Beyond the Binary: Essays on Gender

Table of Contents:
Introduction Rita Teusch 1. Psychoanalysis Meets They Shari Thurer 2. Being Non-Binary Robin Haas 3. A Clinical Reflection on “Being Non-Binary” Rita Teusch 4. Non-Binary Thinkpiece Francesca Spence 5. Thoughts by the Parents of a Non-binary Individual Harry Spence and Robin Ely 6. Some Recent Thoughts on Gender Malkah Notman 7. Reflections on Sexuality and Gender Dan Jacobs 8. Transsexuality Bibliography Oren Gozlan Index

About the Author :
Shari Thurer is a psychoanalytically trained psychologist practicing in Boston and an adjunct associate professor at Boston University.

Review :
'Two of the nine chapters are autobiographical accounts of non-binary people assigned male at birth. These accounts are powerful, and for me, by far the most illuminating contributions in the book. [...] The book's first-person accounts are worthwhile, and as a whole it has value for those curious about understandings of gender identity in the US psychoanalytic community.' ‘Gender is always arriving, and psychoanalysts seem always to be chasing its coattails. Most often this chase has been an effort to corral gender: to capture, categorize, and conclude. Beyond the Binary – a collection of essays written as history, memoir, guide, critique, bibliography – works to move past the capture of categories. This monograph is possessed of a beguiling intimacy that engages the reader to rethink gender, gendered embodiment, and the analytic enterprise in listening to gender, its vicissitudes, and discontents.’ ‘Beyond The Binary is a deeply personal and beautiful collection of reflections about contemporary understandings of gender in the psychoanalytic community. Eloquently written and accessible to all who are curious, it impresses through its inclusivity and compelling engagement between the reader and its authors.’ ‘Psychoanalysis originated within a nineteenth-century, binary view conflating sexuality with gender. In this matrix, Freud hypothesized a biological, drive-driven, cross-cultural universal theory of mind. Times have changed. Today’s nontraditional gender presentations instead rely on individual subjectivities that call into question universalizing, cisnormative beliefs. These new clinical presentations also challenge psychoanalysts to move beyond procrustean developmental theories, theories that all too frequently lead to countertransferential impositions of therapists’ subjectivity onto patients. Beyond the Binary offers a good introduction for therapists wishing to rethink what they think they know about gender and how it affects their clinical practices.’ ‘The collection of essays that makes up Beyond the Binary offers a series of individual views and personal experiences focusing on non-binary gender expression and identity in a bid to increase visibility and knowledge. We are invited to see the world through the eyes of people who identify as nonbinary, as well as the parents of non-binary offspring. There are also commentaries and reflections on these narratives from psychoanalytic clinicians, many of them affiliated with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society.’