ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a fitting metaphor for the dangers involved in work with children and adolescents with atypical gender identity development, children who perceive their gender identity to be in disharmony with the external reality of their body. Facing the twin dangers of Scylla and Charybdis, Ulysses, by contrast with W. R. Bion’s Oedipus, seemed to have taken account of the potential costs involved in his approach to the treacherous passage. His stance is more flexible and, therefore, negotiation is possible. The chapter examines the phenomenology of gender identity disorders and some of the basic research findings and discusses how this links to therapeutic work. R. Stoller believed that the core gender identity is established before the fully developed phallic stage, although gender identity continues to develop into adolescence or beyond. The recognition and non-judgemental acceptance of the gender identity problem, which is not the result of the child’s conscious choice, is important.
