Expired From Avoidance to Involvement: Talking about Sexual Issues in Couples Therapy [Online]

A major challenge for many couples therapists is incorporating clients’ sexual concerns into their therapeutic work. Therapists often worry that they lack the knowledge and skills to open up discussions about sex and sexuality. Many worry that their personal sexual histories, partnerships, identities, beliefs, fantasies and preferred activities will prevent them from being able to confidently address the sexual issues that their clients might bring into therapy if sexual issues are broached.

This workshop will explore these concerns and will address clinicians’ discomforts, biases and anxieties regarding sexual matters to help create a safe environment in which our clients can share and explore aspects of themselves that often feel shameful and lonely. We will explore common sexual concerns that clients often experience and will learn useful techniques to help integrate sexual matters into couples therapy work both didactically and through integration of clinical case material. These workshop goals will be accomplished through the use of discussion, role-playing, experiential exercises and case material.

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to identify their personal and professional barriers to talking about sexual issues in their work with couples, thereby increasing their comfort to do so
• Participants will increase their knowledge of common sexual concerns that couples experience
• Participants will learn techniques and will participate in experiential exercises that will help enhance their practice to better incorporate sexual issues into couples therapy

Presenter:

Shoshana Bulow, PhD, is a psychotherapist in private practice. She is a clinical supervisor and faculty member in the William Alanson White Institute CTTEP Program. Dr. Bulow is Former faculty at NYU Langone Sex Therapy Program, The Ackerman Institute for the Family, Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, and The Family Institute of Jerusalem, Israel. She is an AASECT-certified sex therapist and sex therapy supervisor.