Chair: Steve Myers.

Speaker: Marcus Evans, Psychoanalyst.

This webinar explores gender distress through a psychoanalytic developmental framework, drawing on the clinical and theoretical framework developed in Identity and the Foundational Myth. It focuses on the individual psychological dynamics that may contribute to this form of distress, how early relationships shape identity, and how difficulties in integrating aspects of the self can lead to fragmentation, a search for certainty, and a retreat from symbolic thinking.

A central theme is the way doubts and conflicts about identity may be split off and projected into the body, where they become experienced as problems requiring immediate physical solutions. The webinar examines the developmental importance of tolerating ambiguity and why rigid identity positions can emerge as stabilising defences against psychological pain.

This pressure toward certainty operates not only within individuals but at an institutional level. Under pressure to relieve distress quickly, services often collude unintentionally with defensive solutions rather than supporting reflective exploration. This can narrow the space for thought and increase pressure toward premature intervention.

The webinar draws a distinction between two levels: firmness and clarity in policy and governance, and empathy and openness in clinical work. For therapists, this means learning to distinguish between symbolic and concrete modes of functioning, using countertransference as a guide and helping patients move from fixed certainty toward greater integration. The aim is to build a bridge from the search for a bodily solution toward a more reflective engagement with the self.