Category Archives: transgender

2022 & 2023 Continuing Education

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Here’s a quick list of my studies the last couple years…I love my job!

(My year with the Integrative Psychiatry Institute is included in prior posts, skipping it here)

SUPERVISION

  • Clinical Supervision: Ethics & Effective Practice*
  • Ethical Frameworks for Multiple (Dual) Relationships

SEXUALITY

  • Issues & Clinical Implications around BDSM/Kink and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury*
  • Sex & Consent in Contemporary Youth Culture
  • Minimizing STI Stigma with Inclusive Education
  • Building Queer Families: Conception, Emotional & Legal Issues, and Resources^
  • Sex Positivity: what it is and isn’t
  • Decolonizing Mental Health & Sexuality through Irreverent Comedy
  • Sex after Sexual Assault
  • Pelvic Floor Health and Vitality: from Pain to Pleasure*
  • Trauma-Informed Assessment of LGBTQ+ Youth^
  • Emerging Trans: Therapists’ Role in Supporting TNB Young People^
  • LGBTQ+ Older Adults: Strategies and Recommendations^
  • Non-Monogamy/Polyamory Panel^
  • Rewiring Trauma through Kink^
  • Age Play Theory
  • Gender-Affirming Letter Writing for Clinicians^
  • Play Therapy with LGBTQ+ Youth: Caring for the Child, Collaborating with the Parent^

EMDR

  • Easy Ego State Interventions*
  • EMDR & Mindfulness*

OTHER

  • Ethics of Self-Disclosure
  • Suicide Prevention
  • Grief & Bereavement in LGBTQ+ Communities^
  • Borders & Walls: Facing the Other*
  • Differential Diagnosis with DSM 5*

*Longer events, ranging from 4 hours through 4 days

^Events I volunteer organized speakers for the Queer Affirming Therapists Guild

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

Continuing Education

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I attended a sexual health annual conference. Of course it was a good time! Here’s what I studied:

  • Combating Sexual Misconduct in our Schools
  • Bringing Perimenopause into the Light
  • Sexual Education & Ethical Decision-Making
  • Coping with Jealousy
  • Strategies of Human Mating
  • Envisioning Sexual Health
  • The Art of Brief Sexual Assessment
  • Black & Sexual with a Disability
  • Transgender Hormone Referral Letters
  • Interdisciplinary Approach to Sexual Pain

Transgender Assessments

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I work with many clients who suffer from gender dysphoria. During any given week, I host several conversations regarding clients’ gender expression as related to their sense of self and well-being. There are several means, depending on the situation, to bolster client efforts in synchronizing their gender expression (cues visible to others) with their gender identity (their self-experienced gender).

Some people seek an official assessment for potential hormone referral therapy. These assessments include an intake of the client’s life history including child & adolescent development; transition goals; coping resources; and any co-occurring problems (such as depression or trauma histories). During later stages in the process, I may invite clients to bring family members into the meetings for increased social support (this part is required earlier for adolescents).

Other clients, such as gender non-conforming people, benefit from deconstructing any unhelpful gender associations & roles they internalized from developmental and social contexts. Then, therapeutic techniques such as assertiveness training help privilege their own unique identity and facilitate choices & empowerment.

Sex Therapy Conference

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I attended the Kansas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy conference last week. It was two days full of sex therapy information, presented by Stephanie Buehler of the Buehler Institute. We discussed the diverse, healthy range of sexual expression/sexual orientation/and gender orientations. I gained knowledge about sexual problems and ecosystemic contexts–including individual, medical, and intimate relationship interventions.