Human Sexuality Certificate

Human Sexuality Certificate Program

Program Description

The clinical marketplace has a perennial shortage of therapists who can work with sexuality issues. The goal of Southwestern College’s certificate program in Human Sexuality is to help address this shortage and prepare therapists to add this powerful clinical specialty to their practice. Consistent with Southwestern College’s experiential, self-reflective approach to clinical studies, the program will also give students an opportunity to explore their own sexual development, attitudes, assumptions, sexual history, dreams and fantasies. Areas of emphasis include ethics, the role of sociocultural & familial factors in shaping sexual values and behavior, intimacy skills, diversities in sexual expression (BDSM, Kink, Tantra, polyamory), issues related to sexual orientation and gender identity, sexual exploitation (including assault, abuse, and harassment), sex addiction, tools for reducing shame and enhancing pleasure, cyber-sexuality and social media, the history of the discipline of sex research, theory, therapy, desire, sexual dreams and fantasies.
Students and community members pursuing a certificate through the New Earth Institute must complete all classes required for the Certificate within six (6) years of taking the first class.

_{Student discusses the program with Founder and former Director Dr. Ginna Clark.}

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96-HOUR CERTIFICATE
Complete with any six Human Sexuality courses

• Sexual Attitudes and Development
• Sexual Inheritance: Recognizing Ancestral, Familial and Cultural Messages
• Clinical Skills: Working with Sexual Issues in Psychotherapy
• Too Hot to Handle: Therapeutic Approaches to Working with Infidelity, Porn and Sex Addiction
• Erotic Intelligence and Pleasure Literacy
• Working with Queer Sexualities
• Understanding and Working with Sexual Trauma
• Additional courses may be listed in quarterly schedules

Skills you will learn:

• The ability to work effectively with a wide range of sexual issues
• Specific clinical skills in diagnosing, treating, and responding to sexual issues in psychotherapy from a holistic, strengths-based perspective
• The opportunity to explore your own sexual attitudes and assumptions
• Expand your capacity to think psychologically about sexual issues
• Manage transference and countertransference issues
• Broaden your capacity for working with relationship dynamics
• Expand your knowledge about diversities in sexual expression
• The ability to bring conscious awareness to your own blind spots, wounding, and unresolved trauma, while actively working with these issues in a healing way

Where you might use these skills:

• Private practice
• Agencies working with individuals, couples and families
• Trauma treatment centers
• Eating Disorder treatment centers
• Youth Shelters
• Schools
• Colleges and universities
• Reproductive health centers
• Assisted living and retirement homes

Program Director

Laura Rademacher, M.A., LMFT, CST, CST-S is an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She is the author of The Principles of Pleasure: Working with the Good Stuff as Sex Therapists and Educators and an AASECT Approved Sex Therapy Supervisor. Laura is a frequent presenter near and far, from Self Serve in Albuquerque, NM to Pride Festival in Stockholm, Sweden. She lives in Minneapolis, MN where she works with clients in her private practice.

Laura began her career as a sex positive educator focusing on pleasure issues. She regularly works with issues of sexual identity, trauma, sober sex, discordant desire, low desire, relational issues, out of control sexual behaviors, and sexual functioning concerns. Laura frequently presents to, and works with, the LGBTQIA+, BDSM, and consensual, non-monogamy communities. Her work focuses on creating content that is relevant to, and celebratory of, people of all orientations, gender expressions, and relationship styles. Laura is currently learning the most from sexual health professionals who teach about the intersections of race, culture, and sexuality.

The inner work that is central to Southwestern/NEI’s philosophy of transformational learning is also critical for effectively working with sexuality issues. Laura believes that experiential learning creates embodied knowledge and deeper levels of understanding than what can be achieved with book and lecture methods alone. All of the courses in the NEI Human Sexuality Certificate Program will blend the philosophies of transformational and experiential learning with the most up-to-date information and techniques in the field of sex therapy.

Laura feels the inner work that is central to Southwestern/NEI’s philosophy of transformational learning is also critical for effectively working with sexuality issues. She believes that experiential learning creates embodied knowledge and deeper levels of understanding than what can be achieved with book and lecture methods alone.