A Clinician's Guide to Gender Actualization

A Clinician's Guide to Gender Actualization provides an essential guide for mental health professionals working with gender diverse clients, delivering material that challenges clinicians to provide affirming specialized care for their clients. Gender actualization is the social, expressive, and existential process of becoming and integrating one's authentic self through the context of gender identity, and this book introduces an effective clinical model for competent gender therapy care. Building upon the reader's foundational knowledge, chapters provide useful assessment tools, interventions, and treatment strategies to implement in their clinical practice, with accompanying personal narratives and client experiences woven throughout. Challenging readers to explore intersectionality and the crucial awareness of their own privileges, this book is a critical read for providers working with or seeking to educate themselves regarding gender diverse clients.

Caitlin Yilmazer, LPCC-S, is a practicing counselor and the chief operating officer of Waybridge Counseling, a private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has over 12 years of combined educational and clinical experience with LGBTQ+ populations.

1. Tales of the Well-Intended Gatekeeper 2. Cultural Humility 3. Affirmative Therapy: Expanding Beyond the Gender Binary 4. Unique Challenges to Consider 5. Transition 6. Assessing Adult Clients 7. Treating Adults in Gender Therapy 8. Assessment and Treatment of Gender Diverse Children and Teens 9. Transitioning Families 10. Transitioning Couples.