Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy: An Integrative Model for Exploring Desire and Intimacy

Look beyond behavioral treatments, pharmaceutical interventions, and performance goals to a more comprehensive picture of what your clients want and need when they enter sex therapy. Gina Ogden is a master therapist, supervisor, researcher, teacher, and author with four decades of helping clients and training health professionals. Her ISIS Wheel of Sexual Experience is an innovative template that recognizes the full range of sexual issues: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy offers you new language to discuss sexual issues and creative ways to engage clients in their own therapeutic process-whether or not you are trained as a sex therapist. The text is organized in four practice-oriented sections that introduce the ISIS Wheel, show you how you can use it with individuals, couples, and groups, and encourage you to explore it on your own. Once again Gina Ogden delivers. Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy does exactly that: EXPAND. It will deepen your understanding, enrich your practice, and texture your overall appreciation of the complexities of sexuality. It is rich, thoughtful, and oh so useful for all therapists. I am immediately adding it to my recommendation list. - Esther Perel, Author of Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence ...Where else would the latest in sexual science and brain science and the poetry of Mary Oliver and Rumi live so comfortably together but in a book by Gina Ogden. True to her impressive reputation as a leading sex therapist, Ogden gives us a fresh paradigm, including both practical detailed guidelines for expanding our creative therapeutic work with individuals, couples, and groups, and a lovely meditation on her own valuable experiences as a sex therapist and teacher. The book is beautifully structured and emphasizes the ISIS wheel-that ultimately we do our best work when we ask new questions about sex that include a client's mental, emotional, and physical and spiritual stories. In an area where there are too few books to guide us, a real highlight of Ogden's book is her self-awareness as a therapist and her talent as a supervisor and teacher. Each page is rich with her insight. As a teacher and supervisor, I will be recommending this book enthusiastically to others. - Sallie Foley, Co-author of Sex Matters for Women; Director, University of Michigan Sexual Health Certificate Program Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy presents a dynamic, innovative approach to helping our clients. This elegant, perceptive, and profound treatment model will furnish counselors and therapists with unique skills to help any relationship. A must read! - Michele Sugg, MSW, LCSW, CST, President, American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT); Sex Therapy Advisor, Alexander Foundation for Women's Health This book is the essential reference for future generations craving a new way to serve their clients. Gina Ogden's ISIS model reflects a new paradigm for how to address sexual issues and resolve them through integration of the whole human being. Her contribution to the field of sex therapy will last far beyond the quest for a new pill or the diagnostic search for treatment of pathologies. The cure instead is finding the sexual self, moving through a matrix of discovery in collaboration with the sex therapist or coach, and reaching peace with one's sexual story. - Patti Britton, PhD, MPH, Author of The Art of Sex Coaching; Past President, AASECT; Co-Founder, SexCoachU; Board-Certified Clinical Sexologist; Master Sex Coach; Adjunct Professor, The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy incorporates the holistic integrative ISIS approach that has helped so many clients to feel better and more accepting of themselves as sensual and sexual beings. Gina incorporates sexual science and brain research into her approach. As a scientist, I respect Gina's ISIS approach and her contributions to sexual health. - Beverly Whipple, PhD, RN, FAAN, Co-author of The G Spot; Professor Emerita, Rutgers University; Past Vice-President and Secretary General/Treasurer, World Association for Sexual Health (WAS): Past President, Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS); Past President, AASECT; Past Director, International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH) Dr. Gina Ogden has created a completely new way of listening to sexuality concerns. Therapists who learn to use her ISIS Wheel quickly see how interventions-usually suggested by the patients or clients themselves-become crystal clear and are much more effective than those we might suggest from an outside perspective. This book, grounded in ten years of research and more than forty years of experience, is as important to the field of sex therapy as was The Kinsey Report or either of Masters and Johnson's early volumes. - Ginger Manley, MSN, Psychiatric Mental Health Clinical Nurse Specialist-BC; AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and Supervisor; Associate in Psychiatry, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine; Clinical Professor of Nursing, Vanderbilt University School of Nursing Every therapist should read Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy. Gina Ogden's unique style combined with her ISIS research brings incredible, real-life clinical experience and data into the work to make her message dynamic, innovative, exciting, and practical. Sex therapy has until now been bogged down with old models of health care, pharmaceutical myths, and misinformation about relationships and couples dynamics. Gina is at the top of her field and knows what trained, certified sexuality therapists and couples therapists everywhere need. - Tammy Nelson, PhD, LPC, Author of Getting the Sex You Want and The New Monogamy: Redefining Your Relationship After Infidelity (in press); Board Certified Sexologist; AASECT Certified Sex Therapist; Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor and Certified Imago Relationship Therapist There is a critical need for marriage and family therapists and counselors to be able to effectively address questions and issues around sexuality with their clients. Dr. Gina Ogden provides a user-friendly, readable, and practical text that will assist therapists 'in the room,' who are striving to provide research-based information and interventions to their clients. A sex therapist, supervisor, and researcher herself, Dr. Ogden takes both novice and experienced therapists, using numerous case illustrations, through the process of understanding and using a model that will enhance clinical practice. - Marvarene Oliver, EdD, Associate Professor of Counseling, Texas A&M University; Associate Editor of Journal of Professional Counseling: Practice, Theory, and Research; Chair, Council of Division Presidents, American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT); Past President, Texas AAMFT Gina Ogden is a major spokesperson for the diversity in female sexuality and the importance of spirituality in sexual desire. Expanding the Practice of Sex Therapy is her latest and best integration of the ISIS model of sex therapy and is highly recommended for clinicians. - Barry McCarthy, PhD, Workshop Presenter; Professor; Author of Sexual Awareness (5th Edition), Enduring Desire, Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style, Men's Sexual Health, and Rekindling Desire From one of the foremost leaders of integrative sex therapy, this tour-de-force of elegant theory, accessible writing, and sound clinical practice is a 'must-read' for anyone working with individuals or couples who wants to serve them best. Dr. Ogden's sound, comprehensive, and de-pathologizing approach to the complexity of human sexual experience will surely prove to be a welcome addition to the book shelves of novice and seasoned professionals alike. - Evelyn Resh MPH, CNM, Author of Women, Sex, Power, and Pleasure and The Secret Lives of Teen Girls This book is Introduction: Engage Your Clients and Expand Your Practice Part 1: The Research 1. "Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality": A Nationwide Survey 2. The ISIS Wheel of Sexual Experience Part 2: The ISIS Wheel: A Guide to the Quadrants 3. Mapping the Varieties of Sexual Experience 4. The Physical Quadrant: Exploring Sexual Sensation and Dysfunction-The Body Intelligent 5. The Emotional Quadrant: Exploring Sexual Passion and Fear-The Way of the Heart 6. The Mental Quadrant: Exploring Sexual Discernment and Judgments-Activating and Trusting the Analytic Self 7. The Spiritual Quadrant: Exploring Sexual Connection and Disconnection-Making Meaning from Chaos 8. The Center: Exploring Sexual Integration and Transformation-The Shadow and the Light Part 3: ISIS Practice: A Guide to Clinical Use 9. Core Dynamics of ISIS Practice and Ways to Implement Them 10. Using the ISIS Wheel in Training Seminars and Personal Growth Intensives 11. Stories of Transformation: How Sexual Dysfunctions are Transformed as a Result of ISIS Groups 12. Using the ISIS Wheel in Individual and Couples Therapy 13. A Story of Transformation in Individual and Couples Practice 14. Taking the ISIS Experience Home Part 4: Training and Integration 15. ISIS Training for Professionals 16. Caveats for Therapists 17. Exploring ISIS for Yourself