Susan Coates

Susan W. Coates (born 1940) is an American psychologist known for her work on gender identity disorder in children (GIDC) and trauma in early childhood.

Career
Coates earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, her MA from Vassar College and her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from New York University.

In the 1970s Coates began publishing on Field dependence-independence (FDI) using the Preschool Embedded Figures Test that she developed based on Herman Witkin's Embedded Figures Test. This led to work on cognitive and behavioral sex differences in humans.

Coates served as Director of the Childhood Gender Identity Service at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center from 1980 to 1997. Coates said of her therapeutic intervention for gender identity disorder in children, "With therapy, younger kids usually come to accept their own gender and feel good about their temperament. When we go back to evaluate them three years or so after therapy, they don't have cross-gender fantasies anymore, or often don't remember them. But if you don't treat it until 9 or 10, it's much harder to turn around. And beyond age 12 or so, there's a good chance they're on course to become a transsexual as adults." Coates noted that maternal trauma when the child was two or three was often a factor and that five to thirty times as many boys are treated for GIDC.

Coates is a member of the American Psychological Association. She served on the American Psychiatric Association DSM-IV Subcommittee on Gender Identity Disorders.

Coates testified in the 1993 child custody trial between Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. She had had sessions with their son Satchel between 1990 and 1992.

She is on the teaching faculty of The Columbia Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. In 1997, Coates was founding Co-Director of the Parent-Infant Program at the Center. She teaches a course on Intergenerational transfer of trauma that focuses on the interface of trauma and attachment theory, and on how trauma that is unresolved in one generation is visited upon the next generation.

Immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Coates provided mental health services to children and their parents at the Family Assistance Center set up by Disaster Psychiatry Outreach at Pier 94 in New York City. She is an editor of the 2003 book September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds. She has also discussed trauma in children following Hurricane Katrina.

Selected publications

 * Coates SW (1985). Extreme boyhood femininity: Overview and new research findings. In Ruth Corn, Zira DeFries, Richard C. Friedman, eds. Sexuality: New perspectives. Greenwood Press ISBN 9780313242076


 * Coates SW, Person ES (1986). Extreme Boyhood Femininity: Isolated Behavior or Pervasive Disorder? J Am Acad Child Psychiatry. 1985 Nov;24(6):702-9.


 * Coates SW (1990). Ontogenesis of Boyhood Gender Identity Disorder. J. Amer. Acad. Psychoanal., 18:414-438.


 * Coates SW, Friedman RC, Wolfe S (1991). The Etiology of Boyhood Gender Identity Disorder: A Model for Integrating Temperament, Development, and Psychodynamics. Psychoanal. Dial., 1:481-523.


 * Zucker KJ, Lozinski JA, Bradley SJ, Doering RW (1992). Sex-Typed Responses in the Rorschach Protocols of Children With Gender Identity Disorder. Journal of Personality Assessment, Volume 58, Issue 2 April 1992, pages 295 - 310.


 * Zucker KJ, Green R, Coates S, Zuger B, Cohen-Kettenis PT, Zecca GM, Lertora V, Money J, Hahn-Burke S, Bradley SJ, Blanchard R. Sibling sex ratio of boys with gender identity disorder. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 1997 Jul;38(5):543-51.


 * Coates SW, Wolfe S. Boyhood Gender Identity Disorder: The interface of constitution and early experience. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1995, 51:6-38.


 * Coates SW, Moore MS. The complexity of early trauma: Representation and transformation. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 1997, 17:286-311.


 * Coates SW, Schechter, DS, First, E, Anzieu-Premmereur, C, Steinberg, Z, & Hamilton, V. Considerazioni in merito all’intervento di crisi con I bambini di New York City dopo l’attentato alle Torri Gemelle. (Thoughts on Crisis Intervention with New York City Children After the World Trade Center Bombing). Infanzia E Adolescenza, 2002, 1:49-62


 * Coates SW, Schechter DS, First E, Anzieu-Premmereur C, Steinberg Z, Hamilton V. Quelques reflexions sur les interventions immediates apres des enfants de New York apres la tragedie du World Trade Center. Psychotherapies, 2002, 22, 143-152. Geneve.
 * Coates SW, Schechter DS, First E, Anzieu-Premmereur C, Steinberg Z, Hamilton V. L'experience d'une equipe therapeutique de Columbia aupres des enfants de New York apres le 11 Septembre. Carnet Psy, Mai 2002, 73, 19-21.Clinical examples of crisis interventions with New York City families after September 11.


 * Coates SW, Rosenthal J, Schechter DS, eds. (2003). September 11: Trauma and Human Bonds. Hillside, NJ : The Analytic Press. ISBN 088163381X


 * Coates SW, Schechter DS. 2004. Preschoolers’ Traumatic Stress Post-9/11: Relational and Developmental Perspectives. In. Psychiatric Clinics of North America. Disaster Psychiatry: A Closer Look.  Edited by Craig Katz, M.D. and Anand Pandya, M.D.  27, 3, 473-489.


 * Coates SW (2005). Having a Mind of One's Own and Holding the Other in Mind: Commentary on Paper by Peter Fonagy and Mary Target (1998). Mahwah, NJ: Analytic Press.


 * Schechter DS, Coots T, Zeanah CH, Davies M, Coates SW, Trabka KA, et al. (2005). Maternal mental representations of the child in an inner-city clinical sample: Violence-related posttraumatic stress and reflective functioning. Attachment & Human Development, 7(3), 313-331.


 * Schechter DS, Coates SW (2006). Relationally and developmentally focused interventions with young children and their caregivers affected by the events of 9/11. In Y. Neria, R. Gorss, R. D. Marshall & E. Susser (Eds.), September 11, 2001: Treatment, Research and Public Mental Health in the Wake of a Terrorist Attack (pp. 402-427). New York: Cambridge University Press.


 * Schechter DS, Myers MM, Brunelli SA, Coates SW, Zeanah CH Jr, Davies M, et al. (2006). Traumatized mothers can change their minds about their toddlers: Understanding how a novel use of videofeedback supports positive change of maternal attributions. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27(5), 429-447.


 * Schechter DS, Zygmunt A, Coates SW, Davies M, Trabka KA, McCaw J, et al. (2007). Caregiver traumatization adversely impacts young children's mental representations on the MacArthur Story Stem Battery. Attachment & Human Development, 9(3), 187-205.


 * Coates SW, Gaensbauer TJ. 2009. Event Trauma in Early Childhood: Symptoms, Assessment, Intervention. Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics  of  North America Infant and Early Childhood Mental Health. Editors are Mary Margaret Gleason and Daniel S. Schechter.  18(3):611-26.