How Cis?

Examining Transphobic Countertransference in Therapeutic Work

Presented by Tobias Wiggins, PhD

• Sept 13, 2025

• 12:00 - 2:00pm ET

• Location: Virtual

• Source/ Event Link: Psychoanalytic Center of the Carolinas

“Drawing on classical psychoanalytic frameworks, Dr. Wiggins will trace the theoretical history of countertransference, highlighting the key contentions surrounding its applications and the multiple, often conflated interpretations of its utility. By clarifying how countertransference has been understood—as obstacle, as diagnostic tool, and as intersubjective cocreation— and emphasizing its gendered dimensions, this session sets the stage for a more nuanced understanding of how clinicians may encounter, enact, and work through or with transphobic countertransference. From there, he will investigate three distinct forms of TCT: psychotic (rooted in preverbal anxieties and dysregulation), perverse (relating to internalized law and omnipotence), and neurotic (shaped by the therapist’s gendered histories and social learning). In a moment when trans lives are under a deplorable siege, the analyst’s couch is not exempt from forces that threaten trans survival. Although TCT often emerges without any overt hostility, asking “how cis?” invites clinicians into the textures of their own gendered subjectivity, while offering a critical lens through which to challenge the epistemic authority of cisness within the mental health professions.”