The Integrated Catholic Therapist: A Compassionate Approach to Sexual Concerns using IFS. Parts 1 and 2 On Demand

Target Audience: Psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, counselors, marriage and family therapists and other therapists.

Course Level: Beginner

Learning Objectives: 

• Participants will learn the Internal Family Systems model for working with parts’ conflicts around sex and sexuality and grasp the steps in the IFS trajectory toward greater interior integration and harmony, through actual clinical vignettes, case presentations and reenacted demonstrations of therapy. 

• Participants will better understand the underlying conceptual linkages between unmet attachment and integrity needs and interior sexual conflict – how sexual issues are so often symptoms of relational traumas through the lecture and demonstrations.  

• Participants will gain a deeper understanding of the primary role of shame in the generation of sexual symptoms and identity issues – both in their clients and in themselves, through the lecture, demonstrations, case vignettes and experiential exercises

• Through experiential exercises, participants will identify their own parts’ reactivity to the sexual themes and topics that their clients bring into therapy and learn how the IFS concept of a “trailhead” can guide them to unresolved sexual issues in their own lives – to help reduce negative judgement of clients, and seeing clients’ sexual problems as stemming from well-intentioned but maladaptive attempts to have attachment needs and integrity needs met.  

• Participants will be able to recognize when the are blended or unrecollected, reacting from a part rather than being led and guided by their innermost selves.  

• Participants will learn approaches to treating very sensitive sexual issues that are effective, in harmony with ethics codes and governing law, and consistent with a Catholic understanding of the human person and can be applied within several therapeutic orientations.

Catholic clinicians may experience discomfort in engaging deeply with their clients’ conflicts around sexuality and their sexual desires, practices, and identities, especially with clients’ sexual behaviors.  By means of parts work and Internal Family Systems (IFS) -informed approaches, grounded in a Catholic anthropology, we can better “be with” our clients as they move toward integration of their sexuality and more adaptive expressions of the gift of their sexuality. 

This two-part workshop will focus on helping Catholic therapists work with their own parts around sexuality when working with sexual content in therapy. We will also address the desires that Catholic therapists have to handle sexual matter in a way that is not only effective, but ethical, legal, and morally appropriate. 

Topics addressed will include: shame, same-sex attraction, bisexuality, gender dysphoria, transgender identification and other sexual behaviors, desires, and blocks. We will include foundational theories, case vignettes, video demonstrations and experiential exercises, with practical guidance.

The Catholic Psychotherapy Association is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. The Catholic Psychotherapy Association maintains responsibility for this program and its content. 
This program does not qualify for NBCC credits