
Lysistrata MP Barbiere, M.A.
Psychoanalyst
Lysistrata (or Lysie, elle, accords féminins) is a psychoanalyst, sex therapist and art therapist in private practice in Toulouse (France). Originally a contemporary literature graduate, her career path brought her into contact with gender studies in her early years at university. She continued along this path and now holds a Master’s degree in Genre(s), pensées des différences et rapports de sexe (Gender(s), thoughts on gender differences and relations) from the Université Paris 8. She wrote her dissertation under the supervision of Anne-Emmanuelle Berger (then University Professor, now Professor Emeritus in Gender and Literature Studies). She is currently a doctoral student in Gender Studies at the Laboratoire d’Études de Genre et de Sexualité, LEGS, UMR 8238 (CNRS, Université Paris 8, Université Paris 10). She is preparing her thesis under the supervision of Marta Segarra (Director of Research in Gender Studies at the CNRS). Her research focuses on the imaginaries of “sexual and gender minorities”. She completed her trans health training with the Institute for Trans Health. She is also a member of the Réseau Santé Trans in France and a student member of WPATH.
Before being a psychoanalyst, she is a trans woman. She says this not for the sake of advocacy, but because her journey of gender affirmation has taught her that, as mental health professionals, we must consider all aspects of the person, see them in their entirety, offer them a caring, respectful and safe welcome, and above all, where appropriate, consider the intersectional analysis, i.e. also take into account all the discrimination that the patient can or has suffered, even beyond their gender affirmation.
By choice, she doesn’t belong to any traditional school of psychoanalysis (Freudian, Lacanian or Jungian), but claims to be part of the queer psychoanalysis born of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction movement, his reflections with Hélène Cixous, Judith Butler’s critiques and their heirs in the field of psychoanalysis: Léo Bersani, Fabrice Bourlez and Laurie Laufer. She specializes in the mental health of transgender, nonbinary and gender-rquestionning people. She offers assessment and/or psychoanalytical support services to TNb people covered by the French social security system, whether they live in France or abroad (teleconsultations are possible for all those who do not live in Toulouse). Her approach to TNb patients is based on self-determination and informed consent. Rather than offering her patients an “assessment”, she finds it necessary as a mental health practitioner to be a “library” for them. Indeed, she makes a point of providing transgender and nonbinary people with positive social representations of TNb people to counter the mainstream clichés that the media disseminate about them, and enable them to fully re-appropriate their image and social representations. What’s more, she takes into account the whole person, not just Western references, adapting them to the experience of the people with whom she meets. She also offers support to those close to the person (family members, spouses, employers and schools), informing them of the help they can provide to the person in affirming their gender.