Here is another chance to read about the day the Mayor of Ridgewood stopped by my office.  His visit made me think about my role in the community, and how I can help people at a structural level, not just an individual level.

Read more in the original article found here

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Telephone - (201) 779-6917

https://www.exploretransform.com/therapy-blog-ridgewood/the-day-the-mayor-stopped-by

In my previous 'life' I practiced as a lawyer in the UK.  I worked on large redevelopment transactions, and there was a heightened need for attention to detail.  Perfectionism prevailed, and, in some respects, it was required.

Years later, as a psychotherapist, I help professionals to work through the stress that is involved with their career.  Here is an article I wrote for Lawcare, an organization in the UK dedicated to improving the wellbing of lawyers.

You can read the article in full by following the link below. 

Contact me today if you have any questions.

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

Every relationship needs a little attention now and again.  We regularly maintain our car and home, so the same occasional attention is required for our intimate relationships.

Here are 5 steps to a healthier relationship, published by Marriage.com

​You can read the article in full by following the link below. 

You can read more about couples therapy here.

Contact me today if you have any questions.

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

We have an idea about how life should be.  The harder we hold onto these 'shoulds', the harder it is to be flexible in a relationship.

In an article published by Marriage.com, I explore the tyranny of the shoulds, and other traps we can fall into when we navigate the challenges of an intimate relationship.

You can read the article in full by following the link below. 

You can read more about couples therapy here.

Contact me today if you have any questions.

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

If your Iphone has not left your hand this weekend, you might be suffering from digital addiction.  Studies show that our attention span is reducing as our impatience increases.  As a result, our relationships at home and at work are becoming stifled. 

Below you will find the article I wrote for the Patch (via the image below).  It might just help with your relationships and home and at work.

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

Intersectionality
A nuanced approach to disparities in mental health care
 
Last year the APA commissioned a working group to prepare a report ‘that summarized critical factors contributing to health disparities in boys and men vulnerable to health disparities’.
 
A clear message from the report was that if we are to keep boys and men healthy and alive, we need to focus on the intersection of gender with other aspects of a person’s identity, including sexual identity, ‘racial identity, ethnic identity, religiosity and spirituality, and other factors’ (APA 2018). 
 
For example, the report pointed out that ‘vulnerable boys and men are in a precarious social position because they are marginalized in one social identity domain (e.g., race/ethnicity and sexual orientation) and presumed to be privileged in another (e.g., gender). Occupying discrepant social positions can lead vulnerable boys and men to respond to environmental stress, depression, and trauma by engaging in health-damaging behaviors that symbolically restore power and control’, and ‘often these behaviors are the very ones that put these males at greater risk for health disparities’ (APA 2018).
 
It feels like this report was a little neglected by the media.  It was published last year, and I have heard little commentary about it, and I wonder why.
 
You can find the full report by following the link below.  Do let me know what you think.
https://www.apa.org/pi/health-disparities/resources/race-sexuality-men-report.pdf 

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com
​

Earlier this year I had the honor to be the mental health expert at a panel discussion at Westside Presbyterian Church (Ridgewood, New Jersey).  We discussed the intersection of sexuality, gender and religion. 

We focused on how places of worship can become more welcoming to members of the LGBTQIA+ community, and you can watch the recording of the event here - https://youtu.be/xRrIQ7duyj0

Let me know what you think!

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

Earlier this year the American Counseling Association published another one of my articles.  This time I wrote about how counselors can help people who are in an intimate relationship.  This has traditionally been called 'couples counseling', but I find this term unhelpful because it communicates an assumption that the intimate relationship can only involve two people, and therefore excludes polyamorous relationships.  Such an assumption can reveal a counselor's personal values, and this can hinder the therapeutic work. 

In the article I also mention how members of the LGBTQ community may be carrying wounds of discrimination, and this can have an impact on the intimate relationship between the clients, but also the therapeutic relationship (between counselor and the clients).

Read the full article here - https://ct.counseling.org/2019/04/how-can-we-truly-help-clients-in-a-relationship/

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com

If your true identity is not the identity you were given at birth, you may identify in some other way, including transgender, gender non-confirming, gender queer, or non-binary (TGNC for ease of reference.) In all cases, you do not identify as cis gender. Cis gender means you identify as the gender identity you were given at birth.

To identify as cis gender means that you live with cis gender privilege, whether you are aware of this or not. Cis gender privilege means that you do not have to endure the overt and covert discrimination experienced by many people who are TGNC. Cis gender privilege means you can assume you will not be denied work, a home, healthcare, a place to worship, a family to love, or your personal safety, because of your gender identity. Cis gender privilege means that you don’t have to remind people (even your loved ones) of your pronouns, and/or your name (for example, you are not deadnamed).

