Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: Unlocking Pleasure, Safety, and Connection

Title of Event: Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: Unlocking Pleasure, Safety, and Connection

Description of Event:

How do we treat erectile dysfunction, sexual pain, vaginismus, rapid or “premature” ejaculation, low desire and difficulties with arousal and orgasm, among others? How do we bring our patients out of performance narratives and into their bodies, into pleasure? How do we unravel our patients from sexual trauma, bringing them into a greater sense of emotional and physical safety, embodiment, and freedom?

When training to become a Sex Therapist, we are learning how to work with the intimate relationship between the body and the mind. Emotional states (some from the present, others carried from the past) follow us into the bedroom and play themselves out in our physiology. Day-to-day stress, deep trauma, attachment wounds, sociocultural factors, feelings of insecurity, “performance pressure,” and/or relational discord can all interfere with the unfolding of the arousal process and, in some cases, can lead to sexual discomfort, avoidance, or dysfunction. Sensate Focus aids the clinician in identifying these barriers to intimacy and embodiment, and then engages them via touch exercises that are prescribed for the patient to do at home. Each exercise builds on the next, bringing the patients into closer contact with themselves, their partner(s) if present, sensation, learning, and possibility.  

In this course, students will not only come to understand the origins of Sensate Focus as a game-changing sex therapy technique and treatment modality from Masters and Johnson but will also gain an in-depth understanding of it’s conceptual underpinnings and usefulness as a diagnostic tool. Students will leave the course equipped with a sense for how it might fit into their practice and where to begin in effectively prescribing the exercises it provides.

Date of Event: Thursday, January 22, 2026

Time of Event: 12:00 PM EST - 3:00 PM EST

Location: Online Synchronous

Sexuality Education (SE) Training:

SE1. Sexuality education training will include, but is not limited to: theory and methods of general education (including curriculum development, delivery and evaluation).
SE2. Theory and methods of sexuality education (including curriculum development, delivery and evaluation).
SE3. Ethical issues in sexuality education.
SE4. Theory and methods of approaches to sexuality education with specific populations (e.g., youth, older adults, couples, ethnic/ cultural/ faith-based populations, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities).
SE5. Theory and methods of different approaches to sexuality education delivery (e.g., small group work, one-on-one education, large group lectures or interaction, online delivery or use of other electronic means).

Sexuality Counseling (SC) Training:

SC1. Theory and methods of personal/individual counseling.
SC2. Theory and methods of sexuality counseling approaches to specific populations (e.g., youth, older adult, couples, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, ethnic/ cultural/ faith-based populations).
SC3. Theory and methods of different approaches to intervention in relationship systems.
SC4. Theory and methods of decision-making concerning sexually related medical interventions.
SC5. Ethical issues in sexuality counseling.
SC6. Theory and practice of consultation, collaboration and referral.

Sex Therapy (ST) Training:

ST1. Theory and methods of sex-related psychotherapy, including several different models.
ST2. Techniques of sex-related assessment and diagnosis of the Psychosexual Disorders described in the current edition of the DSM.
ST3. Theory and methods of approach to intervention in relationship systems experiencing sex and intimacy problems.
ST4. Theory and method of approach to medical intervention in the evaluation and treatment of psychosexual disorders.
ST5. Principles of consultation, collaboration and referral.
ST6. Ethical decision-making and best practice.
ST7. Practicum Experience: Exposure to treatment of clinical sex therapy cases through direct observation, demonstration, case review or role-playing. eLearning cannot be applied. Applicants must be very clear in their documentation as to how they gained exposure to sex therapy cases.

Presenter/Speaker: Paula Leech

Company/Organization Sponsor: Rivka Sidorsky & Associates

Contact Name: Lisa Karasik

Contact Telephone Number: (301) 244-8052

Contact Email: office@rivkasidorsky.com

Event Website: https://rivkasidorsky.org/workshops/SensateFocus/view

AASECT Approved CEs: 3