1. Sign up securely online.
2. Read the articles via online links.
3. Submit online evaluation & post-test.
4. Print your certificate.
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GENERAL COURSE DESCRIPTION
This intermediate level course explores the facts and myths behind Female Sexual Dysfunction. While some believe in this diagnostic label, others believe that the pharmaceutical industry, the medical establishment, and the media have pathologized female sexuality and function. Drawing upon scientific studies, clinical experience, and feminist philosophy, the course provides a critique of these ideas and offers an alternative, complex, socio-cultural framework for women's sexual concerns. In addition, the course offers specific examples of the way clinicians can apply this socio-cultural framework to a diverse clientele with a wide range of sexual presenting problems.
Articles for this course were written by Leonore Tiefer, Ph.D., Marny Hall, Ph.D., Kathryn Hall, Ph.D., Lisa Aronson Fontes, Ph.D., Marilyn P. Safir, Ph.D., Anna Arroba, Ph.D., Sadhana Vohra, Ph.D., and "The Working Group on a New View of Women's Sexual Problems."
The course starts with a survey of the changing landscape of women's sexual concerns and charts strategies to counter the one-size-fits-all medicalization of erotic dissatisfaction. The second and third articles focus on the role that the pharmaceutical industry has played in the medicalization of sexuality and discusses a specific campaign to counter this viewpoint. The fourth article demonstrates ways in which both simplistic and complex views of women's sexuality shape clinicians' responses to the sexual concerns which women present in therapy. The next two articles describe the development of an alternative, complex, sociocultural framework for viewing women's concerns. The following four articles offer brief cross-cultural perspectives on women's sexual concerns. The final two articles demonstrate how clinicians can intervene effectively to resolve the sexual impasses of a wide variety of clients.
Educational Objectives:
This course will teach psychotherapists to
Differentiate between medical, mental health, and social/cultural models of women's sexuality.
Identify the medical and economic forces that shape our understanding of "female sexual disorders."
Identify the connections between the pharmaceutical industry and the medicalization of women's sexual concerns.
Describe the cultural, socioeconomic, interpersonal, and psychological elements that shape women's sexual concerns and presenting problems in the mental health setting and in psychotherapy.
Identify three clinical interventions utilizing the New View (feminist critique) framework.
Name three disease-mongering tactics used in developing and promoting "female sexual disorders."
Describe the elements of a new non-medicalized, social/cultural framework for women's sexual concerns.
Course Syllabus:
Female Sexual Dysfunction: What it is and what it is not!
A Feminist Critique of Traditional Sex Therapy
Issues of Sexual Function and Health
Traditional Definitions
Critique of the Traditional Definitions
The New View of Women's Sexual Health and Function
Background, Theory, and Activism
Definitions and Descriptions
A Cross-Cultural International View of Female Sexuality