Trauma-Informed Sexual Healing for Clinicians: From Survival to Pleasure

 Earn 5 CE Contact Hours

This trauma-informed sexual healing workshop for clinicians explores the intersection of trauma, sexuality, and relational intimacy. Designed for mental health professionals, sex therapists, and trauma clinicians, this 5-hour experiential training provides practical tools and evidence-based strategies to support clients in moving from survival responses toward sexual agency and pleasure.

The workshop begins with high-level refreshers on trauma theory, sex therapy fundamentals, and attachment-based approaches, then moves into the neurobiological, developmental, and cultural dimensions of sexual healing. Using polyvagal theory, somatic frameworks, and relational eroticism, presenters will demonstrate how survival responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) shape sexual expression and intimacy. Clinicians will learn how to guide clients toward regulated connection, bodily autonomy, and mindful sexual presence.

• Participants will leave with practical, clinically relevant strategies for:
• Assessing and shifting nervous system states that influence desire, arousal, and intimacy
• Supporting clients in reclaiming pleasure and sexual agency
• Navigating ambivalence and cultural barriers to sexual expression
• Integrating trauma-informed, somatic, and attachment-based approaches into clinical practice

This training is ideal for clinicians seeking to enhance their trauma-informed sex therapy skills and provide culturally responsive, client-centered sexual healing interventions.

Learning Objectives:

Participants will be able to:

• Analyze how developmental trauma, attachment disruptions, and cultural narratives influence sexual identity, behavior, and relational intimacy.
• Differentiate trauma responses (fight, flight, freeze, fawn) from expressions of sexual agency in clinical practice.
• Apply polyvagal, somatic, and attachment-based frameworks to assess and support clients’ nervous system states affecting arousal, desire, and intimacy.

Who Should Attend:

Mental health professionals, sex therapists, trauma therapists, and clinicians interested in trauma-informed sexual healing, somatic interventions, and attachment-informed sex therapy.

Meet Abigail Nathanson:

Abigail Nathanson, LCSW, DSW is a trauma therapist with training in three somatic trauma modalities (AEDP, EMDR and IFS) as well as Meaning-Centered Psychotherapy, and is part-time faculty at New York University. Dr. Nathanson is a board-certified palliative social worker and the co-editor of the textbook, The Practice of Clinical Social Work in Healthcare (Springer Press). She was the 2022 Educator of the Year from the Social Work Palliative and Hospice Network. Dr. Nathanson worked in hospitals and hospices for 15 years, and now runs a specialty group trauma therapy practice in New York, with a focus on care for those deeply impacted by medical illness and loss.

Meet Nikita Fernandes:

I am a Licensed Mental Health Therapist and AASECT Certified Sex Therapist based in New York City. I graduated with my Master’s in Counseling in Mental Health and Wellness and a dual degree in LGBT Health, Education, and Social Services from New York University. I also hold a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology with a background in Women and Gender Studies from George Mason University. I identify as a queer South Asian immigrant woman. I’m also neurodivergent and non-monogamous. Aside from being a therapist, I have volunteered as a crisis counselor for the Trevor Project, worked as a graduate assistant for the New York University LGBTQ+ Center, and helped in the planning of social justice conferences.

I have worked towards being a therapist for many years now and it is my greatest honor to arrive where I am. I grew up in Bangalore, a city in India where access to mental healthcare was limited and heavily stigmatized. We didn’t really talk about sex at all and the patriarchal culture often made it unsafe to embody our sexual selves. During my young adult years in Bangalore, I struggled to find a counselor who had a background in LGBTQ issues. The counselor that I talked to put me in a one size fits all box, bound by a traditional conception of heteronormative binary identities. The services I received seemed ingenuine and I felt alone. The counselor failed to understand the challenges that are faced by a queer woman in a conservative country. At that moment, a strong desire to uplift people who feel confused and alone was born.

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