Transgender Identities: A Contemporary Introduction

This important new book by Alessandra Lemma provides a succinct overview of psychoanalytic understandings, approaches and controversies around transgender identifications.

Illustrated with case vignettes, Lemma provides an up-to-date synthesis of current research and a critical overview of psychoanalytic approaches to transgender identities, distilling some of the contemporary controversies about how to approach the topic in the consulting room. Lemma also outlines a psychoanalytically informed ethical framework to support clinicians working with individuals who request medical transitioning and distils the ethical challenges faced by clinicians in light of the current emphasis on gender affirmative care.

Part of the Routledge Introductions to Contemporary Psychoanalysis series, this book is of great importance for psychoanalysts in practice, academics and all those with an interest in transgender identities and mental health.

Alessandra Lemma is Fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and Consultant Clinical Psychologist at the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families. She is Visiting Professor, Psychoanalysis Unit, University College London. For many years she worked at the Tavistock Clinic where she was, at different points, Head of Psychology and Professor of Psychological Therapies (in conjunction with Essex University). Until 2020, she was Editor of the New Library of Psychoanalysis book series (Routledge) and was one of the regional editors for the International Journal of Psychoanalysis until 2018. She has published extensively on psychoanalysis, the body and trauma.