Wellbeing
This section of the Gender Centre's website contains a collection of articles, research papers and surveys, books and book reviews, videos and other miscellanea relating to the wellbeing of female to male transsexual people.
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UNDERSTANDING THAT EVERY NEGATIVE HAS A POSITIVE
Article appeared in Polare 37, June 2000
Sarah J. Rutherford teaches us the importance of accepting the balance of things. That unless we can accept how things are, we cannot appreciate or begin to understand and then learn or become better. Unless we accept, we will never be able to contemplate change ...
SHORT OUTLINE OF ISSUES THAT ARISE FOR TRANSGENDERED INDIVIDUALS
Article appeared in Polare 92, July 2012
Ami B. Kaplan, psychotherapist specialising in gender, presents this outline of mental health issues that arise for transgendered individuals, particularly those affecting one's emotional and psychological state ...
REPRESSION OF QUESTIONS ABOUT, BEHAVIOUR ASSOCIATED WITH, OR SELF-IDENTIFYING WITH A TRANSGENDER IDENTIFICATION
Article appeared in Polare 22, December 1997
Atype of child abuse that affects transgender people is Gender Identity Developmental Repressive Abuse. It forces children to repress questions about gender identity, cross-gendered play-acting and behaviour, or from self-identifying with a transgender identification ...
TACKLING ONE OF THE BEST UNDERSTOOD MENTAL ILLNESSES
Article appeared in Polare 58, July 2004
Depression is the leading mental health issue facing all people, transgender or not. With this knowledge it must be understood that it doesn't mean having a transgender identity or fulfilling cross-dressing needs is pathological, mentally disordered or medically diseased ...
MOST OF US UNDERSTAND LIVING WITH FEAR
Article appeared in Polare 40, December 2000
Living with fear is something most of us grow with. Fear of the unknown, fear of being seen, fear of being detected or abuse, fear of losing family, home, friends, there is so much fear, and while it can influence parts of our life, it certainly shouldn't dominate it ...
HEALTH TO HEALING, DEPENDENCY TO AUTONOMY
Article appeared in Polare 13, June 1996
For intuition to flourish, we need an atmosphere of meditation, contemplation or spending moments alone. We need to develop an awareness of our mental control, physical and emotional tensions ...
THE CATCH 22 OF TRANSGENDER
Article appeared in Polare 63, May 2005
Transgender has its own built in Catch 22. You need very high self-esteem to successfully deal with being transgendered, but simply being transgendered is one of the great forces sapping your self-esteem. But don't despair! Julie has discovered a loophole. ...
PSYCHOLOGICAL AND MEDICAL HEALTH AND LIFESTYLE
Article appeared in Polare 23, February 1998
Stress and the Transgendered Community was a paper presented at the first National L.G.B.T. Health Conference, Health in Difference in 1996. In this paper, Lana Barlow focuses on the combination of a trans person's psychological and medical health and their lifestyle ...
PEOPLE ACTUALLY CONSIDER THEIR TRANSSEXUALISM A GIFT?
Article appeared in Polare 26, August 1998
Carl's jaw hit the floor when he first became aware of people that considered their transsexualism a gift. Ten months on, he no longer resents the hand that he was dealt in life and knows that his transsexualism has made him a better person than him would've been without it ...
REACHING OUT AND BEING VULNERABLE
Article appeared in Polare 88, July 2011
Gender Centre Counsellor Anthony Carlino writes that when we take the risk to try something different, to reach out and be vulnerable in the presence of another, we potentially learn another way of being in the world ...
LEAVING ADULT SURVIVORS LIVING WITH DEPRESSION
Article appeared in Polare 92, July 2012
Gender Centre Counsellor, Anthony Carlino, revisits the issue of adults who grow up in narcissistic families often finding themselves living with a lack of satisfaction and depression that they find particularly difficult to explain to a counsellor or therapist ...
WHEN THE NEEDS OF THE PARENTS CAME BEFORE THE NEEDS OF THE CHILD
Article appeared in Polare 89, October 2011
Gender Centre Counsellor Anthony Carlino scratches the surface of the seemingly functioning, healthy family and reveals the emotional repression that exists in a narcissistic family, a family where the needs of the parents come before the needs of the child ...