For me, deciding to see a therapist about my gender dysphoria was a huge step. It was the first time I had told another human being face to face that I thought I was transgender. I was lucky; the psychologist in the area who is known for taking trans clients was full up and couldn’t take me. She recommended a colleague whom I had never heard of. I gave her a chance, and she turned out to be phenomenal. She was non-judgmental, listened well, asked insightful questions, and in the end became someone whose insights and ideas I trusted.
Author Archive
About Author
Brynn Tannehill
Brynn Tannehill was a SH-60B and P-3C pilot with 10 years of active duty service. A Naval Academy graduate, she left the reserves in 2010 as a lieutenant commander and is currently a contractor at the 711th Human Performance Wing in Dayton, Ohio. Brynn provides OutServe Magazine an experienced transgender voice.
16 Nov 2012
Bad Psychiatry Still Haunts Us
In 1988, when I had just turned 14, I made the life changing mistake of trying to figure out what I was using the materials I had on hand. In this case, it was a copy of the book written by Dr. David Reuben in 1968, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* (But Were Afraid to Ask).” The book came from my mother’s top shelf on adult topics, and for a kids just hitting puberty and dying slowly with the changes, I needed answers. Namely, why did puberty feel so wrong, why did I feel a need to be female, and why did I pray every night to wake up right.
06 Nov 2012
Trans is not a Mental Illness
There was the equivalent of a 8.0 Earthquake in the psychiatric community this past May. Although very few people outside the trans community noticed it, there was a casualty. It’s name was Gender Identity Disorder (GID). The funeral was poorly attended, and the only people mourning it are right wing ideologues and rabidly anti-LGBT organizations who feel that LGBT people need to be as stigmatized as possible by the medical and psychological communities.
15 Aug 2012
An Interesting Hypothesis
In the early 1950’s, a well known Canadian psychiatrist named Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron developed the concept of “psychic driving.” The idea was that mental illnesses could be cured by reprogramming new narratives into subjects. He recruited from the local community to participate in his studies. Most of his volunteer subjects suffered from relatively minor psychiatric complaints, such as neurosis or depression.
08 Aug 2012
First Therapy Session
In late June of 2010 our last child, a boy, was born. I could sense the distance between my wife and myself growing even further. Intimacy was non-existent, and she could barely stand to touch me now that I clearly had breasts. I had been blaming it on the pregnancy, but the gulf was widening, and I had no idea how much she really knew (which was in reality almost all of it). I was careless, barely even hiding it because she was so conspicuously ignoring it. At home, I was short fused and out of control, although less so since I quit the reserves.
20 Jul 2012
Shrink Visit
I would like to welcome the newest member of our writing team, Brynn Tannehill. In her first post with us, she tells us her story of seeing a military psychologist for her first and only time. Thanks for sharing with us, Brynn!
Late second semester of my youngster (second) year, my company officer asked if I had gone to the shrink as he had ordered, and I replied truthfully that I had not. He angrily told me that he didn’t want to write me up for disobeying a direct order, so I’d better f****** do it soon. So, I scheduled an appointment. I was worried what was going to happen when I went in. The psychologist I met was a Navy lieutenant.