First in a Series of Excerpts from a Talk by Dr. Lin Frazer
lot of people in the paraculture talk about feeling like two different people. The guy is usually rational and concrete; you might say he's kind of boring. The female is spontaneous and blissful and in the moment. That frequently is what people report to me, typical crossdressers.
This is what the male side usually looks like: He's the thinking type. He might have a little obsessive-compulsive behavior going on. He's introverted and quiet. He may have been shy and inhibited growing up. He's rational. He's future oriented, which Jungians describe as living in Kronos time. He's serious and responsible. He's a professional and somewhat conservative. Logos is what he's involved in, that's thinking. Things are concrete to him. He could be clinically prone to depression. He's independent; it's difficult for him to ask for help. And he's a heterosexual.
What is his female side like? That's the anima. That's the soul, by the way, in every man; the anima is the soul . Here we have the Aphrodite archetype, a lot of bliss; it's a highly aroused state. This world is now in colors rather than black and white. Here's where the feeling is, and sensation. In the moment--there is no future and no past, what is called Kairos time. It feels good; it's highly pleasurable. He can focus on the details of the moment.
He has a desire, or maybe I should say she, has a desire to connect with others, a desire for relationship out in the world. She wants to go out to connect. And there is a recognition of dependency needs in this state, and a feeling of safety, security, and tranquillity, as well as excitement and risk and a sense of spontaneity. This is Eros instead of Logos. The sexuality is towards the female image of self. That's why mirrors are important.
Dick Doctor did some studies on this. His book is fabulous. He has been testing sexuality in the crossdressed state, and one of the things he is finding is an attraction to men with many crossdressers, which is surprising, because there is so much obvious heterosexuality; we almost talk about heterosexual crossdresser as one word.
For some crossdressers, the female archetype is more Persephone, who is childlike and spontaneous and fun, and also in the moment.
When you're crossdressed, I want to find out, do you feel different to me. Often you don't, by the way. You feel very different to yourself, but you don't feel different to me. You look different, but you seem the same.
Crossdressers are very Narcissistic when they are crossdressed. "How do I look! Tell me about what I'm wearing. Look at my nails." Once you get beyond that, there can be more recognition of who you really are.
It's easy to understand, I think, just looking at those two sides of the psyche, why the feminine is so appealing. A lot of the fun is there; a lot of the pleasure is there.
Once again, if you feel like you're moving toward a crossgender identity, take a look and see if you're under a lot of stress, because that tends to shift people into the feminine even if they are not really transsexual . What a lot of people say to me is their heart wants it even though their head doesn't; then later they can't believe they ever said that.
What do we do in terms of control? A lot of people say "I just want to control this. I don't want to give it up, but I don't want it to take over." Again, the bottom line, the therapeutic issue is what do you want? And a lot of people don't know.
Once the female starts taking over, it's very difficult to stop it, because that's where the psyche wants to go. What do you do to if you want to stop it? You need to work on the masculine side. This is very hard to get people interested in.
I have so many of these people coming in looking like such slobs as men. and then they get their courage up to come to see me crossdressed, and I have this elegant thing coming in with the nails they spent four hours on. They need to spend time on the masculine. What a nice sweater you've got on today, and that kind of thing, to reinforce the masculine image.
You need to seek other ways for bliss, for the risk taking and spontaneity that's associated with the feminine. Being in the moment--how else can you get that, besides dressing? Find out what your triggers are for crossdressing. Often it's stress control. Take a look at other ways you can deal with stress.
I do a lot of dream interpretation. One of the things I'm interested in is what your unconscious is saying. Lots of times you may feel one way and your unconscious may be saying something else. Where is the ego in the dream state? Crossdressers and transsexuals dream a lot about themselves in the female gender, but it's very different in terms of how they dream about themselves and where the ego is and what direction is it going. So I do a lot of dream interpretation.
Another way to find out what direction you are going, as a last resort, if you feel like you're moving toward a female gender, is to try crossliving for a short period of time. What tends to happen is that a lot of people get tired of it. Work out some way that you can take a vacation and crosslive, to be a woman on a daily basis.
Fantasia Fair isn't good enough. Fantasia Fair is a fantasy. It's great for what it is, and I encourage people to go, but I'm talking now in terms of what it's like in your daily life every day. A lot of people do get tired of that, and they realize they are not really moving in that direction.
Another thing that you can do is take a lot of pictures of crossdressers, because there is something called projective identification, a psychodynamic term. You can project and then bring it back on to yourself in an intimate relationship, or with an object, and often that will take away the need for you to do it yourself.
Another thing in the male gender is to have a lot of sex, as a man, and to also work on masturbatory fantasies, to shift them away from the image of self as a woman and toward intercourse with women. There are specific techniques for doing this. We do this with people in practice who do not want to proceed in a transgender direction, but want to go backwards.
Dr. Lin Frazer is a therapist in San Francisco