Talking About Sex with Every Client: What Every Clinician Needs to Know – Douglas Braun-Harvey

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• Skills to initiate and guide discussions about sex that can be implemented in the very first client session
• The six principles of sexual health to direct treatment planning and interventions
• Leave with a personal assessment plan that affirms your current strengths and identifies new skills for welcoming clients into conversations about sex

How can it be that you know you should be talking about sex with your client, yet you just don’t find yourself doing it?

Clients expect therapists to initiate informed, confident and relevant discussions about sex, yet many therapists unwittingly hinder this expectation. Clinicians often don’t have the mentoring or training that would allow them to talk confidently about sex. Too often, the solution to this gap is to avoid the sexual health conversation altogether or refer clients to the local sex expert. Unfortunately, this often means that the conversation never happens or, worse, that the client begins to believe that sex only gets talked about when there is a crisis, or when someone has been hurt.

This workshop is designed for clinicians of all levels who want to build their confidence and willingness to initiate and facilitate sexual wellness conversations with their clients. Sex expert and therapist, Douglas Braun-Harvey will provide you with multiple tools that enable you to focus therapy on the healthy aspects of sex. You will walk away from this workshop being able to:

• Understand how the six fundamentals of sexual health provide touchstones for co-constructing conversations about sex
• Apply these fundamental conversation tools in individual, couple, family, and group psychotherapy
• Move past both therapist and client natural struggle to talk about sex
• Identify common client sexual worries, problems and disorders
• Integrate sexual well-being assessment tools to improve diagnosis and treatment planning

The goal is for you to leave with specific tools and interpersonal skills that increase your personal and professional confidence in talking about sex!

1. Discuss current international conceptualizations of sexual health.
2. Summarize six fundamental principles of sexual health.
3. Measure current level of therapist comfort and willingness to engage in sexual health conversations.
4. Identify common therapist and client barriers to sexual health conversation.
5. Explain essential elements of effective psychotherapeutic sexual health conversations.
6. Implement skills that increase confidence and willingness to engage in sexual health discussions in individual, couples, family and group psychotherapy.
7. Describe how to formulate client development of their personal vision of their sexual health.

Avoiding Sex Talk in Psychotherapy?

• Therapist avoidance of sex talk
• Client avoidance of sex talk
• The problem with avoiding sex talk
• Assessing current level of preparation for talking about sex

Sexual Health Conversations

• The six “S’s”: Common behavior patterns to avoid talking about sex
• Managing your anxiety when talking about sex
• Do you suffer from “premature evaluation”?

What is Sexual Health?

• Definitions of sexual health
• Cultural and moral foundations within sexual health
• Sexual health value systems

Why Sexual Health?

• Self-reflection on personal sexual health
• Client self-reflection on their sexual health
• Improve treatment outcomes through sexual health conversation

Six Fundamentals of sexual health

• Consent
• Non-exploitation
• Protected from HIV, STI’s and unplanned or unwanted pregnancy
• Honesty
• Shared Values
• Pleasure

Fundamentals of Sexual Health Conversation

• Suspending judgment
• Affirm sexual pleasure
• Sexuality as a central and basic human need
• Behavior/symptoms as attempt to address a sexual worry or concern
• Stage of readiness for sexual health change

Key Sexual Health Conversation Skills

• Establish psychological safety
• Suspend judgment about sexual practices
• Process Here/Now sexual health moments in therapy
• Frame therapy content within sexual health principles
• Block interference with sexual health conversation
• Therapist transparency
• Sexual health conversation in individual therapy, couples and group therapy
• Three sexual health conversation skills for interns and supervisees