Archives for category: gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy

Diploma in Psychosexual therapy

10 July, 2020 //

On Saturday, 14th June this year, completed a diploma in Integrative Psychosexual therapy at The Centre for Psychosexual Health. For me, a wonderful two years of learning and development. This has further enabled me to work with clients’ psychosexual health issues, doing so in an integrative, holistic way, appreciative of diverse sexualities.

The diploma espoused a new model for the understanding of human sexuality and psychosexual health which encompasses the body, mind, brain and heart, as well as the social and cultural environment.

Over the two years we explored clients sexual issues in terms of their therapeutic meaning and potential, rather than as ‘dysfunction’. It included sexual education, information and self help tools.

It included supporting clients within a therapeutic relationship to rediscover themselves sexually and to develop a more conscious sexual self-esteem.

If you have concerns about any aspect of sex or sexuality either for yourself or within any relationship please get in contact.

Tags clients, counselling, GSRD, LGBTQ+, relationships, sex education, Sexual and Relationship Diversities#, sexuality, therapy

Categories gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy

The Ozanne Foundation – supporting LGBTQ+ people

30 June, 2020 //

This looks very interesting. Hope it leads to something positive for the LGBTQ+ community.

Pink News has a wonderful article on this:

Leaders from every major religion join forces to support LGBT community

The Ozanne Foundation, which works with religious organisations around the world to support LGBT+ people, has marked the end of Pride Month by launching the UK’s first inter-religious advisory board focused on fighting discrimination.

The panel’s nine members span across the main UK and Irish religions – Judaism, Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity – as well as representing the Christian denominations of Catholics, Quakers, Baptists and Methodists.

The board will learn from the experiences of religious groups that affirm same-sex couples like the Quakers, represented by Hannah Brock Womack who was blocked last year from becoming president of Churches Together in England (CTE) because she is in a same-sex marriage, and develop strategies to promote inclusion within their own religious communities.

Tags LGBTQ+, Ozanne Foundation, Pride

Categories gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy

Wonderful series on being non-binary

29 June, 2020 //

I hope I’m not being preemtively too generous with praise for the Guardian today launching Genderqueer generation, a series of stories centered on, and often told by, the children and young adults who are rejecting traditional gender identities.

Their first article on being non-binary, makes the series look promising. It begins by asking four young people to describe how they realized they were non-binary.

“Well, it’s my body. It’s my identity. It’s how I feel. It’s not how you feel.”

As the article askes: Who decides your gender?

A growing number young people say it is up to them. Rejecting traditional markers of “male” or “female”, they prefer identifying as “genderqueer”, which refers to people who don’t fall squarely within the gender binary. Coming out as non-binary, using they/them pronouns.

Non-binary people feel they are widely misunderstood, facing prejudice. For example, Donald Trump, recently decreed that protections against healthcare discrimination were to be applied based exclusively on biology rather than one’s inner sense of gender.

For further information I explore gender here.

Tags Gender, Genderqueer, Non-binary, The Guardian

Categories gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy

Two out of three ain’t bad? Isn’t it?

21 June, 2020 //

I find it interesting how my mind link things that remind me of experiences had. The other day I was thinking, I now have two out of three main Apple products – an iPod, plus an MacBook Air. Will the iPhone come later, completing the set? This led me to the song by Meat Loaf, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”. This led me to an occasion where a friend likened this song to a relationship he had with a girlfriend.

Back in the early 1990s I was working as a computer operator in Glasgow for an oil company. For several night shifts this friend would talk to me while I listened, as he laid out his confused feelings for this lady. He said he felt his relationship with her was like the song, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad”. Not sure why he choose me to talk to so openly, being quite vulnerable. Perhaps knowing I was near completing an OU degree in psychology was a prompt? He later expressed appreciation for the time spent sharing. This experience, along with coming to the end of the degree in psychology was one of several that led me evetually to further train and work as counsellor/therapist, as I am today. So thanks to that friend.

The song is below for anyone who may not have ever heard it. Or perhaps you may want to listen again 😎.

Tags counselling, Meat Loaf, relationships, therapy, Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

Categories gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy

iPods and therapy sessions

12 June, 2020 //

With the recent lockdown due to the Coronavirus all my counselling sessions are currently online using Zoom. I’ve been using my iPad with a pair of headphones. All works well. Though recently purchased a pair of iPods, to use in counselling/therapy sessions instead of the headphones. I am amazed at the difference they make. The quality of sound is wonderful. So much clearer, plus with the noise cancellation on there are no distractions. It feels more like being in a room with a client.

Tags counselling, iPods, sessions, therapy

Categories gender, sexuality, sex and relationship therapy