First do not Harm: Further Thoughts on Gender Identity Disturbance in Children and Adolescents

Don't miss this unique opportunity to join us for a hybrid event featuring Dr. David Bell, a renowned psychoanalyst on Zoom from London. He will delve into the complexities of gender identity disturbances in children and adolescents. This session will be held in person at the Jubilee Building, where we will watch with wine and cheese together and be accessible via Zoom.

In 2021, Dr. Bell published a groundbreaking paper in the International Journal of Psychoanalysis on the phenomenon of 'transgender' identities in young people. This recent work, drawing from his extensive experience at the Tavistock, has been a prominent voice in the debate over the 'affirmation approach' to gender identity issues, which he critiques as non-analytic and anti-analytic. This topic continues to evoke strong emotions and disagreements.

Dr. Bell will discuss the insights he has gained from his ongoing engagement with this issue, including the background to the NHS's decision to close the Tavistock gender service for children and adolescents.

Dr David Bell, a Training and Supervising Psychoanalyst of the British Psychoanalytical Society and a former President, has a distinguished career. He retired from his consultant post at the Tavistock in 2021, where he developed and led the Fitzjohns Unit, a specialist service for the more complex/ severe adult cases referred to the Tavistock. He lectures and publishes on a wide range of subjects, including the work of Freud, Klein and Bion, and the understanding of severe psychological disorders. For his entire professional career, he has deeply involved himself in interdisciplinary studies – the relationship between psychoanalysis and literature, philosophy and socio-political theory. He has set up and chaired a Philosophy and Psychoanalysis Study Group for about 15 years. His books include Reason and Passion, Psychoanalysis and Culture: a Kleinian Perspective, Living on the Border, Turning the Tide (on the work of the Fitzjohns Unit) and one small book, Paranoia. During his Professorial Fellowship at Birkbeck College (2012–13), he focused on different forms of degradation of knowledge and thinking. He is a leading psychiatric expert in immigration/asylum/human rights.

Over the last 6 years, he has been deeply involved in thinking about the current debate over gender dysphoria in children and adolescents, trying to maintain a thoughtful and psychoanalytic perspective in a highly toxic and politicised climate. He has published papers and given many lectures on this subject