a therapy first conference
Identities in the Therapy Room: What Is Unfolding?
New York City | October 17-18, 2026
Moving forward together.
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 these young people have access to care that follows widely recognized clinical guidelines, which 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.
Psychology may be a science but psychotherapy is an art.
nancy mcwilliams
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. Libby Nugent
April 24 @ 1:00 pm – 2:30 pm EDT
This webinar explores how fairy tales and myths can function as symbolic scaffolds in psychotherapy, with particular attention to embodiment, transformation, and gender. Participants will engage with recurring motifs through specific tales such as The Ugly Duckling (misrecognition and belonging), The Handless Maiden (bodily wounding and reclamation), The Frog Prince (disgust, contact, and metamorphosis), and The Emperor’s New Clothes (legitimacy, conformity, and group process).
Drawing on psychodynamic, group analytic, and narrative approaches, the session considers how motifs such as exile, metamorphosis, disguise, and recognition can illuminate the ways bodily experience becomes meaningful within psychological life. The workshop approaches the body as both materially real and psychologically lived. Rather than reducing distress to either biological or identity-based explanations, it introduces a symbolic perspective that supports clinicians in exploring how experiences of the body are shaped, interpreted, and communicated within relational and cultural contexts.
Fairy tales offer a language through which experiences of bodily difference, discomfort, and transformation can be explored without premature closure. Participants will consider how symbolic thinking can support therapists in maintaining curiosity, tolerating ambiguity, and working thoughtfully with complex presentations involving gender and embodiment.
The session integrates contemporary research on gender-related distress and mental health with established psychological approaches to narrative, play, and symbolisation, offering clinicians practical ways to apply these ideas in therapeutic work. At its core, the workshop asks how the body can be understood not only in biological terms, but also as a place where experience, meaning, and relationship meet.
Learning Objectives
By the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:
- Describe how narrative and symbolic processes (e.g., myth and fairy tale) contribute to the psychological experience of embodiment.
- Identify key themes (e.g., bodily experience, belonging, relational context, and integration) in presentations of gender-related and body-related distress.
- Apply a reflective, narrative-informed approach to clinical work that supports exploration of embodiment, meaning-making, and therapeutic dialogue.
Presenter Bio
Dr. Libby Nugent is a Clinical Psychologist and Group Analyst whose work integrates psychodynamic, group analytic, and narrative approaches. Her interests include symbolic processes in groups, the role of language in shaping psychological experience, and the use of myth and fairy tale as clinical tools for engaging complexity.
She works across clinical, organisational, and teaching contexts, with a particular focus on how contemporary conditions can both support and constrain symbolic thought within therapeutic practice.
Her clinical work includes experience with complex trauma and embodied distress, informing her interest in how highly charged material can be thought about symbolically rather than prematurely resolved.
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 (attendance for the entire length of the program is required to receive CE credits).
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We help connect members of the public with therapists who align with the values of the organization.