SEX ED FOR THERAPISTS (SAR)

Sexuality Attitude Reassessment

The Integrative Sex Therapy Institute (ISTI) is the expert in creating modern developmental programs and learning communities. On your path to certification and advanced degrees, ISTI has the resources and integrative training you need. ISTI fully integrates techniques, theory, and practice in both sexuality and relationships as part of our unique approach to elevating the work you do. We provide the support, experience, and complete program to change therapy to meet the modern relationship.

Erotic Desensitization and Revision, Realities of Our Current Sexual World

Most therapists and professionals who work with sexuality face their own issues and countertransference around eroticism and intimacy as they start their careers as sex therapists. Treatment protocols are unclear, and they usually rely on their limited training or personal experiences. This can bring up awkward and uncomfortable feelings, creating blocks in the therapy. The personal bias of the therapist can also confuse the real issues in treatment and mirror pathology for the client.

In ISTI's SAR workshop, we will work through sexual issues, resistance, guilt, and shame and create ways to help challenge resistance around stereotypes or old beliefs about sex.

This workshop will help professionals by exposing them to a variety of sexual practices and educating them on fetishes, paraphilias, and fringe behaviors, as well as expanding their beliefs about pornography, infidelity, homosexuality, open marriage, polyamory, and other practices around sexuality that may trigger personal issues, emotional responses, and resistance.

This is a practical and fun workshop in a judgment-free environment. There will be discussion, lecture, film, and group experiential activities, with the possibility of guest lecturers. Handouts will include worksheets, a workbook, a suggested reading list, and other surprises.

The tendency to judge others' sexual behavior as abnormal if it doesn’t align with our erotic behaviors or beliefs is deeply entrenched in our psyche. In this training, we will work on being more open-minded and creating a nonpathological view of sexuality to work with individuals and couples fairly and effectively.

Attitudes/Values Training Experience:

A sexuality attitude reassessment (SAR) is a structured group experience that involves a process-oriented exploration of the applicant’s feelings, attitudes, values, and beliefs regarding human sexuality and sexual behavior. This training is not personal psychotherapy or an academic experience, and the emphasis is on cognitive information. Participants are expected to attend all sessions of the SAR.

At the end of this course, participants will write a one-page comprehensive statement of his/her professional philosophy and goals of sex therapy and include how the SAR affected that philosophy at the end of this course. Participant statements are submitted to AASECT or ISTI during the application for certification.

A participant evaluation form is required to measure the learning objectives and each participant’s satisfaction with the process, leaders, and logistics, including venue. The SAR requires a confidentiality contract, verbal or written, at the beginning of the SAR process.

Course Objectives:

Participants will learn how to create a safe, non-pathological environment around sexuality in their treatment of couples and individuals.
Participants will learn about alternative sexual practices and the variety of open monogamy practices in the current culture.
Participants will be able to communicate their countertransference and resistance that may have been unconscious and triggering in the treatment of couples with sexual issues.
Participants will identify fetishes, paraphilias, and fringe behaviors and how to treat them when possible.
Participants will process their own emotional, somatic, and psychological responses, including resistance and vicarious trauma that may be triggered by issues around pornography, sexual exploitation, and BDSM.
Participants will expand their knowledge and challenge their beliefs about pornography, infidelity, homosexuality, open marriage, polyamory, and other practices in relationships that may be counterintuitive to their own beliefs.

The SAR must be held live, in person, or synchronously online. It cannot be held in pre-recorded or asynchronous formats.

MEET

Tammy Nelson, PhD is a sex and relationship expert, an international speaker, an author and a licensed psychotherapist with almost thirty years of experience working with individuals and couples. In private practice she focuses on helping people of all ages, orientations and genders find love, healing and passion. Tammy Nelson, Ph.D. is the Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute and has been a licensed sex and relationship therapist in practice for over thirty years. She teaches at several Universities, is a TEDx speaker and is the host of the podcast The Trouble with Sex.

Visit Dr. Tammy Nelson's Website