Dr. Az Hakeem was born and brought up in North Wales and has lived and worked in London since studying medicine. He is a Consultant Psychiatrist who previously trained in forensic Psychotherapy, Mentalization-Based Therapy and is a Group Analyst. He previously worked within the NHS in Forensic Psychotherapy specializing in Analytic Psychotherapy for conditions relating to sex, gender, sexual perversion, and violence at The Portman Clinic, part of The Tavistock & Portman Clinics.

Dr. Az Hakeem is unique in that he is the only consultant psychiatrist in psychotherapy who specializes in the specialist application of exploratory psychotherapy to persons suffering from gender dysphoria. He set up and ran the only specialist psychotherapy service for adults with gender dysphoria in the UK in the NHS and is the author of TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria.

After over 15 years working in the NHS, Dr. Hakeem now works exclusively in private practice.

In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Az Hakeem has worked as a consultant to the media, on-screen specialist, and TV Co-presenter on a number of TV programs in both the UK and Australia. 

Dr. Az Hakeem considers himself a “Gender Critical Psychiatrist.” Today we get to hear about Dr. Hakeem’s facilitated group therapy for gender-distressed adults. He ran these groups for twelve years from 2000 to 2012. Containing a mix of pre-medical-transition individuals who were often gender-euphoric and post-medical-transition individuals who experienced regret, these groups created a fascinating opportunity to give gender-dysphoric individuals more insight into the long-term experience of transition. In this episode. we discuss Dr. Az’s understanding of gender distress and how he contextualizes ROGD kids into this framework.

Links:

TRANS: Exploring Gender Identity and Gender Dysphoria: 

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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, by Mark Haddon: 

Amzn.to/3IKVbEA

“Development and validation of a measure for assessing gender dysphoria in adults: The Gender Preoccupation and Stability Questionnaire” Hakeem, A., Črnčec, R., Asghari-Fard, M., Harte, F., Eapen V. International Journal of Transgenderism (26th August, 2016) Tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15532739.2016.1217812?journalCode=wijt20

“Psychotherapy for Gender Identity Disorders” Hakeem, A. Advances in Psychiatric Treatment (2012), vol.18, 17-24 Cambridge.org/core/journals/advances-in-psychiatric-treatment/article/psychotherapy-for-gender-identity-disorders/D10025B4A7EBBC2250E71EA6A12465F0

“Study Protocol for a randomized controlled trial of mentalization based therapy against specialist supportive clinical management in patients with both eating disorders and symptoms of borderline personality disorder” Robinson, P., Barrett, B., Bateman, A., Hakeem, A., Hellier, J., Lemonsky, F., Rutterford, C., Schmidt, U., Fonagy, P. BMC Psychiatry 14(1): 51. 2014

Pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24555511

“Deconstructing Gender in Trans-Gender Identities” Hakeem, A. Group Analysis. The International Journal of Group Analysis Volume 43 Issue 2, June 2010

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