The purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire.
Wilfred Bion
Meeting the needs of gender dysphoric youth is one of the most urgent and complex challenges facing the mental health field today. Therapy First envisions a world where this population has access to mental health care that meets the standard of care established by major mental health associations, whose guidelines support therapy first before medical intervention.
Therapy First’s programming focuses on training clinicians to meet the established standard of care and on supporting the delivery of developmentally appropriate, evidence-informed mental health care. By doing so, Therapy First helps ensure that the public has access to care that aligns with professional best practices and the developmental needs of youth.
Become A Member
Membership is open to licensed mental health professionals who align with Therapy First’s values. Members participate in a supportive community of professionals who collaborate to strengthen mental health care for youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
As a member, you’ll have access to peer supervision groups and clinical case conferences led by leaders in the field, discounted Therapy First webinars and trainings, and the opportunity to play an active role in advancing the mission of Therapy First.
Upcoming Webinar
Therapy First’s webinars provide knowledge on developmentally informed mental health care for youth experiencing gender dysphoria.
Dr. Anna Hutchinson
January 30 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EST
This webinar explores cultural competence in psychotherapy with gender-distressed and gender-questioning youth, with a focus on how cultural, social, developmental, and professional contexts shape both distress and clinical responses. Cultural competence is understood not as a fixed body of knowledge, but as an ongoing, dynamic practice requiring awareness of positionality, power, bias, and wider societal narratives influencing young people and clinicians alike.
Drawing on developmental psychology, systemic thinking, and how the concept of cultural competence has developed in psychotherapy, the talk examines how factors such as intersectionality, generational culture, online and peer influences, professional ideologies, and minority stress might interact with gender-related distress. Particular attention is given to the risks of diagnostic overshadowing, the challenges posed by competing narratives about sex and gender, and the importance of maintaining clinical humility and therapeutic candor.
The webinar also addresses the contemporary mental health context, including increased youth distress, contested evidence bases, and the pressures clinicians face when working in a polarized and highly scrutinized field. Emphasis is placed on how culturally competent, developmentally informed psychotherapy can support thoughtful formulation, safeguard young people, and enable ethical, effective care without foreclosing exploration or outcomes.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- 1. Define and understand key terms relevant to ethical psychotherapeutic practice with gender-distressed and gender-questioning youth, including i) cultural competence, ii) cultural humility and iii) structural competence
- 2. Identify key cultural, social, and developmental influences that might shape gender-related distress in young people, including i) intersectionality, ii) generational factors, and iii) minority stress.
- 3. Apply principles of culturally competent formulation, including: i) consideration of therapist positionality, ii) the impact of our wider professional cultures, and iii) the risk of ‘diagnostic overshadowing’.
- 4. Incorporate these principles into clinical practice with young people experiencing gender-related distress with the aim of ensuring psychotherapy is: i) respectful of and responsive to the dignity, autonomy, and diversity of the client group; ii) consistent with standard best practice; iii) developmentally informed; iv) transparent, allowing for informed consent; and v) adheres to relevant professional ethical guidelines.
Presenter Bio
Anna is a clinical psychologist with 25 years of frontline experience, specializing in adolescent mental and physical health. From 2013 to 2017, Anna was a senior clinician at the Tavistock Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which had become the world’s largest pediatric gender clinic prior to its closure in 2023. In recent years, her work has focused on education and training addressing the complex needs of young people experiencing gender-related distress, including co-leading the induction training for the NHS Children and Young People’s Gender Service in collaboration with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges. She has presented internationally on psychotherapy for gender distressed youth, including at the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Annual Meeting, and her publications include Cass-Informed Psychotherapy for Gender-Distressed Youth in the European Journal of Developmental Psychology.
Therapy First webinars are open to the public. Parents, clinicians, teachers, and all those interested are welcome to attend. Psychologists and professional counselors are eligible to earn 1.5 CE credits for participating in the live webinar.
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