Intro to Sex Therapy: The Intersections of Erotic Landscapes, Social Justice Lenses & Sex Education in Therapeutic Relationships

Recorded Webinar 
Instructor: Shannon L. Sennott, LICSW, CST 
CEs/Contact Hours: 2  
Level: Intermediate
Target Audience: Social workers and other social service providers.
Course Delivery Method and Format: Recorded webinar, self study. All courses are hosted on SmithOnline. Login information will be emailed immediately after registration to the email address entered during registration.
System Requirements: Attendees will need access to a computer with internet and the capability to play recorded videos.

Date of original webinar: April 4, 2022 

When it comes to having the skills to support clients in their intimate and sexual concerns, there has long been a divide between the field of clinical social work and mental health counseling and the field of sex therapy. On the micro, mezzo and macro levels this separation between the fields has required clinicians to renounce one area of inquiry to pursue the other. 

This workshop is an interactive exploration of the overlaps and intersections of socially just therapy, radical clinical practices and erotic and sexual template awareness in the therapeutic relationship. It will acknowledge that socially just talk therapy should inherently include an introductory level understanding of sex and gender therapy. Core concepts and principles of sex therapy will be offered and we will explore the countertransferential dilemmas that therapists come up against when introducing sex and gender theories into their practice.  Case examples will be presented to illuminate strategies for integrating the foundations of sex education into daily therapy practice.

Registration Fees and Deadlines:

$45 (one time registration fee of $5) | Ongoing

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify three components of socially just sex therapy practices and how to incorporate these components into clinical work. 
2. Describe the process of taking a sexual and intimate history and be able to prepare a client/s for this assessment and experience.
3. Identify three ways that the foundations of sex and gender therapy can support all clients, not just the clients that seek out sex and gender therapy. 

Outline:

• Introduction to socially just sex and gender therapy
• Taking sexual histories and learning sexual styles/templates 
• Case presentations and countertransferential dynamics       
• Tenets of sex therapy integrated into daily practice   
• Wrap-up and participant questions

About the Instructor:

Shannon L. Sennott, LICSW, CST, is the co-founder of Translate Gender, Inc. and the Center for Psychotherapy and Social Justice. She was clinically trained at the Smith College School for Social Work and the Eastern Group Psychotherapy Society in New York City and is an AASECT certified sex therapist. Sennott is an adjunct faculty member at the Smith College School for Social Work, teaching family theory and sex theory. Sennott also maintains a full-time private practice at the Center for Psychotherapy and Social Justice in Northampton, Massachusetts. Sennott utilizes a transfeminist therapeutic approach in her work with individuals, adolescents and families. Her interests extend to working with couples, consensually non-monogamous and polyamorous relationships and groups and she especially enjoys working with those in alternative family structures. Her clinical orientation is influenced by both narrative therapy and dialogic practice traditions. Sennott’s published paper in Women and Therapy Journal, introduces her transfeminist therapeutic approach, “Gender Disorder as Gender Oppression: A Transfeminist Approach to Rethinking the Pathologization of Gender Non-Conformity”. More recently, Sennott delivered the keynote for the Ackerman Institute for the Family annual conference in 2018 and she is enjoying clinically supervising and training other clinicians, institutions and organizations in their work with erotically marginalized people. Her recent publication with Routledge Books is titled, Sex Therapy with Erotically Marginalized Clients: Nine Principles of Clinical Support.