Dreams of transsexuals awaiting surgery

Transsexuals most eagerly anticipate the proposed surgical change and expect to experience no regret at losing the unwanted sex organs in order to receive those of the opposite sex. This paper offers a preliminary challenge to the confidence such patients express as they await their surgical transformation. Consultation contracts with one male and one female transsexual were established with the goal of helping them understand their motivation for demanding surgery, and of providing them with greater freedom in which to confirm or reject their plans. The dreams of these patients from the period during which each awaited plastic surgery are reported. While the patients expressed an obsessive determination to be relieved of their unwelcome sex organs, both exhibited in the manifest contents of their dreams considerable alternation between the natural and chosen sex. Their associations to these dreams were put to use in not only giving them to understand that they had conflicts about the proposed surgery but also by awakening their curiosity about their illness, transsexualism itself. The appearance of the underlying confusion exemplifies something of the heavy responsibility with which medical personnel are faced when consulted about this kind of irreversible surgery.