IPA Journal Club
Friday 11th September 2026 (16:00 -17:15 London time) (11:00 AM – 12:15 PM Eastern US Time)
Author: Jack Drescher, MD
You can register for the September IPA Journal Club by clicking here
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The IPA Journal Club (JC) is a project of the IPA Communications Committee. It meets 6 times per academic year (September-June) on Fridays at 4 PM (16:00-17:15) London time [11:00 AM – 12:15 PM US Eastern Time] for 75 minutes.
Each meeting, in webinar format, is in English and features a guest author who discusses with registrants an article or chapter they have published. The meetings are recorded and later posted online at the [link] and on the [link] for viewing by the general public.
The JC’s next meeting, featuring Jack Drescher, MD, will be on Friday, September 11, 2026, at 4 p.m. London time, 11 a.m. US Eastern Time.
Registration, which is free of charge, is open to IPA members and candidates, other interested mental health professionals, scholars and academics. A downloadable copy of the paper is available to registrants,
here.
Ideally, all registrants will have read Dr Drescher's paper beforehand and have an opportunity to ask questions or make comments to the him. At the registration site, you can also submit questions to the moderators to share with him.
Reading:
Drescher, J. (2007). From bisexuality to intersexuality: Rethinking gender categories.
Contemporary Psychoanalysis, 43(2):204-228.
Abstract
The study of human sexual identities is changing and these changes oblige analysts to think about sexualities in ways never envisioned by their psychoanalytic forbears. These changes also require that they be aware of some of the limitations imposed upon by their own theoretical traditions. Toward that end, this paper begins with a definition of terms related to modern conceptions of sexuality and sexual identities. This is followed by a review of historical assumptions underlying the theory of bisexuality. The next section introduces the reader to the role of categories and hierarchies in general, and to the clinical meaning of sexual hierarchies in particular. This is followed by a discussion of the meanings and uses of the “natural.” The final section concludes with a commentary on intersexuality as an example of both the social and surgical construction of gender.
You can register for the September IPA Journal Club by clicking
here.
To access Dr. Drescher’s paper, click
here.
Bio
Jack Drescher, MD, a member of IPA’s Communications Committee, is a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in New York City. A recipient of the 2022 Mary S. Sigourney Award for his international work on gender and sexuality, Dr. Drescher is on the faculties of the William Alanson White Institute, the New York University Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research and the Florida Psychoanalytic Center. He is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia and a member of the Board of Trustees of the WA White Institute. He is a past elected Director-at-Large of the American Psychoanalytic Association. His publications have been translated into numerous languages. He is author of
Psychoanalytic Therapy and the Gay Man (Routledge) and Emeritus Editor of the
Journal of LGBTQ+ Mental Health.
The moderators of this episode of the IPA Journal Club will be Christopher G. Walling, PsyD
Christopher G. Walling, Psy.D., MBA, FIPA, is Associate Professor and Chair of Research Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, Faculty Chair of Adult Psychoanalytic Training at the New Center for Psychoanalysis, and a licensed clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. Dr. Walling is a Clinical Research Fellow and International Advisory Council member at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, serves on the American Psychoanalytic Association’s Committee on Gender & Sexuality, and is past president of the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy. His work appears in American Psychological Association’s Journal, Psychotherapy and the International Body Psychotherapy Journal. Recent honors include the 2026 Ernst & Gertrude Ticho Award and being named the 2024 Gina Ogden Scholarship prize in Integrative Sex Therapy Research. He maintains a private practice in Brentwood, California.
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