Examining one client’s fight for gender affirming care as sustained through their immersion in video games, this presentation questions assumptions of psychoanalytic praxis in a course of treatment that has traversed inpatient facilities, parks, fast food restaurants, countless foster placements… oh yeah… and Zombies.

Ben Shafar, MA, (Presenter) is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) in private practice in Yakima & Seattle, WA and an alumni of SPSI’s two year certificate program: Theory, Process and Social Applicability of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy. Ben is currently a second-year candidate in psychoanalytic training at the Institute of Contemporary Psychoanalysis in Los Angeles and a participant in the inaugural cohort of Expanding Psychoanalytic Practice in Community (EPPIC); an initiative of the International Psychoanalytical Association (IPA) and the American Psychoanalytic Association (APsA).

Matthew Brooks, LICSW, (Discussant) is a social worker and psychoanalyst in Seattle. He works with adults and adolescents, and is on the faculty at the Seattle Psychoanalytic Society and Institute.