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Trauma Training
Sex and Intimacy After Trauma
Sex Therapy Training for Trauma Therapists
A grounded, clinically usable training for the trauma therapist whose client is healing everywhere except the bedroom, and who wants a framework for meeting that reality with skill instead of avoidance.
Your client is doing the work. The nervous system is calmer. The flashbacks have quieted. The relationships are steadier. And their sex life is still stuck, absent, painful, or performative. Something happened, or a lot of small things happened, and the intimate part of their life has not caught up with the rest of their healing. You suspect it matters. You are not sure how to bring it up. You are less sure what to do if you do.
Most trauma training barely touches this territory. Most sex therapy training assumes you already work as a sex therapist. Meanwhile, the client sitting across from you does not need a full sex therapy certification. They need a therapist who can hold the intimate piece of the work without flinching, referring out, or defaulting to the same regulation skills that have already done what they can do.
Trauma does not only shape symptoms. It shapes desire, pleasure, embodiment, and the way a person shows up with a partner. The trauma at the root can be sexual, or it can be religious rigidity, body shaming, medical trauma, emotional neglect, chronic invalidation, or the slow accumulation of moments that told the client their body was not safe to want anything from. However it started, the downstream effect is the same. The nervous system learned that intimacy is a place where something goes wrong.
This training gives you a way to work with that.
Practical Skills
Practical Interventions You'll Learn
Across the training, you will learn how to:
- Facilitate the Sexual Appreciation Dialogue (Nelson, 2012) using structured prompts that help partners identify what they appreciate sexually, what they desire more of, and what they would like to explore.
- Implement the I Am self-identity exercise to help clients develop a coherent sense of self that is not primarily defined by relational trauma.
- Conduct an integration exercise that helps clients identify and reintegrate compartmentalized, denied, or previously unsafe aspects of their erotic experience.
- Identify trauma-based self-narratives that contribute to sexual and relational distress and guide clients in developing alternative narratives that interrupt reenactment of past patterns.
- Apply body-based interventions designed to reduce body armoring, guarding, freezing, and dissociation that may interfere with sexual functioning.
- Use interoceptive inquiry techniques, including the prompt "What does my body want?", to help clients reconnect with bodily sensation, desire, and pleasure following trauma-related numbing or disconnection.
- Facilitate a sexual empathy process that promotes relational safety and supports partners in communicating erotic needs, curiosity, and fantasies without judgment.
- Differentiate performance-based and pleasure-based approaches to sexuality and apply pleasure-oriented interventions to reduce spectatoring, anxiety, and related sexual dysfunction
What You Get
What's Waiting for You Inside This Training
Identify the root causes of sexual and relationship distress
Recognize the most common sexual and intimacy concerns that contribute to relationship challenges and understand how they impact individual well-being, relational functioning, and treatment planning.
Assess sexual and relationship concerns through a trauma-informed lens
Apply an integrative clinical framework to evaluate sexual concerns, relationship dynamics, and client readiness for treatment while considering the impact of trauma on intimacy.
Implement Crisis Phase interventions with confidence
Use evidence-based stabilization strategies to increase safety, emotional regulation, and therapeutic engagement for clients experiencing acute sexual or relationship distress.
Address the patterns that interfere with intimacy
Differentiate Insight Phase interventions that target grief, trauma, attachment injuries, shame, and recurring relational patterns that prevent deeper connection.
Create intentional pathways toward healthy relationships
Develop Vision Phase treatment strategies that help clients build meaningful relationship agreements, including monogamy or consensual non-monogamy, while strengthening trust, intimacy, and connection.
Learn on your schedule
On-demand access means you go at your own pace. Lifetime access is included, so you can return whenever you need it.
Practice ethically with awareness and cultural humility
Recognize the influence of therapist bias, countertransference, and projection, and apply ethical, culturally responsive approaches when working with sexuality and relationship concerns.
Free community membership
Join TTI's shame-free community of practitioners for ongoing conversations, support, and resources. No cost, no catch.
Meet Your Trainer
About Your Trainer
Tammy Nelson
PhD, LPC, CST, CSCT
Dr. Tammy Nelson is an internationally recognized sex and relationship expert, a TEDx speaker, and the author of six books including Open Monogamy: A Guide to Co-Creating Your Ideal Relationship Agreement, Integrative Sex and Couples Therapy: A Therapist's Guide to New and Innovative Approaches, When You're the One Who Cheats, The New Monogamy, and Getting the Sex You Want. She is a Board Certified Sexologist, an AASECT Certified Sex Therapist and Supervisor, a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist, and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor with over 35 years of clinical experience. Dr. Nelson is the Executive Director of the Integrative Sex Therapy Institute, Director of the Human Sexuality and Sex Therapy Program at Daybreak University, and host of The Trouble with Sex podcast. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Washington Post, Rolling Stone, and Psychotherapy Networker.
Free Resource
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Transform Sexual and Relationship Healing in Practice
Sexual concerns and relationship distress are often rooted in trauma, attachment injuries, shame, and unspoken patterns that traditional approaches may overlook. This integrative training equips you with trauma-informed assessment strategies and evidence-based interventions to help clients navigate crises, deepen insight, and build healthier, more connected relationships.
I'm Ready to Register
Sexual concerns and relationship distress are often rooted in trauma, attachment injuries, shame, and unspoken patterns that traditional approaches may overlook. This integrative training equips you with trauma-informed assessment strategies and evidence-based interventions to help clients navigate crises, deepen insight, and build healthier, more connected relationships.