Interview with a detransitioner

[CousinKrispy]

Hi, all. I don't post on here very often but have been learning from the discussions for years, thank you.

I thought you might find this podcast episode interesting as it has a lengthy interview with a young woman who identified as a trans man for some time and now has detransitioned:

https://thisjungianlife.com/shadowland-detransition-the-story-of-beth/

This is from a podcast that consists of 3 (USA based, apologies) Jungian analysts discussing current events/topics from a Jungian POV.

(I found the initial intro to the episode a little woo-woo sounding, it improves when the actual interview starts!)

The "Shadowland" subset of the podcast contains interviews with people who are "in the hidden places in our culture"--the previous episode was an interview with a young woman who works as a prostitute. I am unhappy with the push to normalize "sex work" but I appreciated their respectful, compassionate, and nonjudgmental approach to speaking with this woman.

I don't have any background knowledge about Jung's ideas (and some of it is a little far-fetched to me ;-)) but I've been enjoying this podcast for a few years now and find it thought-provoking, and it's nice to hear people discussing a topic without shallow sloganeering.

One of the analysts, Lisa Marchiano, is quoted in Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage and I believe is very concerned about how the affirmation only approach may fail clients who actually need to explore and question, rather than solely be affirmed, through the process of therapy. I have her new book about the psychological aspects of motherhood on my to-read list ...

cheers

It's many years since I went through my Jungian phase and there will be others along who will know more and doubtless put me right — but I came away from that period of my life feeling very strongly that Jungian sexual stereotypes were a huge problem for women and that it was all thinly-veiled patriarchy. I can remember shutting that particular door fairly firmly.

I started listening to your podcast and practically the first thing I heard was an older man describing a woman in his family in terms of Jungian archetypes. He says she's Aphrodite. He overrides a woman (also presumably a Jungian) who points out that internet porn and the torrent of sexual abuse and coercion aimed young women is a new and never-before-experience phenomenon that is affecting the adolescents experience their bodies. He says no, in his ultra he-man voice, his young relative is Aphrodite. And then the moment the detransitioning woman starts to talk the first thing she mentions is being totally overwhelmed by porn and male sexual expectations.

Jung and his goddesses and the his transcendent feminine are all part of the woo. Put the Jungian podcast down and step away.

Oh yes, I thought he was totally clueless in that exchange and you could read between the lines that the women were politely rolling their eyes at him. That bit from him was completely ick.

The interview improves after that and there are some very interesting warnings about not making the symbolic (such as the teenage transitioner exploring her "Dionysian" side) literal (something she now deeply regrets).

And thanks, I'll listen to what I want to. It doesn't mean I'm swallowing it whole because I like to listen to something a bit different when I'm doing the washing up🙄

And thanks, I'll listen to what I want to. It doesn't mean I'm swallowing it whole because I like to listen to something a bit different when I'm doing the washing up

Good for you OP and thank you for the link :)

Ignore the GS version of right think and listen to what you want :).

GS?

GC.

OP, what do you think a Jungian view of the world and the human psyche brings to the debate that GC 'right-think' apparently doesn't?

One of the analysts, Lisa Marchiano, is quoted in Abigail Shrier's Irreversible Damage and I believe is very concerned about how the affirmation only approach may fail clients who actually need to explore and question, rather than solely be affirmed, through the process of therapy. I have her new book about the psychological aspects of motherhood on my to-read list ...

I’ve heard Dr Marciano speak live ( in a Zoom conference) and she came across as one of the most compassionate wise and thoughtful therapists and theorists I’ve heard.

She made Jungian psychology seem considerably less “woo” than I’d ever thought. She made it seem a really fruitful way of thinking about some of the deep issues of being human.

Good. Jungian circles need really shaking up. She must be very strong and determined to take all those beardy men (in my day they were mainly beardy men) on. I wish her luck.

I can imagine exactly the kind of beardy men you mean....

I'm mostly interested in the fact that somebody, anybody, within the world of psychology is publicly questioning the affirmation only approach. And demonstrating a different way for an individual to talk about and explore their feelings about it, without it turning into "Oh you only feel so depressed because other people are transphobic to you/you haven't gone far enough in your transition" etc.

I'm not a psychotherapist, let alone a Jungian, but I also found Dr Marchiano's conversation with Julian Vigo in the Savage Minds podcast very interesting. Dr Vigos podcasts are all very thought-provoking, although I wish sometimes she'd talk less & allow her guests to talk more.

