity—a concept she will discuss as wildly problematic and even dangerous—but through the rubric of Laplanche's notion of self-theorization and with help from trans of color critique. When working with trans nonbinary patients, the analyst, she will propose, is asked to take sides: but with what? And how do we know that such side-taking stands to expand rather than foreclose psychic possibilities? With ample time for engagement with the audience, this talk offers a fresh perspective on thinking about gender overall. Learning Objectives 1. Participants will be able to explain why the concept of gender identity is problematic and even dangerous. 2. Participants will be able to discuss nonbinary gender, what it is and what it's not. 3. Participants will be able to explain the concept of "taking sides" and to list two reasons why such side-taking does not foreclose but in fact expands psychic possibilities. 4. Participants will be able to describe two countertransferential problems analysts face in working with nonbinary patients.