Presenter: Brent Willock

Abstract:  Through careful analysis of rich clinical material, this article explores the proposition that at least some, perhaps many, transgender identities may be formed to manage (defend against) prior developmental relational challenges and trauma. Adverse experience during the stage of differentiation out of the dual unity that Winnicott, Mahler, and others emphasized may prompt some boys to retreat to the security provided by earlier, undifferentiated, primary identification with their mothers. The diagnostic and treatment value of considering this possibility and perspective is underscored. Two children’s profound wish to understand their difficult developmental trajectories is examined, along with their astonishing ability to utilize art to tackle their questions about their developmental identity histories (who they are, where they came from, and where they are going). Without thorough understanding of these early developmental processes and defenses, it may be difficult or impossible to provide optimal assessment and treatment for these individuals.

Learning Objectives: 

1. Fostering understanding of the importance of children’s art (and how to work with it) in psychoanalytic psychotherapy. 

2. Increasing comprehension of the relationship between foundational developmental relational trauma and subsequent incidents and manifestations of trauma. 

3. Exploring the dialectic between patients’ wishes to understand and not understand their lives.

Biography: 

Dr. Willock taught at the Children’s Psychiatric Hospital, University of Michigan Medical Center, before returning to Canada where he became Chief Psychologist at the C.M. Hincks Treatment Centre. He was Adjunct Faculty, York University, and Associate Faculty Member, U of T. He is on the faculty of Adelphi University’s Postgraduate Program in Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. He is Founding President of the Toronto Institute for Contemporary Psychoanalysis and served on the Board of the Canadian Institute for Child & Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. He is Writing Mentor for the Washington Psychoanalytic Foundation’s New Directions in Psychoanalytic Thinking Program. He serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Infant, Child, and Adolescent Psychotherapy, and Psychoanalytic Dialogues. He was honoured with the first Perkins Award (cosponsored by the Sonia Shankman Orthogenic School at the University of Chicago and the Child Analytic Program at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis) for “outstanding application of psychoanalytic theory and insight to the understanding and treatment of severely emotionally disturbed children.” He authored Comparative-Integrative Psychoanalysis, and The Wrongful Conviction of Oscar Pistorius, and edited several books that received Gradiva and Goethe Awards. His contributions have been honored by the Ontario Psychological Association, the American Psychological Association, and the Canadian Psychological Association, the International Federation for Psychoanalytic Education. In January 2024, Dr. Willock received the Gradiva Award from the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis for the best psychoanalytic paper written in the past year.