“Was Hans Trans?”
ABOUT THE PRESENTATION:
A century ago, Freud published his groundbreaking Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-year-old Boy. In ensuing years, many investigators revisited his fascinating case study, identifying themes he had overlooked, minimized, or dismissed. For example, Frankiel focused on Freud’s inattention to negative oedipal matters. Corbett placed that neglect in broader context, regarding it as form of cultural regulation of what it is (and is not) to be a boy. He emphasized Little Hans’ importance as the first psychoanalytic boy—the founding subject in the discipline’s picture of masculinity. In keeping with how these authors supplemented Freud’s valuable discussion, Dr. Willock proposes that Hans may have been the first psychoanalytic child wanting transgender surgery. Support for this position is provided by close reading of the clinical material, critical evaluation of some of Hans’ father’s and Freud’s interpretations, and discussion of analytic scholarship relevant to this perspective.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Brent Willock is Past President, TICP; Advisory Board member, International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy; Board Member, Canadian Institute for Child and Adolescent Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy; Faculty, Institute for the Advancement of Self Psychology. He is author of Comparative-Integrative Psychoanalysis (The Analytic Press, 2007) and first editor of: On Deaths and Endings: Psychoanalytic Reflections on Finality, Transformation and New Beginnings (2007); Taboo or not Taboo? Forbidden Thoughts, Forbidden Acts in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis (2009); Loneliness and Longing: Conscious and Unconscious Aspects (2012); and Understanding and Coping with Failure (2014).
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