This in-person training is presented by Laurie Watson, PhD, and offers 6 CEs.
Good news: if you’re a couple therapist, you’re also a sex therapist! Therapists have been taught that working with sexuality is a specialty, but it’s not. It can’t be. Why? Attachment theory demonstrates that there are three behavioral cycles in a romantic relationship: emotional, sexual, and caretaking. Together, they form the strongest bond between the partners. Sex particularly comprises the excitement and vitality in a romantic relationship. The power of sex in a relationship isn’t simply body parts and physiology; it’s a force of attachment.
Unfortunately, most couple therapists get very little training in how to work with sex. Using the lens of Emotionally Focused Therapy, Dr. Laurie Watson will teach about a couple’s pursue-withdraw cycles emotionally and sexually and how each interacts and influences the other. You will get practice in different ways to bring up sex in session and a rationale for why this should be early in treatment. Participants will learn a technique to help a couple see their negative sexual attachment cycle and begin to transform their protective defenses. Participants will also watch a live session and example videotapes. Additionally, the course will step you through the physiological sexual responses to help you become more comfortable talking about sex.
Learning Objectives:
- Identify the key assumptions of attachment theory as it applies to adult sexuality.
- Discuss a hyperactive and hypoactive strategy, respectively, of the sexual pursuer and sexual withdrawer.
- Identify how the protective defenses of one partner trigger more of their partner's defenses, forming a negative looping cycle.
- Learn to organize a couple's sexual conflict using specificity and deepening their emotions with the EFT acronym TEMPO.
- Name the typical sexual response sequence in male- and female-bodied people.
Laurie Watson, PhD, MA, LMFT, LCMHC, has been a licensed couple’s counselor for over three decades and is certified in EFT and sex therapy. In clinical therapy, she has helped thousands of couples recover sexual passion and make love again in joyful, intimate, creative and exciting ways, sometimes even after years of sexless marriage. Due to her many years of counseling experience, Laurie remains incredibly hopeful that couples can restore their passion and find erotic and emotional intimacy to face the world together.
She is the author of Wanting Sex Again – How to Rediscover Desire and Heal a Sexless Marriage, a blogger for WebMD and Psychology Today with over 15 M reads and the owner & director of two clinics in North Carolina - Awakenings Counseling and Counseling Near Me. She cohosts popular the podcast FOREPLAY – Couples and Sex Therapy with over 10 M downloads.
- Early bird pricing is valid through 11 September 2023.
- Registration closes on 6 October 2023.
- Check-in opens at 8:30 am. Breakfast and lunch buffets will be provided.
- If you are a member of NHAMFT and a pre-clinical fellow (post-grad / pre-licensure), please email Christine Lazdowski before registering to obtain the contributor rate.