Abstract
This article aims to describe and analyze interactive practices that emerge in the context of psychotherapy in a clinical center specialized in gender and sexuality. The material under analysis consists of an appointment between a psychiatrist and a transsexual woman, which was select from a research corpus of five appointments videorecorded by the center. We conducted a microethnographic analysis based on the Conversation Analysis theoretical and methodological framework. We observed two interactional practices that emerge in a recurrent manner: formulation and accountability. Such practices are in service of the accomplishment of an institutional task: the (co)production of a psychiatric report that certifies the client’s transsexuality from a nosological matrix. Our analysis points out that DSM-5 and ICD-11 are devices that, in the clinical care for transsexual people, limit the autonomy of both therapist and client, as well as consolidate apparatuses that maintain cisnormativity as a rule.
Keywords:
Transsexuality; Gender; Depathologization; Conversation analysis; Psychotherapy