Dear ,

WE ARE PROUD TO BE ANNOUNCING THIS BRAND NEW CERTIFICATE COURSE FOR THE FIRST TIME

PLEASE TELL YOUR COLLEAGUES ABOUT IT

CERTIFICATE ON DIVERSITY WITHIN CONTEMPORARY RELATIONSHIPS

This certificate training is made up of four modules and held over five days.

THE FOUR MODULES THAT MAKE UP THE CERTIFICATE:

• Working Alongside Trans, Non-Binary and Questioning Clients (1 day) with Serge Nicholson - Tuesday 21st March 2023 , Saturday 15th July 2023 & Friday 1st December 2023.
• Other Loves: Polyamory, Polygamy and Arranged Marriages (2 days) with Bernd Leygraf - Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th June 2023 , Sunday 15th & Monday 16th October 2023.
• Kink (1 day) with Bernd Leygraf - Sunday 12th February 2023 , Monday 12th June 2023 , & Sunday 17th September 2023.
• Bisexuality Sexual Fluidity and Bisexuality (1 day) with Bernd Leygraf - Monday 13th February 2023 , Tuesday 13th June 2023 & Monday 18th September 2023.

WHAT IS THE CHEAPEST WAY TO DO THIS

Each workshop has an Extra Early Booking Discount if you book more than 2 months before the course, an Early Booking Discount if you book between 1 and 2 months before the course, and the Full Price which is for bookings within the last month. So planning ahead is the cheapest way to do the four workshops.

DO I NEED TO ATTEND THEM ALL?

No. Each module may be taken is a stand-alone workshop. The modules can also be taken as part of the certificate series. If you decide to complete all the modules, they may be taken in any sequence, and over any period of time.  

DO I GET A CERTIFICATE OF ATTENDANCE AFTER EACH WORKSHOP

Yes. At the end of each module participants will receive a certificate of attendance.  

HOW DO I GET THE FULL CERTIFICATE ON DIVERSITY WITHIN CONTEMPORARY RELATIONSHIPS

Once you have attended all five days, then apply by email to [email protected]. Please send her the dates of the four modules you have attended. 

IS THIS COURSE ACCREDITED

Yes each module is accredited individually, and as a Certificate Course, by the National Council of Integrative Psychotherapists.

WE HAVE PUT MORE DETAILS ABOUT EACH OF THE WORKSHOPS BELOW

Working Alongside Trans, Non-Binary and Questioning Clients: with Serge Nicholson.

Therapists increasingly get to meet gender diverse and gender questioning people in their client base. This day will bring a greater awareness and understanding of the broad spectrum of GSRD (gender, sex, sexual and relationship diversity). Together we will explore good practice, further increasing our knowledge, confidence and competence.

In the exploration of gender identity there often comes a re-frame of both sexuality, and relationships. Part of the therapy work may involve:

• Holding a space for the questions that our client’s ask themselves
• Exploring their model of what a relationship is
• Helping clients who are in an existing relationship that is itself in transition
• Supporting the potential for individuals to have new relationship(s) within a gender re-frame
• Assisting clients who are exploring relationships for the first time as a woman, a man, or a non-binary person
• Thinking about the whole family structure involved in the transition, for example where there is a move to two moms and / or two dads or other non-binary kinship terms 

Topics covered include:

• Examining marginalised culture contexts, language and terms
• Exploring the issues that can come up when working alongside transgender, non-binary, queer, lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual and outsider gender and sexuality clients
• Working with gender diverse and gender questioning clients along with their partners (who may be gender diverse or cisgender)
•  Thinking about neurodiversity in relation to our GSRD clients

Please note that this is a day working alongside adult client work, and we will not be looking at gender issues in young people.

You will be encouraged to be self-reflexive, raise questions, share thoughts on good practice and consider what you bring to this area of work from your own background and modality.

Serge will share his clinical experience with LGBTIQ+ clients – both individuals and those in a partnership(s). We will use questioning, discussion and case studies to deepen our understanding.  

This rich area will be about transitions, in more than one sense.

Other Loves: Polyamory, Polygamy and Arranged Marriages with Bernd Leygraf.

This two-day Intensive is dedicated to exploring a wide range of relationship models taking into account culture, sexuality, gender rather than assuming that one size fits all.