I was a practising therapist and I am very much influenced by Jung. There is no gender stereotyping, and if there is, then that's a misinterpretation of the approach. Much like GC thinking, gender is an internal concept, and much of the work of both sexes is to find a balanced expression of both genders. There is no such thing as a "girl brain" or a "boy brain" and to identify too much with one would lead to psychological disruption (much like 'gender dysphoria', for example).

Jungian thought has been severely compromised by "woo-ism" imo.

Much like GC thinking, gender is an internal concept

But, but, but ... In "gender critical" feminism - actually just simple radical feminism ... "gender" is regarded as a social construct, and a political system.

Sure, individuals may internalise aspects of gender roles & gender stereotypes, so that they appear to be one's "nature" eg "natural" but this is what we radical feminists would call "conditioning" or "socialisation."

Even John Stuart Mill recognised this 150 years ago.

Yes, noted. I don't think Jungian thought has much to say about this (i.e. specifically whether it is divorced from sex or not) - though I'm sure the post-Jungians do.

My point is that feminists DON'T see gender as an "internal concept." It's a political system.

And I don't think that was a concept widely discussed when Jung was alive, which is why I mentioned the post-Jungians.

An interesting quote from Jung:

“What about masculinity? Do you know how much femininity man lacks for completeness? Do you know how much masculinity woman lacks for completeness? You seek the feminine in women and the masculine in men. And thus there are always only men and women. But where are people? You, man, should not seek the feminine in women, but seek and recognize it in yourself, as you possess it from the beginning.”

However, it's important to add that Jung did not conflate gender and biological sex.

Interesting. I’m both gender critical and very influenced by Jung. I’ve never found the two in any way contradictory. Very few people understand Jung though.

Have you googled James Esses? Az Hakim? Lots of therapists have been quietly working behind the scenes to challenge training organisations/ the BACP regarding the affirmation-only model.

I totally agree. In fact, I have a feeling (of course I don't know for sure, but it's not an uninformed feeling) that Jung would have viewed what is going on with the trans rights movement as a collective complex, much like he described in his last book, The Undiscovered Self:

Separation from his instinctual nature inevitably plunges
civilized man into the conflict between conscious and
unconscious, spirit and nature, knowledge and faith, a split
that becomes pathological the moment his consciousness is
no longer able to neglect or suppress his instinctual side. The
accumulation of individuals who have got into this critical
state starts off a mass movement purporting to be the champion of the suppressed. In accordance with the prevailing
tendency of consciousness to seek the source of all ills in the
outside world, the cry goes up for political and social changes
which, it is supposed, would automatically solve the much
deeper problem of split personality. Hence it is that whenever
this demand is fulfilled, political and social conditions arise
which bring the same ills back again in altered form. What
then happens is a simple reversal: the underside comes to the
top and the shadow takes the place of the light, and since the
former is always anarchic and turbulent, the freedom of
the “liberated” underdog must suffer Draconian curtailment.
All this is unavoidable, because the root of the evil is
untouched and merely the counterposition has come to light

Social contagion is so much easier to get your head around.

Thanks so much for posting that @LaingsAcidTab It's not only beautifully written, it really pinpoints the problem of the Western mind/body split at a deep level.

This is where philosophy can help us - it seems to me that a lot of these sorts of illnesses - anorexia, gender dysphoria, bodily dysmorphia - come in part from a cultural framework which encourages us/educates us/conditions us/enculturates us (pick your word!) to separates our minds from our bodies.

As a materialist feminist, I might suggest that this separation is experienced as a harmful problem for girls & women far more than for boys & men, because the world is organised around male minds & bodies. Part of the work a lot of women end up doing is to keep bringing our bodies & minds together - to not see our bodies as our enemies. I think that was the grace of the original Our Bodies, Ourselves (they've gone all gender woo now).

Hence it is that whenever
this demand is fulfilled, political and social conditions arise
which bring the same ills back again in altered form. What
then happens is a simple reversal: the underside comes to the
top and the shadow takes the place of the light, and since the
former is always anarchic and turbulent, the freedom of
the “liberated” underdog must suffer Draconian curtailment.

This is Hegel, Freud, and Derrida, all rolled together in the supplement, the return of the repressed & Hegel's dialectic!

Oh God, Jungians. I was severely mentally damaged by a Jungian analyst and have never cared to listen to a word any of them says ever since.