Grief as a Framework for Psychotherapy with Trans Folks in 2025

Plus upcoming trainings, new art, relevant resources, and as always - music

Author

Sebastian Barr
July 09, 2025

Hello comrades in care and liberation. I’m grateful to be writing to you all with a new month’s worth of updates.

Let me start this update with something positive. Last week, I led a group of trans and queer people on a nighttime bike ride to see hundreds (thousands?) of fireflies in a protected meadow. It was magical, full of delight. I had taken my mom there earlier and she had cried at the beauty of it all. I felt similarly. Awe, gratitude. We are all aware of so much that is difficult about being alive and being alive at this particularly moment in geopolitical and ecological history. And we must remember that we share a planet and point in time with fireflies and ANOHNI and Beverly Glenn-Copeland.

Experiences like these help me have the capacity to hold the deep sorrow of witnessing the world as it is. To this end, I’ve been increasingly using an adapted grief lens for understanding what trans people are experiencing in this era and for guiding what I can offer people in psychotherapy and in community.

[If you’re new to this newsletter because you took a training with me, welcome! I use this platform to send out a monthly update with offerings, resources, links to my writing, and usually some brief reflections and/or music recommendations. I totally understand if you get too much in your inbox and don’t want this. Scroll down to unsubscribe.]

In This Month's Newsletter:

Table of Contents

Grieving the State of the World

In a recent instagram post (linked above) I share how adaptations of the Dual Processing Model of Grief Coping (DPM; Stroebe & Schut, 1999; Larsen et al., 2024) can be used in helping trans and nonbinary clients move through and live meaningfully alongside all the grief our communities are holding. According to this model, adaptive responses to grief involve a dynamic movement between loss-oriented processes (e.g. confronting grief-related emotions) and restoration-oriented processes (e.g., adapting to world and self post-loss), as well as movement between emotional engagement/processing and avoidance/rest. There’s a general developmental trajectory that people grieving follow in which the initial, acute post-loss period is experienced as a disorienting and flooding crisis. Loss-oriented processes are all-consuming and a person typically feels dissociated from the world that is moving on as “normal.” They may be resistant or just incapable of engaging in restoration-oriented processes. Over time, as a person gradually (and often non-linearly) accepts the reality of the loss(es), experiences nervous system re-regulation, has demands of responsibility toward others and/or work, and has new experiences, they are able to do more movement between loss-oriented process and restoration-oriented process. It’s not always in their control in this emerging phase - avoidance and engagement may be waves they/we just ride. But the movement between these dual processes allows for learning and growth and further acceptance of this unwanted but unavoidable reality. Eventually, with growth and time and ongoing acceptance and continued new experiences, the griever is able to be more present to day-to-day life and connection to others. The grief never goes away and loss-oriented processes continue to be a part of one’s life, but there’s more control over movement between them and restoration-oriented processes. I’ll be talking about how I see this relate to trans people’s experiences and needs right now in my upcoming training and have hopes of writing a substack piece and maybe a piece in an academic journal about it, as well.

Speaking of trainings…

Upcoming Trainings

This training expands upon my May 2025 webinar by presenting clinical vignettes and discussing with more depth how to apply the approaches I discussed in the first webinar. This training also focuses more on clinician experience and needs, including working on countertransference and reactions to clients, managing our well-being and sociopolitical distress, and engaging in advocacy. If you’d like to watch the first training, a live recording is available for purchase here: https://transpsychologist.com/training-may2025

Affirming & Accessible Letter-Writing for TNB Clients: A Guide for Clinicians

Save the date for a low-cost letter-writing training I’m offering virtually in July. This will likely not be recorded and will need to be attended live. The training includes access to the questionnaire I developed for clients, letter templates, and suggested resources for further learning. The training will take place august 9th from 4-5:30pm Eastern Time. Registration opens on July 15 with early bird pricing for only $20.

