Category Archives: sex therapy

Ketamine-Assisted Therapy

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I graduated from the Integrative Psychiatry Institute this May! 250 hours of education in psychedelic-assisted therapy was time well-spent.

I’ll be offering ketamine-assisted psychotherapy Tuesdays, starting July. For ketamine, I’m supporting other local therapists and their clients, offering brief treatment that augments their current work. A round of ketamine-assisted psychotherapy with me would include:

  • consultation with the primary therapist
  • preparation meetings with the client
  • a 3 hour medicine meeting (with supportive dialogue and assistance)
  • two integration meetings (engaging a plan that applies the ketamine experience to broader mental health concerns)
  • referral and consultation back to the primary therapist

If you’re interested in this treatment, please contact me at julia@juliacounseling.com 🙂

Welcome!

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Nice to virtually meet you! I finally worked through my waitlist and have a few openings for new clients. I’m especially interested in meeting with folks about sexuality concerns or EMDR therapy. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me at julia@juliacounseling.com 🙂

UPDATE 8/18/23: I have a short waiting list again for most meetings. I *do* have a couple immediate openings for ketamine-assisted therapy (for major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or grief only)

2021 Continuing Education

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I attended and organized many programs this year. LMK if you would like to discuss!

I attended:

  • Sexual Development and Attitudes of African American Women
  • Sex and Sexuality in the Muslim Community
  • More than Medicine: Alternative Treatments for ADHD
  • Sex Therapy with Religiously Conservative Clients
  • Inter-generational Transmission of Trauma on Adult Sexual Intimacy
  • Couples After Pregnancy: Intimacy & Sexuality
  • Racial Literacy: Racial Stress in Therapeutic Relationships

I also organized events through the LGBT Affirmative Therapists Guild. I facilitated the event & discussion and other professionals presented on the following topics:

  • Hormone Therapy with Transgender Clients (medical provider panel)
  • Weight Stigma
  • HIV+: What Therapists Need to Know
  • Lesbian-Affirming Client Care
  • Reflections from LGBTQ Community Members

2020 Continuing Education

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Here are some workshops I attended since my last update:

  • Pros/cons of forgiveness after trauma
  • treatment planning
  • suicide assessment
  • treating dissociation with EMDR (with Dolores Mosquera)
  • restoring sexual development via body-based therapies (with Dr. Nan Wise)
  • practicing during Covid-19: ethical & risk management
  • Black & White therapeutic dyads (with Dr. Laurie Paul)
  • developmental impact of shame
  • negotiating racial stress within a therapeutic relationship (with Dr. Howard C. Stevenson)
  • roots of self-sabotage
  • religious trauma: negative effects of purity culture
  • gender expansive & Non-Binary clients
  • sexual taboos within the Black community (with Christina Wright, MPH)
  • intimacy & sexuality after pregnancy (with Dr. Stephanie Buehler)

I also started a new EMDR Certification process through EMDR-specific supervision

On Fire

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I’ve been reading Woman on Fire: 9 Elements to Wake up your Erotic Energy, Personal Power, and Sexual Intelligence. The 9 elements are: Voice, Release, Emotion, Body, Desire, Permission, Play, Home, and Fire. Amy Jo Goddard offers worksheets and exercises in each chapter to help individual women explore their sexual stories while identifying any stuck-ness, growth edges, preferred experiences, and experiments. I may refer to some of Goddard’s activities and resources as tools to bolster therapy.

Tantra Sexuality & Sacred Intimacy

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I participated in a two-day couple’s workshop in Tantric Sexuality lead by Dr. Sally Valentine. Tantra is a special practice due to it’s concurrent engagement of the mind, body, emotions, and spirit.  Tantra emphasizes a person’s internal body consciousness and self-love as a foundation for connection with a loved one. This foundation & specific practices facilitate a neural synchronicity between lovers with heightened non-verbal communication. I learned at least 12 non-verbal practices and 6 verbal practices for increased relational intimacy. I’d be happy to share these techniques with you!

Decentering the Norm

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I attended a 3-day workshop titled “Decentering the Norm: Social Justice Transformations in Sex Therapy, Counseling, and Sex Education.” Some highlights included:

  • sex tools that enhance or enable pleasure for people with disabilities
  • connecting pleasure with personal power and agency (rather than, for example workaholism)
  • a discussion of “sanism” and introduction to Mad Studies
  • how queer theory intersects and modifies attachment theory

Conference Summary

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I attended a sexual health annual conference again this year & added these trainings to my resume:

  • Latin@ Bisexuality at the Intersections of the Erotic, the Exotic, and the Dangers of Colorblind Racism
  • Tantric Meditation
  • Sex on Film: A Research-Education-Filmaking Collaboration
  • Embracing Your Discomfort: Cultivating Mindfulness in Sexual Health and Social Justice
  • Ourselves as Context: the Ethics of Personal Disclosure in Therapy and in Educational Settings
  • Bedpost Confessions  [[–my FAVORITE experience. It was like the Vagina Monologues & Moth Story Hour for all genders and orientations with audience participation!]]
  • Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape
  • Pushing Boundaries: Teaching Diverse and “Taboo” Sexuality in Higher Education Settings
  • Sexualizing Cancer
  • Complexity of Couples, Sexual Desire, and Clinician Values
  • Sexual Healing Heals More than Sex: an Embodied Relational Approach to Transformative Intimacy
  • Narrative Conversations: Helping Clients Reconstruct Taboo
  • Finding Pleasure and Intimacy When Sex is (Undesirably) Painful: Working Clinically with Pelvic Pain Diagnoses
  • Interracial Open Relationships: How to Manage Jealousy and Promote Racial Sensitivity

“Under the Influence” & Ethics Training

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I just completed two additional trainings:

  • Sex Under the Influence: Substance Abuse and Sexuality
  • Ethical Code for certified sexuality therapists

I appreciated the substance abuse & sexuality training because oftentimes these issues are artificially segregated. For example, many substance abuse treatment programs avoid inquiry and topics related to sexual shame, sexual abuse, body image, and sexual orientation dilemmas that contribute to people’s addictive patterns.

The ethics training was mostly review–but important stuff. Anyone can view the Ethical Code. I also adhere to the American Counseling Association ethical code. If you have any questions about either of these topics, feel free to contact me.