Round-table discussion

Title: Gender, identity, and sexuality as multiplicities: heteroglossia and polyphony

Coordinator: Pavlos Zarogiannis
Participants: Chloe Kollyri, Anna Apergi-Konstantinidi, George Kesisoglou, Parvy Palmou

Abstract

It seems that, in recent years, what Aristotle once formulated is increasingly accepted, namely that “it seems impossible for all things to be one” and that ultimately the “one… is many”. This notion seems almost self-evident, if one considers, even for a moment, the diversity of all living beings, humans included. It is a notion that could lead to a horizontal distribution, mutual recognition, and equal acceptance of all living beings.

And yet: the one may be many, but the many were sacrificed, and continue to be sacrificed, in the name of the one. Because what has prevailed and what has been imposed for centuries is categorization, grouping, and homogenization, as well as the vertical hierarchy of homogenized categories and groups, something that led, and still leads, to prohibitions, marginalization, exclusions, and conditional inclusions with painful, traumatic, and sometimes tragic consequences for those who belong to the arbitrarily and pejoratively called “minority” groups.

Maybe now is the time to remember Aristotle’s saying about the multiplicity of beings and to reflect on their heteroglossia and polyphony. And, of course, it is also a time for us to contemplate the depth and implications of this saying at all levels of our psychotherapeutic practice. And this not only in relation to our patients, but also to us as therapists.

Short CVs

Pavlos Zarogiannis has studied Clinical Psychology, German literature, and Linguistics in Germany. He lives and works in Athens as a person-centred therapist, supervisor, and trainer in Person-Centered and Focusing-Oriented Counselling and Psychotherapy. He is Co-founder and Co-director of the Hellenic Focusing Center and also a certified coordinator for Greece in the International Focusing Institute (TIFI). He has interests in literature, art, and philosophy.

 

Chloe Kolyri, MD, Phd.  Psychiatrist-psychoanalyst, Queering psychoanalyst. Politics of psychoanalysis. Moderator of the Greek Society for Deleuze and Guattari Studies, Co-founder of the Greek Anti-psychiatry group.

 

Anna Apergi-Konstantinidi, is the President of Greek Transgender Support Association (GTSA) and she has been member of civil society organizations for over of ten years.

She is a regular member of GTSA from 2012. From 2015 till 2016 she was regional secretary of GTSA and from 2017 till 2021 she was office director of GTSA. She is a certain member from GTSA to the Racist Violence Recording Network (RVRN) and also representative of GTSA to Recording Mechanism of National Committee for Human Rights (NCHR).

From March of 2022 till now she leads the presidency of GTSA and parallel she is certain member from LGBTQI+ organizations to NCHR and chair of the Section for the Advancement for Human Rights of NCHR.

From 1997 till 2000 she worked as a trainee catchpole at the Courts of First instance of Drama and Xanthi. She took part by the side of our dear departed president of GTSA, Marina Galanou, as representative at many boards of the Greek Parliament for instance for the voting of civil partnership, legal gender recognition and equal treatment. Also at November of 2022 she took part at the sittings of the Standing Committee of Public Administration, Civil Order and Justice for the processing and examination of the draft law for the Correctional Code of Ministry of the Citizens.

From 2016 she worked as an expert at issues of asylum for LGBTQI+ asylum seekers at the NGO Praksis and from 2018 she became a member of the Scientific Workgroup of Health Ministry with object the full accession of transgender and intersex persons at health.

From 2020 till 2021 she worked as trainer at the University Program of Aegean University with title: “Gestalt Affirmative LGBTQI+-Counceling for sexual diversity and gender identities”.

 

George Kesisoglou (Ph.D) is in private practice in Athens, Greece, as a psychologist and systemic family therapist. He has conducted postdoctoral qualitative research on group supervision processes and has published on precarity, critical discursive psychology, family therapy and affective practices. He collaborates as an Family Therapy Instructor with the Systemic Institute of Cyprus and Entropia Institute in Thessaloniki. The past ten years, he has taught courses in Social Psychology, Qualitative Research and Counseling Psychology at public and private universities. He is a graduate and doctor of the Department of Psychology of the University of Athens, a member of the Systemic Society of Northern Greece (SEVE). He is interested in critical, multicultural and social constructionist approaches to therapy. In recent years, he coordinates the open hybrid seminar on History and Philosophy of Systemic Thinking “Government, Systems, Roots”, as well as editing the open-access Anti-Archive “Constellations of Concepts”.

 

Parvy Palmou they are an accredited E.A.G.T Gestalt Therapist , a clinical psychologist and activist, working privately in Athens Greece. In 2010 they joined the Greek Transgender Support association and worked with trans activist Marina Galanou on depathologization and legal gender recognition of trans identities until her recent passing. For the last 13 years they are Head of the Department of Health for Trans and Intersex Families at the Greek Transgender Support Association where they practice group and individual gestalt therapy with transgender, intersex and non-binary people and their families. In 2021 they were a lecturer at the University of the Aegean for the LGBTQI+ Gestalt Affirmative Counseling Program that they co-created together with Anna Apergi, president of GT.S.A. For the past 6 years they are a country expert for the ILGA Europe annual review. Currently they are a PhD candidate at the University of Bolton performing research on inclusive trans healthcare.