During the two days, we will explore and learn specific skills for welcoming and working with:

• couples (an intimate dual system)
• multiple partner relationships
• non-eurocentric relationships
• including arranged marriages and
• polygamous ones
• clients from collectivist cultures rather than individualist culture
• erotically marginalised client groups

 Participants will be supported in:

• recognising and adjusting our communication which may sound
• discriminatory,
• hostile,
• including micro aggressions and
• overt prejudice
• exploring (counter)transference in this work. 

Kink with Bernd Leygraf.

This workshop is open to counsellors and psychotherapists who work one-to-one with clients, as well as relationship therapists, family therapists, psychosexual specialists, coaches, health workers and medics.  In fact any professional who wishes to explore the difference between pathological behaviour and what is commonly perceived as “kink”.  We define kink as a set of pleasurable activities that in other contexts are defined as not pleasurable or usual.  Kink is sometimes also known as BDSM. 

BDSM is a general term which applies to activities, fantasies, or scenes that involve a consensual exchange of power, where it’s agreed that one person has more power over another person (for a set period of time), such as in role play or in sado masochistic practices. These rules are normally agreed in advance. It might involve physical control, sensory deprivation, restraint, pain, humiliation, and/or being told off. These things, in the ‘usual world’ might be perceived as unpleasant, but in kink may feel exhilarating. A lot of people just fantasise about kink but don’t take it any further.

Bisexuality Sexual Fluidity and Bisexuality with Bernd Leygraf

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) as so often, got it right. In his theories related to libidinal drives he sensed that attraction and desires were omnidirectional, and that human beings could be attracted to anyone, independent of gender and sexual orientation.

Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) continued with a two-dimensional scale of sexual orientations. Then Fritz Klein (1932 – 2006) developed a multidimensional tool. He discovered that around 38% of people could be described as bisexual, with people who are ‘exclusively heterosexual’ and ‘exclusively homosexual’ being in the minority.

Unfortunately, this has not found its way into peoples’ general awareness, nor into the way sex and relationship therapists conceptualise the work. This is starting to change with GSRD (Gender Sexuality and Relationship Diversity) awareness, but more work is needed. 

This workshop intends to explore ways of working with these invisible client populations.

THE TRAINERS

Serge Nicholson

Serge Nicholson is a C.O.S.R.T accredited Psychosexual and Relationship Therapist with a passion for his work alongside GSRD clients. Serge embarked upon his therapist career change training with the London Diploma in Psychosexual & Relationship Therapy, with a long-term placement (from pre-diploma to full accreditation) within a Central London NHS sexual health service setting, including his work in helping to build a pioneering gender diverse affirming Psychosexual service. Serge has a therapy practice, based in London and the South Coast, delivering individual and partnership therapy. Serge has also been developing an innovative model of queer kitchen table therapeutic group work in Trans and Non Binary and LGBTIQ + community settings. In addition Serge is also a GSRD guest lecturer, and co-founder of www.hotpencilpress.co.uk ‘Letter To My Little Queer Self’, 2021 latest title.

Bernd Leygraf 

Consultant Psychotherapist co-founded a number of organisations (London Men’s Forum, UK Standing Conference on Sexual Abuse of Men, the Centre for Personal and Professional Development, the Whittington Hospital Psychotherapy Clinic, the Hungarian Gestalt Association, NAOS Institute). He co-authored with Judi Keshet-Orr the first MSc in Humanistic Psychotherapy and the first Masters programme in Psychosexual & Relationship Therapy in the UK. He also authored or co-authored, as well as led, several masters programmes in the UK, primarily at South Bank University, Middlesex University, Westminster and the University of Surrey. He was external examiner to various universities in the UK.

A former Chair of the Professional Standards and Accreditation Board at the European Association for Counselling, and Ethics Committee of COSRT, Bernd works currently with trainees, from over 40 countries. He is familiar with and interested in working with issues of cultural difference. His principal influences in sexological and couples work are David Schnarch, Joseph Zinker, Ellen Bader, Judith Hemming, Joan Lachkar, Judi Keshet-Orr and, as ever, his clients. 

FOR MORE INFORMATION:  If you have further questions please email: [email protected] or call Juliet Grayson on 01291 638805

TO SEE OUR OTHER AWARD WINNING WORKSHOPS PLEASE VISIT therapyandcounselling.co.uk

Organised through Sleeping Mountain Ltd