Seemingly innocuous moments in everyday life can symbolize cis gender privilege, which basically assumes a binary construct of gender identity. Examples of these everyday moments are set out below:

·        You fill out a form and it asks you to tick the box ‘male’ or ‘female’. There is no box for people who identify as TGNC
·        Your friend is pregnant and holds a gender reveal party with ‘Pink or Blue?’ on every single decoration, including the cake and balloons
·        There are only two bathrooms, one labelled ‘male’ and one labelled ‘female’
·        The same goes for other public facilities including locker rooms in gyms and changing rooms in clothes stores
·        Waiting to board a plane, the airline announces that only women and young children can board first
·        There are role models in the media and in the political arena who are cis gender
·        There are rites of passage, public ceremonies, and other traditions based around the binary concept of male and female
·        You register your child for a sports class and the instructor asks your child to get changed in the girl’s locker room, and join the girls group
·        You go to a high school graduation where everyone is told to sit in two sections: The male section and the female section

To pretend that there are only cis gender males and cis gender females in society is to pretend that parts of our population, the GNC community, do not exist. To do this is offensive, and it can leave a lasting impact on someone’s mental health.  “40% of transgender adults reported having made a suicide attempt, and 92% of these having attempted suicide before the age of 25” (Trevor Project). In addition, 86% of transgender individuals reported sexual or physical assault. Here are some accounts from a Human Rights Watch report:

“Alexander S., a 16-year-old transgender boy in Texas, said: I started getting a lot of anonymous people telling me to kill myself, that it wasn’t worth living. I called the school and told them what was going on and they didn’t do anything.”

and

“It was “like a little mental pinch” when teachers used the wrong pronouns. “It doesn’t seem like a big deal, but eventually you bruise”, 17-year-old transgender student in Utah.”

So the biggest cis gender privilege is to live a life where you are less likely to commit suicide, and less likely to experience sexual or physical assault.

Less obvious forms of discrimination include microaggressions, which are everyday slights, snubs or insults that communicate hostility (whether or not they are intentional). GLAAD ran a photo campaign to highlight this issue. Here are some examples from that campaign –

·        Seven, a transgender man, was asked “Did you transition because you thought you were an ugly girl?”
·        Jacob, who is gender queer, was asked “When are you going to really transition?”
·        Tyler, who is agender/queer, was told “you need to shave if you’re trying to look like a girl”
·        Tiq, a trans man, was told “I would never have known you used to be a girl”
·        Shane, a trans man, was told “You understand what it’s like to be a woman”

To acknowledge all of this, and the privilege of a cis gender man, is not to deny the suffering that cis gender men may experience as a result of another aspect of their identity. For example, if a cis gender man is also a gay man, it is likely that he would have endured his own experiences of overt and covert discrimination, including microaggressions, verbal abuse, and assault. But to acknowledge the suffering of one group of people does not take anything away from the suffering of another group. 

If we are to truly understand the concept of privilege, we cannot stop at gender identity. For example, a white transgender man will experience white privilege that a black transgender man will not. As the American Psychological Association points out, each of our “social identities contributes uniquely and in intersecting ways to shape” how we experience and perform our lives (APA Guidelines, 2018). In turn, this has an impact on “relational, psychological, and behavioural health outcomes in both positive and negative ways”. In the next article in this series, we will look at other forms of privilege, including white privilege.

In the meantime, we will close with some tips on how to address cis gender privilege –
·        Raise awareness about the privilege of being cis gender
·        Stop making assumptions about people’s gender identity. If in doubt, and it seems appropriate, ask. If not, use ‘they’ rather than ‘him’ or ‘her’
·        Normalize the concept of identifying gender, including a person’s pronouns, and include your own pronouns in your email signoff
·        Gender identity is a personal matter. How you identify, and how much you share that with another person, is up to you
·        Challenge the overly simplistic division of the human race into the binary fiction of ‘men or women’. We really can do better. Gender is a spectrum as varied as any other components to a person’s identity. The binary ‘man or women’ option has never, ever reflected reality, so isn’t it high time we caught up?
​
Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Pronouns: (they/them/theirs)

So what about gender identity and young children? The wonderful organization Gender Spectrum suggests using 'insistence, consistence and persistence to help determine if a child is truly gender-expansive or transgender':
'If a boy likes to play with dolls or likes the color pink, this doesn’t mean they will grow up to be transgender. If a girl wants to be called “John” for a couple of weeks, this doesn’t mean she will always feel like a boy. The longer and more insistently that a child has identified as the opposite gender, a combination of genders, or neither gender, the easier it becomes for a parent to know.'

Gender Spectrum encourages parents to adopt Affirming Parenting Practices, and this includes allowing your child 'to choose, without pressure or unspoken messages, the clothes they wish to wear, how and with whom they play, their favorite toys, the accessories they favor, the manner in which they wear their hair, and the decorations and images with which they surround themselves'.
​
You also need to help your child to 'prepare for any negative reactions they may encounter outside the home by practicing their responses with them and making sure, when appropriate, that there is a safe adult for them to turn to in case they need assistance'. It also means 'discussing any negative or conflicting feelings you are struggling with over their gender with other adults, not with your child'.

No matter what, the most important point is that the 'self-esteem, mental well-being, and overall health of a child relies heavily on receiving love, support and compassion from their parents no matter where they are on their gender path.'

Read more here https://www.genderspectrum.org/explore-topics/parenting-and-family/?fbclid=IwAR1BGGmBZcem7SxSQ60ch7yHyJO8eCfQdXI6c9W1IhDD9-yhfqt1s2ru5Bo#more-340

Chris Warren-Dickins LLB MA LPC
Psychotherapist, (Licensed Professional Counselor), Ridgewood NJ 07450
www.exploretransform.com               201-779-6917              chris@exploretransform.com