Category Archives: continuing education

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

2019 Summary

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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

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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.

 

Becoming a Supervisor

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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.

This Woman is 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