The Six Principles of Sexual Health – Talking About Sex

This training is offered in the following dates/times (single day training):

Friday, January 13, 2017
Monday, January 16, 2017
Friday, March 3, 2017
Monday, March 6, 2017

How can it be that you know you should be talking about sex with your client, yet you just don’t find yourself doing it?

Clients expect therapists to initiate informed, confident and relevant discussions about sex, yet many therapists unwittingly hinder this expectation. Clinicians often don’t have the mentoring or training that would allow them to talk confidently about sex. Too often, the solution to this gap is to avoid the sexual health conversation altogether or refer clients to the local sex expert. Unfortunately, this often means that the conversation never happens or, worse, that the client begins to believe that sex only gets talked about when there is a crisis, or when someone has been hurt.

This workshop is designed for clinicians of all levels who want to build their confidence and willingness to initiate and facilitate sexual wellness conversations with their clients. Sex expert and therapist, Douglas Braun-Harvey, will provide you with multiple tools that enable you to focus therapy on the healthy aspects of sex. You will walk away from this workshop being able to:

Understand how the six fundamentals of sexual health provide touchstones for co-constructing conversations about sex
Apply these fundamental conversation tools in individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy
Move past both therapist and client natural struggle to talk about sex
Identify common client sexual worries, problems and disorders
Integrate sexual well-being assessment tools to improve diagnosis and treatment planning
The goal is for you to leave with specific tools and interpersonal skills that increase your personal and professional confidence in talking about sex!

Objectives:

• Discuss current international conceptualizations of sexual health.
• Summarize six fundamental principles of sexual health.
• Measure current level of therapist comfort and willingness to engage in sexual health conversations.
• Identify common therapist and client barriers to sexual health conversation.
• Explain essential elements of effective psychotherapeutic sexual health conversations.
• Implement skills that increase confidence and willingness to engage in sexual health discussions in individual, couples, family and group psychotherapy.
• Describe how to formulate client development of their personal vision of their sexual health.