Working with Fetish, BDSM, and Kink Practices

Working with Fetish, BDSM, and Kink Practices

Kink-Affirmative Therapy

Recorded Saturday 25 February 2023

with Dr Lori Beth Bisbey, Dominic Davies, Anna Randall, Dr Richard Sprott, and Dr Ryan Witherspoon

CPD Credits: 4 hours

Many therapists struggle with their responses when working with clients who engage in kink, fetish, and/or BDSM. However, research suggests that a vast number of people, both clients and therapists, engage in, or fantasise about, BDSM and kink practices and pathologising is still dominant with therapists reporting not feeling competent with this work.

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FULL PROGRAMME

Programme

Dominic Davies
Developing knowledge and skills in working with BDSM

Far from being rare and unusual, between 2.5% and 70% of people engage in, or fantasise about, BDSM. In a recent study of 766 clinicians (Kelsey et al. 2012), 25% automatically pathologised their clients based just on self-disclosure, and 30% thought kink desires should be eliminated by therapy. This presentation will share insights into how therapists can develop their cultural competency to work in a kink-affirmative way and make use of the new “Clinical Practice Guidelines for Working with People with Kink Interests”.

Dr Lori Beth Bisbey
Working with Clients Who Have Humiliation Kinks

Therapists often find kinks in which the person desires to be humiliated particularly difficult to respond to in a neutral manner. They can evoke disgust and are also often shame-inducing (eroticising shame) and can provoke therapists to be pre-occupied with abuse and the impact of this shaming in the long term. Disgust is one of the least studied emotions. In this presentation, Dr Bisbey will highlight the necessary skills to work with such clients without shaming or trying to cure them of their kinks. Lori Beth will also discuss the places where gently challenging the client as to the impact of these kinks in their lives is appropriate.

Dr Ryan Witherspoon
Strange Situations:  Provocative kink/BDSM client material and the primacy of process

Despite the near-normative prevalence rates of kink-related fantasies the frequency, depth, and nature of people’s actual engagement in kink varies tremendously.  Clinicians with less expertise in kinky sexualities and relationships may therefore find no trouble working effectively with one kinky client, only to feel alarmed and perplexed by another. This presentation will explore how a process-oriented approach can provide an affirming and respectful way to consider kink-related material as a vehicle for illuminating attachment dynamics, object relationships, empathic capacities, and boundary management skills relevant to a client’s presenting issues.  Resources for further learning will be provided.

Dr Richard Sprott & Anna Randall
Preliminary findings from the first International Kink Health Study

Kink-involved people engage in atypical erotic activities such as bondage, rough-sex, and other fetish activities that might risk injury or medical complications. Anticipated stigma leads to non-disclosure of kink involvement and delays in seeking care, thereby creating barriers to health and well-being. To date, however, no one has examined healthcare usage by people who engage in kink activities. The objective is to describe the use of healthcare by kink-involved people, including how many people disclose their involvement in kink when seeking care. The findings of the current study point to the need for clinicians to address barriers to culturally competent care for kink-involved people.

FEES

Includes: 1 year’s access, test and CPD Certificate of Attendance (coming soon), subtitles and transcript

INDIVIDUAL

£60 (or £48 Confer member)

GROUP RATE

£50pp in groups of over 10 (please apply to accounts@confer.uk.com)

CPD

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) credits for 4 hours are available as part of the course fee. You will need to pass a multiple choice questionnaire related to the content in order to receive your certificate (coming soon). You can submit this test up to a maximum of 5 times.

SCHEDULE

00:00:15
Dominic Davies – Introduction and Opening Talk

00:38:16
Dr Lori Beth Bisbey

01:18:30
Q&A

01:36:10
Dr Ryan Witherspoon

02:20:01
Q&A

02:30:33
Dr Richard Sprott & Anna Randall

03:23:25
Q&A

03:31:30
Panel Discussion and Q&A