A therapist’s guide to sexuality, taboos, and kink with Roger Butler

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Practical skills for therapists supporting clients to navigate sexuality, taboos and kink

September 8, 15, 22 4-6pm Pacific

Check your timezone

Livestream and Catch up on Demand Recording Access

Recordings Available until Dec 31, 2025

From uncertainty (or silence) to confident support

The world of sexuality – and especially the nuances of kink and fetish domains – are often confusing to outside observers and psychology professionals, who frequently only encounter these domains when things have gone wrong. But as therapists, we may wish to be able to support our clients in these areas as we would any other, even if we don’t have specialist knowledge or experience. If we’re not able to do this, an important aspect of our clients’ needs may go unspoken and unmet.

This presents a variety of challenges for counsellors, therapists, and other 1:1 practitioners: How do we pick the difference between practices that might be dangerous or re-traumatising, versus ones that might be profoundly therapeutic and rewarding? What does good consent look like in practice? And how do our understandings of egalitarian, peer-based and empowering relationships sit alongside power dynamics and polyamory?

In this course, you will learn from  experienced sex-educator and sex-positive facilitator Roger Butler, and gain confidence and skills through the intersection of psychology and sexuality.

This course will explore:

• What ‘sex-negativity’ is, and how it birthed ‘sex-positivity’.
• The basics of kink and related language / jargon.
• What motivates people to explore these parts of themselves.
• How to pick healthy from unhealthy practices and dynamics.
• Safety, safe-words and communication.
• Common types of play, and what makes them more likely to be healthy.
• How to assist clients to find the core of their interests, and safety explore.
• Side quests including clarifications of various myths, sex-work, and polyamory.

Create spaces where clients can bring their whole selves

You will learn how Process-Oriented Psychology can support your skills and confidence to create spaces where clients can bring their whole selves

Find out:

• How one’s dreaming and sentient essence informs sexual interests, and how knowing these background forces can support exploration to be safer and more on-point.
• How roleplay in sex can be as therapeutic as roleplay in therapy.
• How Processwork’s intimate understanding of edges, feedback and congruence can form a best-practice model of consent.
• How our understanding of social forces such as city shadows and meta-skills like our beginner’s mind can inform the way we relate to a client’s taboos, fetishes, and addictions.
• How to be client-centred when we might have radically different cultural norms around sexuality to those of our clients.

At the end of this course, you will be more able to create a space where clients can bring up matters relating to their sexual interests, and be more able to support them in their explorations. You will have more confidence around where the lines are in relation to ethics, safety / doing no harm, and positive (versus confusing, or negative) explorations.

Who Is It For?

This course is designed for therapists, counselors, psychologists, and other mental health professionals who want to better support clients interested in exploring kink, BDSM, or alternative sexuality. It’s ideal for practitioners who have encountered these topics in sessions and felt underprepared, those who work with LGBTQ+ populations where these discussions may arise more frequently, or professionals simply seeking to expand their therapeutic toolkit. While designed with therapists in mind, this course will also benefit sex educators, relationship coaches, and individuals with a personal interest in exploring these domains safely.

What should I expect in this course?

This training is mostly built around the sharing of concepts and information, and includes elements of self-discovery through inner work. It includes small group discussion at the level that’s right for individual participants, and will suit people with no prior knowledge or experience (as well as those with experience). However, those with no prior exposure to Processwork are recommended towards some prior learning.

The training strives to conform to trauma-informed practice standards and confidentiality, including prior clarity around exercises, the avoidance of surprises, allowing for camera-off participation and non-participation, and accommodating anonymous questions. No recording of people other than the presenter or personal content will be taken. The training is designed for therapists (such as counsellors, psychotherapists, psychologists), but will also serve as a solid grounding in the healthy exploration of sexuality and kink. The invitation will be made for participants to explore aspects of their own sexuality as an aid and demonstration of the content, however non-participation options will be embedded, and all exercises should anyway be done only to the depth right for the participant.

About Roger

Roger Butler has been a part-time student of Processwork for 25 years. Over the last 14 years, they have been using a process-influenced approach to teach sexuality, consent, kink, relationship skills, and self-awareness to around 20,000 people in around 3,000 workshops. This is in addition to running a counselling practice, doing public speaking, writing, and running a successful podcast.

Roger sees the need for bridges between the worlds of psychology and sexuality. They are a passionate supporter of the idea that all individuals and couples need to find their own unique relationship to their sexuality. And that a Process-Oriented approach, a beginner’s mind, and a few core understandings can help practitioners support their clients, regardless of where their personal interests lie.

Website: Curious Creatures

Podcast: Curious Conversations…

Where, when, how

September 8, 15, 22 4-6pm Pacific

Check your timezone

Livestream and Catch up on Demand Recording Access

Recordings Available until Dec 31, 2025

Course Registration $240

Experience financial barriers to participation? Choose the equity registration option.

Financial Equity

PWI recognizes the global and systemic forces that unequally impact people’s opportunities to participate.  If you are from an emerging economy or carrying the burden of systemic inequality and impacted by financial disadvantage, we offer an equity rate to increase accessibility.  Please choose the equity rate if it is more fair for you.

