Psychologist advocates for psychotherapy rather than pharmacological and surgical interventions
Consistent with the principle, “First, do no harm,” in Clinical and Ethical Considerations in the Treatment of Gender Dysphoric Children and Adolescents: When Doing Less Is Helping More, psychologist David Schwartz, Ph.D. exhorts clinicians to treat children and adolescents with gender dysphoria (GD) using psychotherapy rather than pharmacological and surgical interventions. He asserts, “in the treatment of children and adolescents, no matter what the diagnosis, encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.”