The multi-disciplinary team (MDT) approach to health care in intersex/DSD has been hailed as a new, essential and sufficient clinical paradigm. The emphasis on psychological input in teams reflects the recognition that life experience (sometimes narrowly and sometimes erroneously defined as ‘clinical outcome’ in the medical literature) transcends anatomy and physiology. However, embedded in MDTs are obstacles for psychologists and barriers to psychological care, and there are also opportunities.  

 

Intersex/DSD team leads are usually medical doctors, who are often unrealistically expected to acquire multi-professional team development skills with neither training nor mentoring. Furthermore, there are many MDTs without any psychological expertise at all, and many where the team psychological clinician has had little access to training, experience development or mentoring in this highly specialised field. PSI International seeks to improve resources to help apply psychological values and principles to team development with a view to privileging safety and transparency in professional relationships and patient care.