Event Description:  

This interactive workshop will review the DSM-5 diagnostic criteria for Gender Dysphoria, including vivid examples of each criterion. The examples will come from Dr. Joy Ladin's memoir Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey Between Genders, which earned the distinction of National Jewish Book Award Finalist for Memoir. The vignettes will be read aloud by the author. The workshop will also explore intersectional factors that impact the experience of gender dysphoria and coming out as transgender, such as gender expression, race, religion, and age. Additionally, the presenters will provide an overview of recent psychological research on gender dysphoria and working with transgender clients.

Participants will discuss their reactions to the material presented in small discussion groups, and will be guided through a reflection of their personal experiences of establishing their own gender identity. Participants will also explore examples of clinical dilemmas that could arise with transgender clients. The workshop is designed for psychologists, therapists and medical personnel of all credentials, and graduate students in mental health and medical fields.

3 Continuing Education Credits are available

**Meets the LGBTQ+ Requirement for DC Licensure**

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

1) Describe at least three of the DSM-5 criteria for Gender Dysphoria; 

3) Analyze clinical dilemmas with transgender clients; 

4) Evaluate the challenges related to multiple and often conflicting norms, values, and beliefs faced by transgender members of racial, cultural, or religious minority groups.

Presenter : Dr. Joy Ladin

Joy Ladin, Gottesman Chair in English at Yeshiva University, is a nationally recognized writer and speaker. She has published eleven books, including a memoir of gender transition, National Jewish Book Award finalist Through the Door of Life; Lambda Literary and Triangle Award finalist, The Soul of the Stranger; and nine books of poetry. She has been named to LGBTQ Nation's Top 50 Transgender Americans list, featured on NPR's “On Being” with Krista Tippett and other NPR programs, and her TEDx talk, “Ain't I a Woman?”, has been viewed over ten thousand times. Her work has been recognized with a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, a Fulbright Scholarship, and an American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship, among other honors. Episodes of her online conversation series, “Containing Multitudes,” are available at JewishLive.org/multitudes; her writing is available at joyladin.wordpress.com.

Presenter: Dr. Laurie Paul

Dr Laurie Paul is a licensed psychologist in DC, Virginia and Maryland. Dr. Paul graduated with her doctorate in clinical psychology in 2014 from The New School, an APA-accredited PhD program in New York City. While in graduate school, she spent 6 years as part of a research team studying how clients and therapists negotiate racial, ethnic, and cultural differences in psychotherapy. She also spent 5 years as part of a research team examining the psychological impact of breast cancer on lesbian and bisexual women and on Latina women, with a focus on social support, family support, and doctor-patient relationship. During her clinical training, she worked within a variety of settings, including: community mental health centers; the psychiatric emergency room; inpatient and outpatient hospital settings; a university counseling center; substance abuse clinics; and a drug/alcohol detoxification unit.

Dr. Paul completed a postdoctoral fellowship in psychodynamic psychotherapy at The Karen Horney Clinic in New York City. The training program is accredited by the American Psychoanalytic Association and the International Psychoanalytical Association.

Dr. Paul has specialized training in cognitive behavior therapy and psychodynamic psychotherapy, and mindfulness techniques. She completed the Gottman Method of Couples Therapy Training Level 2. She currently works in her private practice in Chevy Chase, MD, specializing in anxiety, OCD, and couples therapy, and is an Adjunct Professor of Psychology at American University.  She has given professional education workshops for the DC Psychological Association, Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, The American Academy of Psychotherapists, Interfaith Medical Center in Brooklyn, and the Society for Psychotherapy Research, on the LGBTQ community and on working with culturally-different clients. She is also a volunteer speaker for Rainbow Families.

*DCPA Refund Policy:   Refund requests more than one week prior to the webinar should be sent to info@dcpsychology.org  If the request comes within one week of the webinar, only credit will be offered.