More on the Tavistock

[ChristinaXYZ]

Tavistock Gender Clinic Lead Psychologist Supports Ageplay, Furries

genevievegluck.substack.com/p/tavistock-gender-clinic-lead-psychologist

"Dr. Christina Richards, the Lead Psychologist and Head of Psychology at the heavily criticized London Gender Identity Clinic, is responsible for a number of publications which seek to rebrand extreme fetishes as “further sexualities."

In 2013, Richards, a male who identifies as a woman, co-authored a professional guide on sexuality and gender, in collaboration with Meg John Barker, a senior lecturer in psychology at the Open University. In the writing, Richards places extreme and violent sexual practices on the same spectrum as heterosexuality, homosexuality, and bisexuality.

In the guide Richards introduces ageplay, which involves “an adult identifying as a baby or young child, and is also known as adult baby/diaper lover (ABDL) or infantilism. There may be a sexual aspect… associated with humiliation.”

Richards goes on to describe how adults who engage in ‘ageplay’ accumulate various objects and apparel associated with childhood, including children’s clothing. Often one adult will roleplay as being any age from infancy to teenage years, while another adult participates in a dominant sexual role...

"Richards’ nonchalant attitude towards the ageplay fetish betrays the fact it is sometimes associated with pedophilia. According to Kevin Hsu and J. Michael Bailey, autopedophilia is a phenomenon in which a person becomes aroused at the thought of themselves as a child.

Their 2016 research on the phenomenon published in Psychological Science found that “autopedophilia was common among pedohebephilic participants: 49.1% reported feeling at least mildly sexually aroused when they imagine being a child or having a child’s body.”"

@ninetynineAu

Sexual "age play" huh? "Playing" as children. Just wondering... Is Tavistock involved in prescribing puberty blocking drugs to minors?

Richards works at the GIC (Adults) not GIDS (kids).

It's still very creepy though!

I am not sure how ethical it is for any doctor to work in an area where they have a personal health interest that is connected to their sense of self. It is bound to colour their research, decisions, interactions, etc. I mean serious psychological/ mental health issues and life long conditions or genetic disorders. (obviously a doctor can specialise in cancer then get it themselves - not what I mean). It is the ones where being or having x is part of your identity. This is particularly true where the doctor is under 30 because they have grown up with the idea that their sense of self and anything connected with it is to be honoured and protected at all costs.

I have no objection to being treated for say a heart attack or skin cancer by a doctor who is trans. But should that doctor be counselling anyone questioning his or her gender identity? Or struggling with their mental health because they are coming to terms with being gay from a conservative or religious background.

this is not just a trans issue. I am not sure I would want a doctor who had lost a number of babies to be advising me on decisions during a difficult pregnancy that might threaten my life. What if the doctor could not help prioritising the baby's life over mine without fully explaining the ramifications of decisions. I am not saying I might not agree in the end but I would want bald facts not coloured by a defining feature of a doctor's mental make-up. (I say this as someone who has lost a child - you change, it defines you).

At the very least the doctor should say: I am trans/have a trans child/ have lost babies/have a two sisters and a cousin with cystic fibrosis (or whatever) if you'd prefer to be treated by someone with fewer personal connections to the issue please ask.

If he or she does not want to do that 1) why? If privacy then specialise in something else. 2) If he or she thinks it gives more god-like rights over the subject (and all doctors have to be wary of developing a god complex) then he or she really should not be near it.

Arguably, this area could be a special case, ChristinaXYZ unlike, for example, stammerers working as Speech & Language Therapists with other stammerers (real life example that occurs).

However to argue that special case would be tricky without getting post deletions and strikes because:

a) we can get deletions and strikes for talking about individuals

b) we can get deletions and strikes for talking in generalities.

Interesting point, @Boksy. Of course, a stammer is objectively measurable, the cause may be seen with imaging, conditions are replicable in others, differential diagnoses are available and empirical research has developed helpful interventions.

I agree that lived experience can make for outstanding clinicians. It can also introduce bias.

I know a psychologist who herself has some significant issues with depression and anxiety. While I think that can be helpful in some cases in hers it seems to me to be completely detrimental as she doesn't easily separate herself from those she treats.

I guess you could really ask though, how do those people end up getting licensed to work in the first place, because to be a good clinical psychologist realy requires good mental stability.

It can be very difficult not to project your own difficulties and trauma.

It's also helpful for your own trauma help others in similar situations.

I know three clinical psychologists very well. Two are great, self reflective and considered people, the other is an absolute ball of anxiety who has had significant mental health issues.

I think a lot of people go into counselling/therapy/psychology for all the wrong reasons.

Talking of people not declaring their interests, I was reading an article by Abigail Shrier earlier about a father who has been prevented by a judge from seeing his son because he isn't behind putting his child on puberty blockers and oestrogen. The judge has a trans child

www.city-journal.org/child-custody-gender-gauntlet

let me try and say it without a deletion.

All the evidence suggests that identifying as "trans" has multiple etiologies.

In particular, transitioning-as-adult has a different etiology from transitioning-in-childhood.

Most adult trans people at this point in time are adult transitioners. They may not be the best people to work with "trans children" because there is a risk they may project their own experience of being trans onto the very different experience of trans children. This risk is increased as many adult transitioners are strongly ideologically opposed to the concept that there are multiple etiologies for "transness."

I think it makes it much harder to come back from saying you are trans, if the person you are talking to about it will take it personally if you say "I don't want to do this.." "I've realised I only have the option of looking like a v obvious trans woman, but not a dainty little woman..." "I think I got carried away on Teddit..."

The patient has to validate their therapist as during their treatment, that's unethical.

Yes exactly.

They're using/ arguing a new emerging argument that some in the autistic communities are saying around the value of being treated by autistic people. Which I can see a value in. I know full well some neuro typical people really don't get autism despite working in the field.

At the same time I've never taught two children with autism who were the same in any way. I have friends and colleagues on the autistic autism and they have very different experiences of it.

I do see a lot of ideas pinched from autism. Spectrum etc