Transsexuality and the Art of Transitioning

'As psychoanalyst at work, Oren Gozlan presents gender on the move and in transition. It is within the enigmas of life, Gozlan argues, best expressed between the clinic and the creative arts that open psychoanalysis to alterity. The novel analysis of transsexuality is presented through the aesthetic conflicts of psychical space and their literary destiny. Between the clinic and its critique, readers can examine changing views of transsexuality. Through his evocative frame, Gozlan offers new ways to trace the representations of gender from the advent of memoir and identity claims into the enigmatic literature and to abstract sculpture. Revisiting a number of psychoanalytic debates on the heteroglossia of the drives and sublimation, this book is a bold move from reading the body to writing upon it.' - Deborah P. Britzman, FRSC and author of Freud and Education.

'In this magnificent work, Dr. Gozlan offers a depth of knowledge that is both scholarly and emotionally informed, presenting greatly needed originality of thought in an area relatively new to psychoanalysis.He explores the physical and emotional realities of transsexuality and the process of transitioning from a perspective that integrates psychoanalytic process and aesthetics. The title of the book alone speaks volumes: The art of transitioning involves physical artistry, with the body as canvas, and the use of the body as canvas involves what is essential to all artistry-psyche as canvas, psyche as artist...In reading this bold, innovative book, we discover our own contradictions,anxieties, and phantasies, with the recognition that culturally and socially in our contemporary world, transsexual people hold these dichotomies for all of us.' Merle Molofsky, Psychoanalytic Review, 102(3), June 2015

'Oren Gozlan is one of the most original thinkers in psychoanalysis today. In this very succinct and well written text, he challenges the antiquated and prejudiced historical views of transsexuality perpetrated by the field of psychoanalysis and recasts the questions of sexuality, gender, identity, and authenticity by reexamining the puzzlement and aesthetics of desire. As a practicing analyst and psychologist who treats preoperative transsexuals in the process of transitioning, he provides an intimate view into the psychic reality of these people and offers a philosophy of sexuation based on sustaining internal conflict. Rather than pathologizing or normalizing transsexuality, Gozlan situates the question as one of tolerating uncertainty and ambiguity. [...] This is a highly nuanced book packed with supple meanings conveyed through deft and stylized prose about the psychology of the interior, and one that audiences in the fields of gender studies, feminine philosophy, queer theory, and GLBTQ initiatives will appreciate for its complexity, respect, and honest appraisal in illuminating the dynamics of transsexuality both inside and outside the clinic.' -Jon Mills, PsyD, PhD, author, Adler Graduate Professional School in Toronto, Transgender Studies Quarterly