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 🙂
Author Archives: admin
2021 Continuing Education
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
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
Telehealth Update
I’m continuing to host therapy meetings by web conference; I’m not planning a return to in-office sessions. Meetings are held by a HIPAA-compliant version of Zoom or I can use VSee.com (also free to clients and HIPAA-compliant).
2019 Summary
Thank you 2019! Here were the highlights!
- attended a 40 hour EMDR training
- hosted a panel presentation of conversion therapy survivors
- studied the enneagram
- obtained a Missouri counseling license (in addition to my Kansas one) & became a registered clinical supervisor
- favorite clinical book I read this year: The Velvet Rage: Overcoming the Pain of Growing up Gay
- studied men & depression and narcissism
- facilitated a sex education program for adolescents
- organized five continuing education events for therapists (Helping Transgender Clients in Transition; Becoming a Resilient Leader; Understanding LGBTQ+ in Islam and Middle East Culture; Sexual Identity, Behavior, and Fantasy with Sexual Trauma Survivors; Therapeutic Touch Practitioners–a Collaborative Resource; and Therapeutic Considerations with LBGTQ+ Active Military and Veterans)
- joined a biweekly consultation group with 3 other professionals
Dare to Lead
I’ve been enjoying Brene Brown’s new book Dare to Lead and decided 2019 is my Year of Leadership 🙂 I previously resisted being a leader because I’ve seen poor examples. I overlooked many positive examples of leadership. The DTL workbook helps self-assess leadership skills and is giving me courage to make more leadership contributions.
Â
Becoming a Supervisor
This Spring, I’m supervising 4 graduate counseling students in their Practicum field experience. I’ll help new counselors evaluate their work and design treatment plans. To prepare, I am taking two courses:
- “Clinical Supervision: Mastering the 4 Stages of Development” with Robert Taibbi, LCSW
- “Using Deliberate Practice to Enhance Clinical Skill Development” with Tony Rousmaniere, PsyD
Besides helping other counselors, it will help me continuously re-evaluate my own skills and assumptions.
LGBTQ+ Affirmative Therapist Guild Leader
This year I am one of Kansas City’s LGBT Affirmative Therapist Guild leaders. I am helping coordinate continuing education events for local therapists to develop their competencies with sexual and gender minority populations.
This Woman is on Fire
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
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!