Sex and Shame
An interview with Eliza Boquin, LMFT on what therapists miss when they don’t talk about sex with their clients. Curt and Katie talk with Eliza about how judgment, shame, and discomfort can come into the therapy room and create barriers for patients talking about their sexual health.
It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.
To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.
Interview with Eliza Boquin, LMFT
As a Licensed Psychotherapist, Relationship & Sexuality Expert, Eliza Boquin works with couples & individuals to overcome past traumas, emotional pain, and destructive relationship patterns so they can begin to enjoy more healthy, satisfying, and pleasure-filled lives.
You can find her working with clients at her private practice in Houston, TX, hosting workshops, and at public speaking events helping people gain the skills to reach their life & relationship goals.
She is also an active mental health advocate & co-founder of Melanin & Mental Health, LLC which promotes mental health awareness in the Black & Latinx communities. She & her business partner, Eboni Harris, are changing the face of therapy with their website, national therapist directory, Between Sessions podcast and “Therapy is Dope” merchandise.
She has also been featured in Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, Fatherly, Bustle, ThriveWorks, Good Therapy, Stylecaster, Business Insider, Houstonia Magazine, and on Houston’s Amazing 102.5 FM, and KBXX 97.9 FM – The Box.E
In this episode we talk about:
- Eliza’s story and how she got into sex therapy
- How trauma, shame, misinformation can impact sexual health
- The importance of removing shame and judgment from conversations about sex
- How to address the absence of sex in relationship therapy
- Opening conversations that are safe and non-shaming about sex, in the assessment
- What therapists miss when they don’t bring sex up with their clients
- The problem with pathologizing sexual concerns
- Typical therapist training around sex
- The importance of education and normalization
- The types of life events that can impact sex life
- Additional training for therapists to understand all kinds of sex
- The types of phone calls a sex therapist might get
- The amount of misinformation, sexpectations
- The faulty expectation that partners should know what to do
- The challenge of not knowing what turns you on, being disconnected from one’s body
- Societal expectations that impact the sexual experience
- The shame about bodies entering the sexual relationship
- Exploring sexual education stories, cultural impacts, messages about sex
- How people respond to sex therapists
- What therapists get wrong about sex
- The impact of bias and the medical model
- Sex positivity, inclusion
Our Generous Sponsor:
SimplePractice
SimplePractice is a HIPAA compliant, fully integrated EHR for health and wellness professionals in private practice. It consistently ranks as the “#1 Most Popular Mental Health Software” on Capterra, and has collected over $2.8 billion in revenue for its customers. SimplePractice offers features like paperless intakes, automated billing for self pay and insurance, free appointment reminders, secure messaging, telehealth, and more.
Learn more by going to http://www.simplepractice.com/therapyreimagined. You can also sign up and receive a special promotion of getting 3 months of SimplePractice for the price of 1 (equivalent to a $50 credit). Please note, this offer is valid for new customers only and does not include product add-ons.
Relevant Resources:
We’ve pulled together any resources mentioned in this episode and put together some handy-dandy links:
University of Michigan Sexual Health Certificate Program
American Association of Sexual Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT)
Eliza’s practice: The Relationship and Sexual Wellness Center (trswc.com). Now can be found at Flow and Ease Healing Center
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elizagboquin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/elizagboquin
Twitter: https://twitter.com/elizagboquin
Relevant Episodes:
Connect with us:
The Modern Therapists Group on Facebook
Who we are:
Curt Widhalm is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice in the Los Angeles area. He is a Board Member at Large for the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, a Subject Matter Expert for the California Board of Behavioral Sciences, Adjunct Faculty at Pepperdine University, and a loving husband and father. He is 1/2 great person, 1/2 provocateur, and 1/2 geek, in that order. He dabbles in the dark art of making “dad jokes” and usually has a half-empty cup of coffee somewhere nearby. Learn more about Curt at http://www.curtwidhalm.com.
Katie Vernoy is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, coach, and consultant. As a helping professional for two decades, she’s navigated the ups and downs of our unique line of work. She’s run her own solo therapy practice, designed innovative clinical programs, built and managed large, thriving teams of service providers, and consulted hundreds of helping professionals on how to build meaningful AND sustainable practices. In her spare time, Katie is secretly siphoning off Curt’s youthful energy, so that she can take over the world. Learn more about Katie at http://www.katievernoy.com.
A Quick Note:
Our opinions are our own. We are only speaking for ourselves – except when we speak for each other, or over each other. We’re working on it.
Our guests are also only speaking for themselves and have their own opinions. We aren’t trying to take their voice, and no one speaks for us either. Mostly because they don’t want to, but hey.
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Credits:
Voice Over by DW McCann https://www.facebook.com/McCannDW/
Music by Crystal Grooms Mangano http://www.crystalmangano.com/
SPEAK YOUR MIND