Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 6, 2025

Virtual Hand with Ambiguous Movement between the Self and Other Origin: Sense of Ownership and 'Other-Produced' Agency
Published on: October 28, 2020
The man I am trying to be is not me
1Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Abstract:
This paper explores the therapeutic process between analyst and Josh, a trans man whose life had fallen apart after transition. Repetitive enactments involving hiding, deceiving and mystification constituted a prolonged therapeutic impasse. The analyst's struggle with these binds and with countertransference confusion and anxiety, ultimately illuminated zones that had remained off-limits for a prolonged period of time. Where the couple had been snared in a bind structured by gender, they were now able to access a history of violation and to ask more profound questions about connection, aloneness, authenticity and loss.
Related Concept Videos
Self-Evaluation: Self-Enhancement and Self-Verification
Self-Discrepancy Theory
The Sense of Self: Reflected Self-Appraisal and Social Comparison
Self-Presentation: Self-Monitoring and Self-Handicapping
Nonconscious Mimicry
Self-Discrepancy and Its Effects

