When does therapy become unneccessary?

[suzifrommd]

For 25%, counselling helped
For 50%, counselling made little difference
For 25%, counselling made things worse

I've seen more than a dozen short- and long-term counselors at various times during my life. My own statistics are remarkably close to these.

[Brooke777]

Before anyone jumps down my neck for saying that, yes I understand talk therapy has a lot of value in a lot of situations. I'm talking specifically about how I feel it relates to the medical condition known as transsexualism, nothing more.
If someone develops or is born with diabetes, cancer or any other condition, talk therapy can probably be very helpful in resolving feelings or whatever but, it's not a requirement for insulin or chemo therapy. That would be putting the wagon before the horse.

I am a huge fan of therapy, when needed. In fact, I am hoping to get my phd, and become a psychotherapist.  However, I do agree with what you said here. Basing the requirement to start medical transition on a psychological evaluation does seem a bit out of order. For a lot of people, they would benefit from some therapy to work out the issues associated with their GID. Therapy certainly has its place in the treatment process, but it is not for everyone.

[Stephe]

I saw a movie about this the other night and it reminds me, at one point they thought this was a good idea... Along with electro-shock therapy for Gays etc etc.

http://www.mnddc.org/parallels2/prologue/5-treatments/5-lobotomy.htm

I can understand that for -some people- having a professional to talk to helps them. What helps me is talking to a close friend. I understand the legal part of this but it still seems wrong to be forced to do something that doesn't help someone and isn't a choice as part of treatment/resolution of their problems.

[aleon515]

AG, I think mine too. Judging roughly by reading the posts on Susan's, I'd say the same.

--Jay J

[Elspeth]

That's who I'm really looking at with this post... are the HRT doctors and the surgeons.

A lot has changed in the 60 years or more since the Benjamin Standards were written. Personally, I think you are right. The question becomes in part one of having a dialogue with therapists who are more informed and realize that Benjamin is outdated. (From my son's feedback from his first session with a therapist on gender issues (he's gone through many others in dealing with the depression that came from (most likely) not moving forward to transitioning F2M)... this therapist seems to have a much more flexible view of the timeline and what is necessary or desirable. Granted, that kind of flexibility does seem to be more common among therapists who've been dealing with F2Ms, who also tend to have a better history of social integration on average.

But as visibility has increased, and the old advice about going super stealth fades into a history of misogyny and paternalistic goo, my sense is things have gotten a bit less rigid for M2Fs as well. Despite our bad reputations, I tend to think from at least my contacts over the years that we tend to be overly compliant and respectful of doctors' orders when sometimes we need to be advocating more for ourselves.

This could just be coming from my own history with my mother's medical care, since she was badly mismanaged in my teens, nearly dying because PID from an IUD (one of those recalled in the late 70s) nearly led to her death, because some jerk thought her symptoms were psychosomatic, the result of depression after a miscarriage.

[Elspeth]

play this game, and it sounds like perhaps your's doesn't either. Perhaps you can maintain a VERY informal relationship-- call me if you have an issue type thing, sort of like Brooks talks about.

There has been talk with my trans son of doing most of the transition counseling with the same therapist he just started seeing, and doing it over Skype... assuming he doesn't wind up feeling a need to do more in depth work with her. He's planning to go back to his gap year program, 200 miles Northeast of here, and the therapist is located about 30 miles SW of our homes. This seems to be getting more and more common, as the stigma gradually fades and fewer therapists are arrogant enough to think they should be negotiating peoples' identities.

[Zumbagirl]

My involvement with the psychiatric community was done once I had my 2 letters for surgery. My primary therapist wanted me to live full time for a year before writing the letter but after the year she gladly wrote the letter. My endo never asked for anything after and never gave me any reasons. He knows I am a post-op and I show up he gets his 2 tubes of blood, I get a checkup and new prescriptions and I am done with medical community until next year.