Martin Rosmo Hansen - Abstract

Martin Rosmo Hansen (NO) er spesialist i klinisk voksenpsykologi og kandidat på Institutt for Gruppeterapi (IGA). Han har bred erfaring fra individ- og gruppeterapi med kjønns- og seksualitetsmangfold, samt jobber som teamleder med etableringen av regionale senter for kjønnsinkongruens i Norge, og utvikling av pasientforløp for kjønnsinkongruens i norsk spesialisthelsetjeneste.

Martin Rosmo Hansen er interessert i overføringer og motoverføringer som oppstår i det kliniske arbeidet med kjønnsinkongruens, og at personer med kjønnsinkongruens ofte kan bli gjenstand for mekanismer som “scapegoating” i gruppeterapi. Hvordan kan vi forstå psykodynamiske mekanismer involvert i disse prosessene, og hvordan kan vi som terapeuter håndtere disse fenomenene når de oppstår i terapirommet?

Scapegoating – transference and countertransference in group therapy with transgender non-conforming (TGNC) patients

Author: Psy. D./Group therapist Martin Rosmo Hansen

Working with transgender non-conforming (TGNC) patients in group therapy, I have noticed that gender non-conformity often triggers the group mechanism of scapegoating. Both in a clinical group setting and in “the society-at-large”. TGNC-patients are often caught in a crossfire between acceptance, tolerance, and downright rejection.

Classical psychoanalysis has a history of understanding gender non-conformity through a lens of pathology. Involving theories of developmental arrest or psychosis. Focusing on an “overly concrete and manifest form” of changing bodily gender expression instead of working out intrapsychic conflicts around femininity and masculinity. Post-heteronormative psychoanalysis, on the other hand, has turned the lens from pathology to the mechanisms of interpersonal transference and countertransference. Considering the theme of the 2025 Nordic Group Conference of transgression within and by the therapy group, I will turn the lens to the very foundations and constitutional frames of group transgressions.

How and by what psychological mechanisms, involving interpersonal transference and countertransference, does gender non-conformity give rise to conscious or unconscious transferences in the group or its leader to get rid of unwanted gender non-conformity?

In my clinical experience the meeting between conforming and non-conforming gender experiences in group therapy gives rise to an artificial divide between gender identities. A divide that enables the countertransference in conforming gender identities of TGNC-identities as pathological and destabilizing. The conforming gender identity feels a need to regain a sense of control, experiencing unthinkable anxieties about gender ambiguities or gender change.

How are “the laws of the group” established, and how are they broken? How do societal and political norms of gender conformity trickle down into group processes? I will present clinical material from my group practice to shed light on the phenomenon of scapegoating by transference and countertransference in group therapy with TGNC-patients.