Questions on therapy

[April Lyn]

I have a question for anyone who has been to, or is currently in therapy. How exactly does one get diagnosed as transgendered? I obviously know there will be a LOT of talking and any determination will be made from there, but I was reading this morning on a link for Transwoman.net that they can do a brain scan of the hypothalamic area of the brain and it is actually smaller in Females, and double that size in Males, but a trandgendered genetic male will have this area more close ot the size of a Female instead. As my time to start therapy approaches I have been thinking alot about what my therapist will say and perhaps hoping for a little validaton of my transgendered feelings. Im not really expecting a brain scan (though I would like to know what it would show), but was wondering exactly how and, or if someone is actually diagnosed as transgendered, or if its just based off of my own feelings through the conversation. Also, are anymore diagnostics required to start on hormones or SRS? A lot of questions here, thanks for any input girls.

Hugs, April

[StaceyJane]

Sorry no brain scanning involved. In fact there are no tests involved. Just be open and honest. Your therapist should have a good idea if you are transgendered fairly quickly. Really all a therapist needs is to know about your gender issues plus determine that you don't have an underlying mental condition. Depression is okay but schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder would be a warning sign.

After a couple of sessions you should just ask your therapist.

[elizabethamy]

It might take months to figure it all out, or maybe even years, April. Few therapists are going to make some kind of pronouncement in a session or two. Instead, a good one will guide you to your own discoveries, which will come to you as you find them. A therapist who's seen a lot of clients might well have an educated guess right off the bat but if she/he is any good, won't reveal that estimate to you until she knows you are ready to cope with it. You will have to open up, tell her everything, remember everything you can, journal about it, all that -- that's the work that will lead to the answers you need. Once those answers are found, writing letters, for most therapists, is easy and quick. 2 cents from

elizabethamy

[whowhatwhen]

It might take months to figure it all out, or maybe even years, April. Few therapists are going to make some kind of pronouncement in a session or two. Instead, a good one will guide you to your own discoveries, which will come to you as you find them. A therapist who's seen a lot of clients might well have an educated guess right off the bat but if she/he is any good, won't reveal that estimate to you until she knows you are ready to cope with it. You will have to open up, tell her everything, remember everything you can, journal about it, all that -- that's the work that will lead to the answers you need. Once those answers are found, writing letters, for most therapists, is easy and quick. 2 cents from

elizabethamy

Very well put.


Just be sure you find one you can absolutely trust and be completely honest with him or her.
It does feel good to talk with someone though, I definitely recommend it.

[StaceyJane]

Really, years? If it takes years for a therapist to figure out if you're TG then they need to give back their diploma. It will take awhile to for you to sort everything thing out but if you are TG it will show.
If your going to see a therapist for gender issues then being told you're TG shouldn't be a surprise.

[elizabethamy]

Really, years? If it takes years for a therapist to figure out if you're TG then they need to give back their diploma. It will take awhile to for you to sort everything thing out but if you are TG it will show.
If your going to see a therapist for gender issues then being told you're TG shouldn't be a surprise.

You're right. But if you resist, and you're not fully open and honest with both yourself and the therapist, no matter how much experience she has, it could be years. Probably won't be, but could be. The first time an expert therapist told me I was a transsexual was after about 15 minutes of conversation. She said it too soon for me to be ready to hear it. That was months ago, but had I not been in fervent pursuit of my truth, years could easily have elapsed.

I'm a firm believer that this is not about pronouncements from authorities, no matter how much I respect the experience and knowledge of specialists. People can only hear what they are being told when they are ready, and not a moment sooner. If you think outside the gender/therapy box -- career counseling? relationship advice? when to have children? one discovers one's own truth no matter what others have to say about it...

[docrobbysherry]

April, all of us can guess what your therapist will say. And, I'll bet none of us will be completely accurate! I suggest u skip the theories here and see a therapist. THEN run his/her comments by us! That may be more helpful for u!

