Phenomenological Interview and Gender Dysphoria. A Third Pathway for Diagnosis and Treatment

0579139 - FLÚ 2024 RIV US eng J - Journal Article
Dierckxsens, Geoffrey - Baron, T.
Phenomenological Interview and Gender Dysphoria. A Third Pathway for Diagnosis and Treatment.
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy. Roč. 49, č. 1 (2024), s. 28-42. ISSN 0360-5310. E-ISSN 1744-5019
Grant - others:AV ČR(CZ) LQ300092001
Program: Prémie Lumina quaeruntur
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : gender dysphoria * narrative identity * nursing * phenomenological interview * phenomenology
OECD category: Ethics (except ethics related to specific subfields)
Impact factor: 1.6, year: 2022
Method of publishing: Limited access
https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhad039

Gender dysphoria (GD) is marked by an incongruence between a person’s biological sex at birth, and their felt gender (or gender identity). There is continuing debate regarding the benefits and drawbacks of physiological treatment of GD in children, a pathway, beginning with endocrine treatment to suppress puberty. Currently, the main alternative to physiological treatment consists of the so-called “wait-and-see” approach, which often includes counseling or other psychotherapeutic treatment. In this paper, we argue in favor of a “third pathway” for the diagnosis and treatment of GD in youths. To make our case, we draw on a recent development in bioethics: the phenomenological approach. Scholars such as Slatman and Svenaeus have argued that the extent to which the body can (or should be) manip- ulated or reconstructed through medical intervention is not only determined by consideration of ethical frameworks and social and legal norms. Rather, we must also take account of patients’ personal experience of their body, the personal and social values associated with it, and their understanding of its situation in their life: their narrative identities. We apply this phenomenological approach to medicine and nursing to the diagnosis and treatment of GD in youth. In particular, we discuss Zahavi and Martiny’s conception of the
phenomenological interview, in order to show that narrative techniques can assist in the process of gender identification and in the treatment of youth pre- senting with GD. We focus on two case studies that highlight the relevance of a narrative-based interview in relations between patients, HCPs, and family, to expose the influence of social ideologies on how young people presenting with GD experience their bodies and gender.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0350389