Join me later this month for a 15-hour CE course on working with trans and nonbinary adolescents and young adults. This is my second time offering this course and I’m so grateful for the opportunity to teach it again. Cost for the course, spread across five mornings Monday through Friday, ranges from $380 to $640 if you use my discount code (BARR20). Cost is dependent on whether you attend in-person or online and whether you’re a student or a CE-seeking licensed professional. In addition to mental healthcare providers, CEs are also available for some educators. More information here: https://www.cape.org/courses/trans-and-nonbinary-adolescents-and-young-adults-sebastian-barr-2025

My Writing & Writing I’ve Contributed To

First, I’m excited to share that Joonwoo Lee and I have submitted our first manuscript related to our research on TNB survivors of parent-perpetrated relational trauma. It is titled Transness is Our Salve: How Trans Identity Facilitates Healing from Relational Trauma with Parental Figures and will now undergo the peer-review process before being published. In the meantime, we are working on a community-facing zine which will be hosted at transnessishealing.net. The zine will include our findings as well as art from participants and new pieces from amazing artist Britchida who we commissioned to create art inspired by our themes. Here’s a sneak peak they shared of one of those pieces. It is inspired by the stories of participants whose parents’ rejection of their transness allowed the participants to see longstanding patterns of harmful behavior and relational trauma, motivated them to disrupt those patterns by distancing from parents, and led them to seek relationships with others (often in trans and nonbinary community) which were ultimately healing.

Joonwoo and I are both so excited to share more of our findings and this art/zine with everyone.

I’ve also published a couple of big substacks since my last update. A lot of my energy and time have been focused on my upcoming trainings, but I’m hoping to return to more regular writing on substack later in the summer. Still, I’m happy to share these with you:

Events & Writings Offered by Others

  • Modern United States vs Nazi Germany: A Comparison Guide for Wellbeing by Milo Todd — This course (which I believe will be free) is resource developed by historical fiction author Milo Todd who wrote The Lilac People, a story of trans and queer people set in World War II era Germany. When I saw Todd at a book reading earlier this year, he said he had not intended to write such a timely book and that many people had been alarmed by some of the parallels in his story to the lives of trans people under Trump’s/MAGA America. He stated that he was interested in creating this resource primarily to highlight all of the differences between Nazi Germany and the modern United States as evidence for why he does not believe that trans people are at risk of the level of oppression and state violence seen in Germany at that time. (Even as he acknowledges that things are bad and will probably get worse.) You can read more about it at his instagram and sign up for access here (though it doesn’t launch until July 14).

  • The Search for Trans Meaning: On Why We’re Here by Dr. Anna Marie LaChance — This is an excellent read applying the indigenous Blackfoot perspective on the hierarchy of needs to existential questions about trans people’s purpose(s) in life. Dr. LaChance examines both philosophically and practically how trans people can pursue individual self-actualization, community self-actualization, and cultural perpetuity. https://thatannamarie.substack.com/p/the-search-for-trans-meaning

  • The Rainbow Ain't Never Been Enuf Free Book Talk with Dr. Kaila Story — On July 15, Black feminist and queer theory scholar Dr. Kaila Story will join the Free Black Women’s Library in a no-cost virtual talk on her new book. This book is an accounting of and reckoning with the lack of racial and ethnic solidarity and intersectionality in predominantly white queer spaces and movements. Read more about the book here and register for the book talk here.

Closing

It’s hard to take photos of fireflies and also hard to take photos of trans and queer folks looking at fireflies in the dark, but I tried. I wanted to capture even a sliver of the joy of this communal whimsy and thrill. I promise you if you put even just a little energy into seeking out the wonder (and/or connection and care) that persists in this world, you will find some. It’s all around us and is as real as the cruelty and suffering. I hope you will seek out some awe the remainder of this month. And maybe I will see some of you in Cape Cod, where I am known to be plain giddy about frolicking in kettle ponds, kayaking, bird-watching, seal-spotting, and bike adventures.

Also, I mentioned the musicians (and trans elders/icons) ANOHNI and Beverly Glenn-Copeland above. I linked to a youtube of part of ANOHNI’s recent Glastonbury 2025 performance. ANOHNI always moves me deeply. She exemplifies holding the duality of the pain of life and the beauty of life, hopelessness and hope. I highly recommend watching her whole 70-minute performance which centers human-driven climate change and the destruction of the reefs - if you’re not in the UK, it will require using a VPN and promising the BBC that you have a UK TV license… Worth it! If you want to spend some more time with Beverly Glenn-Copeland’s beautiful music, check out this series of live recordings at Lakewind Sound Studios. Also, the world recently got access to a previously unreleased pilot he and his wife produced (and featured in) for a children’s show called Caring Cabin that sadly was never further developed. But the pilot exists and is lovely! If you’re signed up for the Criterion Channel, you can watch it here.

It’s hard to not feel lucky to share the world with such incredible beings.

In solidarity,

Sebastian