Equity Registration $168

August 2021 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Progress Report from the Community Advisory Committee for the Process Work Institute Community  

As published in our August 31 Newsletter.

Progress Report from the Community Advisory Committee

(Rhea Shapiro, Lynn Lobo, Mbali Maseko, Emma Dugan)

for the PWI Community

PWI has begun to actively engage in making changes to promote diversity, equity and inclusion over the last year, however this is the first official report from the Community Advisory Committee, and begins a commitment to regular progress updates.

Dear community,

We recognize that this is a long-term growth process and we are in the beginning stages. We plan to publish monthly updates on progress made at PWI in its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) process to keep the entire community informed.

Please Note: In this report we are using: People of the Global Majority (PGM), an empowering term emphasizing that over 80% of the world’s population are people of color, not white.  POC and BIPOC are US centrist terms not used or related to by most of the world.

Here is a report on PWI actions towards DEI goals over the last year:

1.        In July 2020, PWI initiated a Board strategic working group to focus resources and leadership on anti-racism work, and search for an outside consultant to advise PWI in its DEI process.

2.        In August 2020, PWI and the Board strategic working group established a community based anti-racism Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to advise the PWI Board and to bring external expertise, guidance and accountability to the organization. Members of the committee that represent the Global Majority receive an honorarium to acknowledge their expertise and time contributions.

3.        The Community Advisory Committee has reviewed PGM, student, faculty and community feedback from past years and based on that feedback came up with recommendations for the PWI Board to make structural changes to support anti-racism in the Institute.

4.        October 2020 In service faculty training: Errol Amerasekera and Dawn Menken: Working with Race at PWI – Learnings, Growth and Systemic Change,

5.        In January 2021 leadership began working with outside consultant, Ed Porter (Courage of Care) to create anti-racism structures and strategies within PWI. Some of his suggestions are as follows:

• a.   He has stressed the importance of staying in relationship and working with our differences.
• b.   Recognizing that the social issues and culture are in constant change so we need to create structures that can respond to the present needs of our students and faculty.
• c.    He suggested we discuss cultural appropriation both inside the organization and publicly in the larger community. We organized a PWI faculty roundtable in the school and plan to post responses. We also plan to create a public roundtable in fall 2021.
• d.   He has emphasized the importance of uplifting the PGM faculty voice. This is a long-term project. PWI has begun to address this need by engaging more PGM faculty both in public courses and in the academic course curriculum.

6.        PWI has strengthened its Grievance Procedures to address rank issues and bring up student DEI complaints. In January 2020, we created an Ombuds role (Rhea Shapiro) to investigate and discuss complaints to reach a satisfactory resolution for the student. This process has been used by 2 students since its inception.

7.        June 2020, there was Institutional acknowledgment to the PGM community through the PWI newsletter of our grief and regret surrounding past actions and our commitment to changing. 
 See Newsletter June 15, 2020.

8.        In Sept 2020, an apology was sent by email to PWI students and faculty. We include a copy of that to share with the whole community:

Update on Racial DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) Work at PWI (Sept 2020)

Hello to everyone reading this update on our racial equity work here at PWI. As Hellene stated in her June update: “As an organization we are committed to earning back trust through actions and outcomes.“ As a predominantly white organization we have begun to actively struggle with our white dominant culture and actions.

The PWI board, faculty and administration are totally committed to the work of creating a school that is anti-racist with an DEI focus. We have had an unconscious white lens and we are waking up around this and we are dedicated to change; to becoming an anti-racist organization where everyone’s reality is truly supported and encouraged.

We cannot go back in time, but we can apologize to the many People of the Global Majority, both faculty and students, who have suffered with the actions and attitudes that come from our white privilege within PWI. Many students and faculty have been speaking out, saying that this has been happening for far too long in our organization. Our white micro and macro aggressions created a culture that has been painful and debilitating. We know that just an apology is not enough.

Realizing this and trying to change this culture, the PWI Board is instituting a systemic DEI Change Process. In July, the board created an Anti-Racism Work Group. Also, we have begun to connect with community members to create a Community Advisory Committee that will give PWI feedback about how we are doing. We are engaging a Strategic Planner to help us create a long-term plan for racial equity. Also, we are initiating conversations within the school with an outside facilitator to address white dominance. We are committed to this change process and making PWI a safer place for People of the Global Majority and all of us connected to the organization.

Thank-you, the Anti-Racism Work Group, PWI Board (Rhea Shapiro, Elva Redwood, Irina Feygina)

9.        In Spring 2020 PWI created PGM student scholarships of which 2 students have made use. Also funded were PGM Guest Faculty positions for the Masters of Process Work Race and Culture class.

10.     We have the intention of significantly increasing People of the Global Majority representation on the PWI Board. In Summer 2021, Diane Wong joined the board and we are in the process of inviting a second member.

Thank you for your interest in the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion process in which PWI is continuing to engage. The Community Advisory Committee is now committed to giving monthly updates on the progress of PWI. Stay tuned.

Respectfully,

The Community Advisory Committee

Rhea Shapiro, Lynn Lobo, Mbali Maseko, Emma Dugan

To reach the Committee please email rhea@processwork.org