Please note, this event date has changed. The event will now be held on Wednesday, October 8, 2025.
As political leadership at federal and various state levels targets trans and nonbinary (TNB) communities, psychotherapists are increasingly tasked with helping TNB clients navigate sociopolitical distress and the practical impacts of restrictions on rights and reduction of safety. In this training, we will discuss how to use the container of the therapeutic relationship to help TNB clients tolerate what is often understandable distress and live meaningfully under oppressive times. We will also review the construct of Radical Hope, how it can be applied to TNB lives, and how we can nurture Radical Hope in our work with TNB clients.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this presentation, participants will be able to:
Describe the significance of bearing witness and strategies for engaging in or improving this fundamental component of clinical work with TNB clients
Differentiate radical hope from passive, wishful hope
Identify ways to nurture radical hope in TNB clients without dismissing real threats
Sebastian Barr, PhD is a licensed counseling psychologist whose clinical and scholarly work centers on trauma recovery, transgender mental health, the intersections of gender diversity and traumatic stress, and living meaningfully through times of oppression. He provides psychotherapy to adolescents and adults in Massachusetts and Kansas through his independent practice and offers training for clinicians, educators, and healthcare professionals on effective and affirming care for transgender communities. In the past year, Dr. Barr has trained thousands of therapists on how to work with trans and nonbinary clients experiencing sociopolitical distress. Dr. Barr is also engaged in multiple grant-supported research initiatives. His work has been published in many peer-reviewed journals and has been cited hundreds of times, and he is a contributing author to several clinical texts on transgender mental health and psychotherapy. His contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the Transgender Research Award from APA Division 44. He has held a scholar-in-residence position at the Faber-Llull Institute in Olot, Catalonia, and currently serves on the editorial boards of Psychology of Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity and Psychotherapy.
References
Mosley, D. V., Neville, H. A., Chavez‐Dueñas, N. Y., Adames, H. Y., Lewis, J. A., & French, B. H. (2020). Radical hope in revolting times: Proposing a culturally relevant psychological framework. Social and personality psychology compass, 14(1), e12512.
Puckett, J. A., Kimball, D., Glozier, W. K., Wertz, M., Dunn, T., Lash, B. R., ... & DuBois, L. Z. (2023). Transgender and gender diverse clients’ experiences in therapy: Responses to sociopolitical events and helpful and unhelpful experiences. Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 54(4), 265.
Garcini, L. M., Cadenas, G., Domenech Rodríguez, M. M., Mercado, A., Campos, L., Abraham, C., ... & Paris, M. (2022). Lessons learned from undocumented Latinx immigrants: How to build resilience and overcome distress in the face of adversity. Psychological services, 19(S1), 62.
Chavez-Dueñas, N. Y., Adames, H. Y., Perez-Chavez, J. G., & Salas, S. P. (2019). Healing ethno-racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities: Cultivating hope, resistance, and action. American Psychologist, 74(1), 49.
Puckett, J. A., Huit, T. Z., Hope, D. A., Mocarski, R., Lash, B. R., Walker, T., ... & DuBois, L. Z. (2024). Transgender and gender-diverse people's experiences of minority stress, mental health, and resilience in relation to perceptions of sociopolitical contexts. Transgender Health, 9(1), 14-23.
DuBois, L. Z., Puckett, J. A., Price, S. F., Kuehn, K., Lash, B., Walker, T., ... & Juster, R. P. (2023). The impact of sociopolitical events on transgender people in the US. Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, 2(1-2), 1-26.
Puckett, J. A., Glozier, K., Kimball, D., Matsuno, E., MacBeth, M., Olko, A., ... & Galupo, M. P. (2025). “I was resilient before I knew that resilience was a thing”: Transgender and nonbinary people’s perspectives on resilience. Journal of Prevention and Health Promotion, 6(2), 275-300.
Ahuvia, I., & Schleider, J. L. (2023). Potential harms from emphasizing individual factors over structural factors in cognitive behavioral therapy with stigmatized groups.