Acorn into Oak Tree: Gender Transition and Individuation

As previously presented at the IAAP Congress in Zurich in August 2025, we are pleased to welcome Adina Davidson and her colleague Raisa Cabrera on the 17th January 2026. This paper will discuss Dr. Davidson's experience that gender transition, in all its many forms, functions as an agent of individuation. In addition, the paper explores the contrast between our cultural attitudes of widespread acceptance of many kinds of medical transformation of our bodies and the shadow projection that seems to often be constellated by medical changes to bodies that impact gender. We will look at an appropriate analytic attitude toward analysands who are exploring gender. Finally, the paper will lay out the possibility that Jung's thesis -beginning with the Red Book - that we all have all the archetypes offers a uniquely Jungian lens into gender expansiveness.

A live vignette will be presented by Raisa Cabrera who has been on this transitioning journey in her individuation.
Adina Davidson got her Ph.d from Case Western Reserve University in 1993. She was a family therapist in private practice and the Clinical Services Director at a social service agency in Cleveland, Ohio for 25 years. She began analytic training in 2012 and became an analyst and member of the CSJA in 2019. She co-created (with Dan Ross and Andrea Gaspar) the online course Memories, Dreams and Reflections. She has co-directed the 2-year certificate program called Jungian Psychotherapy Program/Jungian Studies Program for the past 4 years. In addition to her analytic practice she co-hosts a podcast on Fairytales and Mythology called Jungian Ever After.

Raisa Cabrera graduated from the Case Western Reserve University masters program in 2016 with a degree in Art Education. She has always been heavily inspired by myths and fairly tales, which culminated a few years ago in the
podcast Jungian Ever After that she co-hosts with Adina.