[*Vanessa*]

going in with a preset mind is not the correct way. If you want anyone to find out who you are then you must be you and not a compilation of various other people's opinions.

Therapist are just people with more education in one area then most of us, at lest for the most part. If it takes even months, I would suggest looking for another. Teddy Bear therapist buy new shoes for baby without much regard for the patient.

[sandra-leigh]

When I started going to my gender therapist, I understood myself as being a "cross-dresser". That part was easy: all I had to do was look down at the skirt to know I was cross-dressing.

But I didn't understand then why the clothes (and forms) were so important to me, and I struggled a lot with the possibility that I was a "male" (in gender) who just happened to like (well, need) to wear the clothes. It took a fair number of months of my looking for "proof" that I was or was not "male" before I was ready to understand myself as transgender. One morning I didn't know if I was transgender, and then a few hours later I knew.

You could be "diagnosed" as being transgender any number of times without you knowing it for yourself. If (or when) you know it for yourself, getting a "diagnosis" will become mostly irrelevant to you, other than perhaps getting paperwork for bureaucratic purposes. (Or, in some cases, getting paperwork that you can show an SO or parent who need to see it in writing to be able to accept the situation.)

The diagnosis is an easier part. Accepting yourself can be rough for many of us. Figuring out what we are going to do about the situation can be more difficult still.

[elizabethamy]

One morning I didn't know if I was transgender, and then a few hours later I knew.
.

That is exactly what happened to me. Either sandra-leigh was taping my therapy session -- which is not impossible because she is some kind of cybersecurity genius -- or that's how it works. It's an epiphany that comes from within, with a force unlike just about anything I can remember. What the therapist pronounces is and feels way less significant.

Then comes the "now what" part, which is where I'm living at the moment...YMMV

elizabethamy

[KellyJameson]

Sandra's words and experiences are true for me a well. Being diagnosed was the easy part, accepting the diagnosis (which I do or do not depending on the alignment of the stars and many other variables) is the hard part.

I keep trying to think my way out of this dilemma, trying to physically change my brain with will power and the ocassional skirt thrown in for good measure instead of my physical body.

I have found it very difficult to accept that I'm something other than what I see in the mirror but yet it is the only answer that explains my life long behavior.

I have a medical history that may have created the condition or exacerbated it and if you have coverage you may want a physical exam, paying attention to hormones and how your body responds to or produces them.

The way I am is the way I have always been but I did not know the way I am is not the way the vast majority of males are to the degree that I experienced the world differently. I felt like an outsider but it did not occur to me that I did not even belong to their tribe.

Try to go into the therapy without being evasive, I do not trust psychologists and psychiatrists so I'm always guarded and it just makes it more difficult on myself.

I expected bad news and I did not want to hear it and tried to control them so they would tell me what I wanted to hear, which was that I could be fixed by using talk therapy but there does not seem to be enough words in the universe to undo what nature and circumstance have created.

Hope you are more accepting of what they tell you than I have been, I've always been my own worst enemy.

[Bree-asaurus]

A good therapist won't diagnose you. They will wait for you to diagnose yourself.

[c2candice]

Ditto to what Bree said. The ONLY way therapy will help is honesty. Even if you don't know the answers right away, they should be able to direct you to find those answers for yourself. Think of it as a chance to rediscover yourself, to truly be REAL.

Go with an open mind. If you don't like the therapist, find a new one. You have to feel comfortable enough to be honest and open.

Hugs,
Candice

[c2candice]

Ditto to what Bree said. The ONLY way therapy will help is honesty. Even if you don't know the answers right away, they should be able to direct you to find those answers for yourself. Think of it as a chance to rediscover yourself, to truly be REAL.

Go with an open mind. If you don't like the therapist, find a new one. You have to feel comfortable enough to be honest and open.

Hugs,
Candice

[JessHaust]

A therapist is not there to tell you what you are, just to help you realize what you already know. Sweetie if you are on this site, and have even considered dresing, then you are at least transgendered. The question you need to answer is are you only transgendered, or are you transexual?

