Fantasy, Sex Dreams, & the Subconscious

NEW DATES! (Moved from March 1-3 due to an unexpected schedule conflict.)

This is an enlightened and unconventional professional development training for sex educators, sex therapists, and other sexuality professionals who want to build a more accurate and expansive understanding of sex dreams and fantasy without the influence of patriarchy, heteronormativity, allonormativity, and sexual shame.

In an open-minded digital space, attendees will explore their own relationship to sex dreams and fantasy, identify common misconceptions and myths, and learn how to apply the concepts outlined in this workshop to their clients’ personal and relational work. Fantasy, Sex Dreams, & the Subconscious is co-facilitated by Anne Hodder-Shipp, CSE, and Paula Leech, LMFT, CST, CSTS.

This workshop is for you if:

• Your clients feel confused, challenged by, or eager to make sense of their sex dreams and fantasies
  
• You feel confused, challenged by, or eager to make sense of sex dreams and fantasies
  
• Your clients often describe their pleasurable fantasies or sex dreams as “bad,” “wrong,” or against their core values
  
• You want to better understand the functional role fantasy and sex dreams play in our lives, relationships, and understanding of ourselves
  
• You are ready to let go of Freudian ideas of sex dreams and fantasies as repressed desire
  
• You are curious to learn more about the meaning behind sex dreams that involve infidelity, fear, exes, and other uncomfortable themes
  
• Your clients feel shame or guilt about the fantasies and sex dreams they experience
  
• You or your clients fear that sex dreams or fantasies reveal sexual secrets and desires that are buried deep under the surface
  
• You want to better understand sex dreams and fantasies involving sexual themes, behaviors, or identities that differ from a client’s “waking life”
  
• You are ready to challenge common misconceptions of sex dreams and fantasy as infidelity or “micro cheating”
  
• You work with clients who believe that their or their partners’ porn consumption is a threat to the relationship
  
• You want to unlearn the pathologization of consuming porn, erotica, and fantasy content
  
• You are looking for tools and best practices for navigating your or your clients’ complex feelings about fantasy, desire, masturbation, and explicit media
  
• You want to better understand how fantasy can be a tool for learning, growth, and intimacy with self and others
  
• You are willing to look at your own relationship to fantasy and sex dreams, stepping into a more expansive view of your own creative complexity
  
• You seek a more expansive understanding of the role the subconscious mind plays in our sexual self-concept, both awake and asleep

By the end of this course participants will:

• Feel more comfortable thinking about and discussing sex dreams in and out of clinical settings
  
• Better understand the role fantasy plays in building and maintaining an authentic connection to ourselves and others
  
• Gain a more expansive perspective of sex dreams and fantasies free from pathology and personal judgment
  
• More confidently understand sex dreams and fantasies as relationship enhancers, not threats
  
• Feel less rattled by the provocative, challenging, or downright scary narratives and visuals of some fantasies and sex dreams
  
• Be better prepared to skillfully think about and discuss sex dreams and fantasy beyond their literal presentations
  
• Develop compassionate curiosity about their own sex dreams and fantasy experiences
  
• Gain practice working with fantasy and sex dreams as shame-reduction and harm-reduction tools
  
• Better understand the complexity and creativity of the subconscious mind and how it helps us process our emotional selves
  
• Gain an expansive conceptualization and grounded methodology for assessing and exploring sex dreams and fantasies
  
• Feel prepared to help clients navigate, process, and let go of emotional entanglement in their fantasies and sex dreams

Learning Objectives:

- Identify key similarities and differences between fantasies and sex dreams

- Name the hazards of taking fantasy and sex dreams literally or at face-value

- Describe the role fantasy plays in our sexual and relational development

- Unlearn common misconceptions about the meanings behind specific sex dream themes

- Reflect on how non-sexual fantasy shows up in day-to-day life

- Discuss consent as it relates to the characters in fantasy and sex dream content

- Explain the function fantasy serves and the reasons we benefit from participating in it

- Explain the function sex dreams serve and how to explore them in a clinical setting

- Understand the role that emotional experience plays in sex dreams and fantasy formation

- Locate the stance of the therapist, counselor, or educator when interacting with our client’s challenging or provocative sex dream and fantasy content and their feelings/judgments

- Indicate the specific ways relationships can benefit from the presence of sexual fantasy and sex dreams

- Review how fantasy works to preserve and protect our realities (should we be invested in protecting them ourselves)

- Understand how cultural norms related to gender, heteronormativity, monogamy, purity culture, and white supremacy shape our relationship to sex dreams and fantasy

This program meets the requirements of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) and is approved for 10 CE credits. These CE credits may be applied toward AASECT certification and renewal of certification. Completion of this program does not ensure or guarantee AASECT certification. For further information please contact info@aasect.org.

This workshop covers the following AASECT Core Knowledge Areas:

A. Ethics and ethical behavior

C. Socio-cultural, familial factors (e.g., ethnicity, culture, religion, spirituality, socioeconomic status, family values) in relation to sexual values and behaviors.

D. Issues related to sexual orientation and/or gender identity: heterosexuality; issues and themes impacting lesbian, gay, bisexual, pansexual, asexual people; gender identity and expression.

E. Intimacy skills (e.g., social, emotional, sexual), intimate relationships, interpersonal relationships and family dynamics.

F: Diversities in sexual expression and lifestyle

I: Range of sexual functioning and behavior, from optimal to problematic

O. Professional communication and personal reflection skills.

Sex Therapy Skills Training criteria C: Theory and methods of approach to intervention in relationship systems experiencing sex and intimacy problems - we will explore how to use fantasy and sex dreams in favor of differentiation in couples systems, in favor of eroticization of the self, and as a means of learning that lends itself to ongoing intimacy.