The Wish to Be a Boy: Gender Dysphoria and Identity Confusion in a Self-Identified Transgender Adolescent.

Drawing on recent theory of the origin and development of gender orientation, this article explores the dynamics in the treatment of a 16-year-old female to male transgender adolescent. The debate over whether surgery, to change the body, or psychotherapy, to change the mind, is the appropriate treatment became a central conflict for the therapist in understanding the dynamics of her transgender patient whose goal was to be “cleared for surgery.” [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]