Presenters: Rachel Keller, LCSW-C, CST and Erick Sowell, LMSW
CEUs: Category 1 | 3.0
This is a chance for therapists to participate in an experiential intimacy workshop, similar to one that is offered for clients seeking to improve their sex life and intimacy. The presenters will lead all the participants through a workshop process that is focused on both learning and practicing skills of intimacy. Therapists will engage in the same learning, lecture, exercises and dialogue around foundational concepts that ground each client’s experience. Concepts explored include spontaneous versus responsive sexual desire, sexual brakes and accelerators, a new framework for intimacy focused on connection and pleasure, communication cultures, and approaches to making and responding to sexual requests.
By experiencing the exercises often used in an intimacy workshop first-hand, therapists will gain information and learning about sex therapy, as well as insight and empathy regarding the experience of navigating a vulnerable topic. Clinicians will experience the curiosity, questions, and concerns that commonly arise for clients and feel equipped to translate this first-hand experience towards responding to client needs and concerns. This workshop provides a chance for direct experiential learning, so that therapists can enhance their own personal and professional understanding of this essential topic.
Workshop Objectives:
At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Understand the difference between spontaneous versus responsive sexual desire.
- Learn how to identify and apply sexual brakes and accelerators as a personal roadmap to increasing sexual satisfaction.
- Redefine concepts of intimacy to enhance connection and pleasure.
- Understand guess versus ask culture and how those impact communication around intimacy.
- Feel equipped to make and respond to requests and desires regarding sexual intimacy.
Agenda:
9:00 am - 9:25 am - Check in, Introductions, Ground Rules, and Ice Breaker
9:25 - 9:45 - Spontaneous versus Responsive desire
- Education about the types of desire and how they function
- Reflection on one’s own desire type now and in the past
- Discussion
9:45 - 10:00 - A New Framework for Intimacy
- Reflection and discussion on existing sexual scripts
- Education on the benefits of a non-goal focus for sex and
- Pleasure and connection as the foundation for satisfying intimacy
Discussion
10:00 - 10:25 - The Dual Control Model
- Education on the function of sexual brakes and accelerators
- Completion and discussion of the sexual temperament questionnaire
- Discussion
10:25 - 10:35 - Break
10:35 - 10:55 - Individual exercise to create brakes and accelerators list
10:55 - 11:20 - Sexual Communication skills - Education
- Education on Ask versus Guess culture
- The benefits of a sensual/sexual menu
11:20 - 11:45 - Sexual Communication skills - Practice
- Practice making and receiving a request with a response of no
- Practice making and receiving a request with a response of yes, plus negotiation
11:45 - 12:00 - Reflection and Wrap-up
Recommended Reading:
- Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski
- Sexual Intelligence by Marty Klein
- Sexual Awareness by Barry & Emily McCarthy
