Existential Issues In Sex Therapy & Couples Counseling
Existential issues are internal conflicts arising from the ongoing, inescapable confrontation with the givens of human existence–isolation, powerlessness, responsibility, death, and the desire for meaning.
Most people defend themselves from fully acknowledging such realities. Therapy needs to illuminate how these defenses shape the behavior and thinking that brings people into therapy. We can help patients understand that truths like the following—rather than their presenting problems—are the issues with which they are really grappling:
* Loving involves pain and, ultimately, abandonment or separation
* We are responsible for how we express our feelings–regardless of how we are treated
* As we get older, more and more people become sexually ineligible or uninterested in us
* We have made life choices with consequences we don’t like
* We can’t prevent the people we love from making mistakes or suffering
Clinicians struggle with the same existential truths as all people. In addition, our work can restimulate our personal losses and vulnerabilities; make us feel fraudulent because of our own imperfect lives; and painfully remind us that our power to heal others is limited.
This presentation examines a practical framework within which clinicians can identify, explore and resolve these common, intense, and often unaddressed, challenges.
To demonstrate these clinical tools, several attendees will have the chance for a brief case consultation.
Saturday, September 28, 2007
9:00am-1:15pm
Embassy Suites LAX
9801 Airport Blvd
(at 98th St., north of Century Blvd., west of 405)
$69
includes:
continental breakfast
4 AASECT CEs
4 BBS CEUs (CA MFTs & LCSWs)
Registration limited to 8 people
To register:
* email your credit card information (Visa or Mastercard only)
OR
* phone with your credit card information
OR
* mail check (include phone # and email address)
Information or registration:
650/856-6533 881 Thornwood Drive
Klein@SexEd.org Palo Alto, CA 94303
Name ________________________________________________________________
Credit card # _________________________________________ Exp. Date ________
Email ____________________________________________ Phone: _____________