More on Memory Replacement Therapy and Transgenderism . . . a question via email:

Just curious, which is more dangerous (generically speaking) – ill-advised gender-replacement hypnosis? Or other-memory-replacement hypnosis?

Well . . . I would suggest that memory replacement therapy as the original querant of this thread was asking for is ill-advised regardless of what it’s being done for. There really is a difference between having a new understanding or developing a new perspective on memories and your experiences and the more intrusive path or attempting to repress your experiences and replace them with a fantasy that doesn’t jibe with the facts. Certainly, transgendered individuals may find it helpful to work on their self-identity and their perspective on their experiences and memories . . . however, that’s not the same as creating and implanting a delusion that a person is biologically a woman and can bear children (that ain’t gonna happen without radical surgery to implant parts that aren’t there and that surgery only exists in science fiction so there is no usefulness imagining in that direction especially as it has such strong capacity for doing more harm than good in the longterm). However, changing current understandings and perspectives on past events is fine . . . that’s what regression therapy would be all about and it can be very very very helpful.

Like Kirk said in ST:V (paraphrase): "We are the sum of our experiences, good & bad." But does sexual identity trumpet a ‘bad experience’?

Yes, we are the sum of our experiences. For some people, sexual identity can be tricky. It is not that their identity is a bad experience, but that their relationship with it is. True transgendereds have a gender identity that is not congruent with their biological sexual identity. This experience can be very negative. Some folks are confused and can be helped to come to grips with this (some really aren’t transgendered but are using psychological escapist strategies while others are true transgendered individuals). Many folks with confused gender identity go through a lot of bad stuff in their lives and really need the help. Considering that previous approaches to this issue included aversion therapy and shock therapy, we can understand the reluctance of some individuals to seek appropriate help.

I underwent some succesful hypno-therapy to compensate for stress, and was wondering what your thoughts (on the above) were.

None of our memories can really be called genuine, they are all interpretations of electrochemical markers and pathways imprinted in our brains. Contrary to popular belief, the brain is not a computer that stores everything perfectly . . . rather we store bits and pieces with emotional context makers. While some memories may be more accurate than others, none are the actual event. In essence, our memories are not so much static data but interactive events and the key to them is not so much how we access them but how we relate to them. Appropriate therapy helps us build new relations to formerly negative events so that we can understand that’s all baggage in the past and we can now use our resources to move forward, in the now towards the future. The appropriate place for any of us to live is in the now . . . not in the past and not hoping for a future . . . but right now, this moment in time, carpe diem and all that.

Yes, we are the sum total of our past experiences . . . . but we are also our dreams of the future . . . but the real "I" of our identity is how we live NOW . . . right now . . . in this present moment, the choices we make and the actions we take . . . here and now. If we’re so hung up on the past or the future to the point that they make our "now" particularly suckful then we need to redress things and create new relationships with our memories and dreams so that we can get on with the now and tread into the future.