Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics

In this thought-provoking episode of Jungian Perspectives: Conversations in Depth, host and analyst Dr. Barry Miller explores the urgent question of the rise of gender identity in young people with Lisa Marchiano—Jungian analyst, co-host of the wildly popular podcast This Jungian Life, and co-author of Dreamwise.Drawing on her two landmark articles in Psychological Perspectives, Marchiano reflects on how she first encountered the phenomenon of rapid-onset gender questioning in her clinical practice — and what it stirred in her as a depth psychologist. Far from dismissing the impulse to explore gender, she approaches it through a distinctly Jungian lens: as a potentially rich, symbolic encounter with the anima and animus — the contra-sexual dimensions Jung believed were essential to psychological wholeness.But what happens when that symbolic process gets concretized — rushed into irreversible medical intervention? And what role might social contagion, archetypal forces, and collective complexes be playing beneath the surface of a culture-wide phenomenon?This is a rare, nuanced, and deeply human conversation — one that holds complexity with care, inviting listeners to think more deeply about individuation, identity, and the unconscious forces shaping our collective moment.LISA MARCHIANO, LSCW, (USA), is a Jungian analyst and the author of Motherhood: Facing and Finding Yourself (Sounds True, 2021), The Vital Spark: Reclaim Your Outlaw Energies and Find Your Feminine Fire (Sounds True, 2024), and the coauthor of Dream Wise: Unlocking the Meaning of Your Dreams (Sounds True, 2024). She is the cohost of the popular depth psychology podcast This Jungian Life and is on the faculty of the C. G. Jung Institute of Philadelphia. Lisa is on the board of Therapy First, a nonprofit that advocates for a return to a psychological approach when treating gender questioning youth.This episode is based on the following articles:Marchiano, L. (2017). Outbreak: On Transgender Teens and Psychic Epidemics. Psychological Perspectives, 60(3), 345–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2017.1350804Marchiano, L. (2021). Transgender Children: The Making of a Modern Hysteria. Psychological Perspectives, 64(3), 346–359. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332925.2021.1959220