Gender nonconformity as a problem of mentalization

Abstract

Objective — to study and analyze the current trends among Western scientists and mental health professionals regarding issues of gender identity; to study the data of foreign and domestic studies concerning the problems of gender incongruence, gender dysphoria and their comorbidity with mental disorders, personality disorders, especially with schizophrenia and autism spectrum disorders; to identify promising areas of scientific research in this direction. Source search in electronic databases was carried out mainly for the past 5 years among foreign and russian publications, including Web of science, Researchgate.net, Google Scholar, Elibrary, Cyberleninka systems, using phrases such as gender identity disorder, gender identity disorder comorbidity, gender identity disorder schizophrenia, gender identity disorder autism, gender nonconformity, mentalization personality disorder. The article presents the data of modern publications and studies, showing, on the one hand, the tendency of Western experts to depathologize gender incongruence, promote gender transition, on the other hand, an active study of the relationship between this phenomenon with autism and schizophrenia spectrum disorders, personality disorders. According to the presented studies, the influence of mentalization features on the presence of mental disorders and gender incongruence is revealed.

Keywords

• review
• gender identity
• gender dysphoria
• gender incongruence
• mentalization
• schizophrenia spectrum disorders