[NathalieX66]

Until I need someone to help me tell me that I'm transsexual (btw, I don't think I am) , and give me access to doctors that will proscribe hormones, I will continue to shop at a mall or go out to any restaurant as a woman, I'll live this side of me, and go as I go. I'll feel more joy and peace when my hair is much longer,and the beard laser is done for good.
Going out in public rules for me, and feels normal. I found my happiness, what else do I need?

[BillieJoEllen]

Having had experience with 'therapists' I can tell you that if you are going to him/her for any length of time it might not be for 'you' anymore but money. I went to a therapist about 20 years ago that was quite good and made me feel good about myself. I was very open and honest with him until he told me one day about three months into my therapy that he couldn't do anything for me because I seemed to be solidly entrenched in what I feel and did. He suggested that if I wanted I could still see him to go over issues with him but that he didn't really feel that even that was necessary. Out of all the psychiatrists, psychologists and therapists I had seen (mostly at the encouragement/insistance) of others I appreciated him the most of all. He rewarded my honesty with his own honesty and integrity.

[whowhatwhen]

I think that depends on the person, cost, and frequency of visits though.

3 Months is only 6 sessions for me since that is all I can afford, and even then I'm selling off a lot of what I own to even be able to afford that.
A tangled web of issues may take well over 3 months to deal with, so I don't think it's fair to say that beyond 3 months a therapist is just milking your wallet.

[Anna Lorree]

A good therapist won't diagnose you. They will wait for you to diagnose yourself.

I totally agree with Bree, that is how it has been for me. I finally asked mine and she turned it right back around on me, telling me that she thought I already knew what I was. That was where my posts about defining TS came from. I knew, I was just scared as all hail to admit it to myself and my wife.

I started my therapy by telling my therapist that I was TG. If you crossdress because you have to, you are TG. If you continue to think about changing your life or body to constantly be more feminine, you are TG. TG is the widest trans category, so the easiest to "hit". The question is what kind of TG are you? When you have answered that, you will know you have a good therapist.

Anna

[elizabethamy]

Yes, Bree is right -- you discover it yourself. But you're there in therapy because you know something is not right, is f'd up about your life, or that you just are miserable and you want to know why. If you could discover it yourself without therapy -- and bravo for those who do! -- then it's great. But there's nothing wrong with not being able to figure it out on your own. The therapist guides you, turns you yourself into your own psychic-surgery instrument so that you can uncover your truth. In my case, I've had my revelations then a couple of weeks later asked my therapist if she agreed with what I thought I had found, and if she had seen it long before I did. Yes was her answer to both questions -- but she wasn't withholding or deceiving, because, as the writer Erica Jong once memorably said, "No one can tell anyone anything."

elizabethamy

[BillieJoEllen]

Who, When I went prancing off to therapy I already knew who and what I was. I didn't care about my other issues and my therapist knew that. The others that I had seen just kepy milking me and my insurance company for all that we were worth. The second one that my wife insisted that I go to told my wife that he could 'cure' me. Three years later I wasn't so much as an inch closer to getting 'cured'.

[Bree-asaurus]

Who, When I went prancing off to therapy I already knew who and what I was. I didn't care about my other issues and my therapist knew that. The others that I had seen just kepy milking me and my insurance company for all that we were worth. The second one that my wife insisted that I go to told my wife that he could 'cure' me. Three years later I wasn't so much as an inch closer to getting 'cured'.

Sounds like a horrible therapist. A therapist's job isn't to "cure" you of anything.

[whowhatwhen]

Who, When I went prancing off to therapy I already knew who and what I was. I didn't care about my other issues and my therapist knew that. The others that I had seen just kepy milking me and my insurance company for all that we were worth. The second one that my wife insisted that I go to told my wife that he could 'cure' me. Three years later I wasn't so much as an inch closer to getting 'cured'.

That's pretty terrible, I'm sorry you had to go through that.