The Seasoned Clinician's Notebook: Marco Posadas

Gender Polymorphism: Another Royal Road to the Unconscious

Presented by Marco Posadas, PhD, MSW, RSW, FIPA

Program Description:

Dreams occupy a privileged position in psychoanalysis as the royal road to the unconscious par excellence. Psychoanalytic mental health clinicians tend to withhold their judgment and ask for the client’s associations with the hope of moving from the manifest content of the dream to the latent content. Thinking of sexual difference and gender polymorphism as natural aspects of human existence opens the door to listening to gender identities and gender expression as a legitimate area for psychoanalytic work. In this presentation, Dr. Posadas proposes that we listen to gender polymorphism in our clients in a manner similar to how we listen to dreams in the analytic situation. Positioning gender expression, gender identity, and the gendered experiences of the client as a waking dream during the session, we can work with the latent content imbedded in the lived embodied experience of each client. When working with gender in this proposed way, the clinician needs to be aware of the tensions that socially constructed prejudices against gender diversity such as homotransphobia, cisgenderism, anti-indigenous and anti-black racisms, and white supremacy have in their work with LGBTQI+ and racialized communities. These tensions can be experienced and observed in the transference and countertransference dynamics and, when managed skillfully, can strengthen the therapeutic alliance and help prevent iatrogenic enactments with these communities.

About the Presenter:

Marco Posadas, PhD, MSW, RSW, FIPA, is Chief Clinical Officer of The House of Purpose, a consulting firm that develops psychoanalytically-informed programs and interventions to support organizations’ mental and emotional health. He is a psychoanalyst member of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA), a Clinical Social Worker, and Licensed Psychologist (MEX) who earned his PhD at Smith College School for Social Work in Northampton, Massachusetts. He currently operates a clinical practice in Psychotherapy, Psychoanalysis, Clinical Supervision and Consultation in Toronto, Canada. Dr. Posadas trained at the Toronto Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (TPS&I) and is a member of the Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, the Mexican Psychoanalytic Association, and the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA).
He is the inaugural Chair of the Gender and Sexual Diversity Studies Committee of the IPA, where he  developed the IPA’s sexual and gender strategic plan that included scientific events in Europe, North America, and Latin America, as well as the creation of the first IPA Tiresias award. He is faculty at several psychoanalytic institutes across North America and Latin America where he works to integrate cultural, gender, and sexual diversity, and anti-oppressive approach into psychoanalytic clinical practice.

His research is in prejudices impacting the clinician when working psychoanalytically with LGBTQ+, racialised people, and other marginalized communities who have survived trauma. He has worked in the HIV sector for over 27 years. Dr. Posadas served on the Board of Directors of the Ontario Association of SocialWorkers (OASW) where he was recipient of the 2013 OASW Inspirational Leader Award for his work with underserved and marginalized populations, and was distinguished with the Social Worker of the Year award for Toronto in 2022.

This event is free of charge, but registration is required by 5/15/2024.