About

Joseph Burgo, Ph.D.

I am a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. I offer long-term psychodynamic therapy by Zoom for trans-identified adolescent and young adult males, for men who have detransitioned, and for men who struggle with issues around autogynephilia. I also consult with parents of trans-identified teens and young adults. My practice is for males.

Background

I earned my undergraduate degree in English literature at UCLA, and my master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology from the California Graduate Institute in Los Angeles. I am a graduate psychoanalyst. I have taught at the graduate level, and I have served as a board member, officer, and instructor at an affiliate of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

I have been in practice for more than forty years. For much of that time I wrote widely about shame, narcissism, and the hidden ways we protect ourselves from pain — in books, in my blog After Psychotherapy, and in a Psychology Today blog called Shame. In recent years, my clinical work has turned especially toward gender-related distress and the families it affects.

How I think about this work

I practice psychodynamic psychotherapy. That means we look, unhurriedly, at the feelings, history, and relationships underneath a present crisis — not only at the crisis itself. I was trained as a psychoanalyst, and I have spent my career in this kind of careful, in-depth work. This is not short-term or technique-driven treatment. It asks for time, and for a willingness to look honestly at what is painful. I do not work with couples, and I no longer see young children. All of my sessions are held on Zoom.

Gender distress is rarely only about gender. In the adolescent and young adult males, and the men, I see, it is often bound up with shame, with the loneliness of feeling different, with the difficulties of growing into manhood, or with a wish to leave a painful self behind. My task is not to impose a story. It is to help someone look at their own story more honestly, and with more compassion, than they have been able to do alone.

I work in the same spirit with parents: to take your fear and love seriously, and to help you remain a source of steadiness while your son is struggling.

My views

I tell every new client about my priors — the beliefs I bring to this work.

I believe there are only two sexes and that it’s impossible to change from one to the other. I do not believe that anyone is “born in the wrong body,” but some people feel as if they were, and they often suffer deeply. I believe those people, as adults, should have the freedom to pursue medical treatments, and some of them find relief from their distress that way.

Books

Shame: Free Yourself, Find Joy, and Build True Self-Esteem
St. Martin’s, 2018. On the hidden work of shame in ordinary life, and how facing it can deepen self-respect rather than diminish it.
The Narcissist You Know: Defending Yourself Against Extreme Narcissists in an All-About-Me Age
Touchstone, 2015. A guide to recognizing and living alongside extreme narcissistic personalities.
Why Do I Do That? Psychological Defense Mechanisms and the Hidden Ways They Shape Our Lives
2012. A book about the unconscious strategies we use to ward off emotional pain, written for readers who want more than surface-level self-help.
The Hero as Narcissist: How Lance Armstrong and Greg Mortenson Conned a Willing Public
2013. A shorter study of heroic self-invention and the public’s wish to believe it.

I have also written essays and commentary for outlets including The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and NPR, and I continue to write about gender, shame, and psychotherapy. A selection of that work is on the Writing and Media pages.

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