This page is for practitioners seeking additional training or support for themselves or clients.  These value-added services offer your clients the benefit of a team approach.

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Products:
If you are looking for a place to send your patients for products and devices that reduce sexual pain and enable or enhance pleasure, you can refer them to us for personalized care in selecting the safest and best tools to meet their needs.  If you are interested in carrying products in your office, we can help you select the ones most appropriate for your clients and distribute them to you for resale.
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Speaking Engagements and Workshops:
If you would like to offer value-added services to your clients, schedule a lecture or workshop for your clients. I (Dr. Heather Howard) will be happy to design a topic with you that is relevant for your clients. Some suggested topics for presentation are included on the Speaking Engagements page. A pleasure education workshop geared towards those with health challenges offers new ideas for intimate connection and is rewarding for everyone who attends.

If you would like to learn more about sexology and how sexological support could benefit your clients, please contact me to setup a time to speak or meet. I would be happy to come to your office to meet with you and the practitioners in your practice.
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Training:
A number of programs are being designed to help you support your clients in addressing their sexual challenges.  The SSECSI™ program (Sexual Spectrum Education and Counseling Skills Intensive) familiarizes you with the broad spectrum of sexual behavior practiced by your patients and offers counseling skills to address the sexual challenges your clients face.  This program will expand your knowledge about human sexuality and your comfort with your own sexuality and that of others.  It will also prepare you to ask questions about sexual issues and to handle the answers with comfort. Check back for scheduling information for this program and others.

If you are interested in setting up a customized training for colleagues, please contact me to discuss curriculum design.
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Coordinating Care:
My work is most effective as part of a multidisciplinary team.  I coordinate care with a variety of practitioners, including mental health professionals, pelvic floor physical therapists, urologists, gynecologists, physicians in sexual medicine, oncologists, gerontologists, nurse practitioners, physicians’ assistants, general practitioners, midwives, doulas, osteopaths, somatic practitioners, etc.
 
If you think we could work well together to support clients in healing and growth, please contact me in order to get acquainted.
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Frequently Asked Questions by Practitioners:

I am a therapist and my client requires ongoing treatment. Can we work together so that you help with just the sexual issues?
Absolutely.  I am not a therapist or medical doctor and I do not provide therapy or medical treatment.  I am a facilitator, which means I do not treat, heal or cure anyone.  I help clients to identify their sexual goals and empower them to meet their goals by providing education, support and training in appropriate tools.  I encourage conscious recognition and acceptance of their own needs and desires, as well as the inner strength required to manage their own growth and healing process at their own pace.

Because I offer tools to clients that illuminate and help them navigate their own sexual paths, they don’t need me for long.  Clients typically see me for 1-8 sessions.  Sometimes they return at a later date in order to meet a new goal.    

I will also send clients to you.  Often people with sexual concerns find that the sources of their problems are not sexual.  When deeper issues are uncovered that require exploration, I refer clients to therapists.   I will be happy to coordinate care if a client requests a team approach and has provided written consent to discuss private information.
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When is the right time to refer a patient with a health condition to you?
Each client requires sexological support at different points, but these are some times that are often appropriate:

1. At diagnosis. 
Often the first question patients have when they have been diagnosed with a chronic illness or an illness that will require invasive treatment is “how will this affect my sex life?” 

When an illness is life-threatening, patients can feel ashamed to ask this question because quality of life seems to pale in comparison with questions of survival.  Information about how procedures could affect quality of life, including sexual functioning, helps patients to feel better prepared to make treatment decisions.  Having an advocate who values and can discuss sexuality can facilitate decision-making that balances crisis management with desire for residual function. 

In addition, clients who are provided at the beginning of the process with resources to help maintain pleasurable activity throughout treatment or to rehabilitate sexually when they are ready to address the future can cope better with the illness and its recovery.  This is because a facilitator trained to address clients’ fears about their sexual futures can help reduce anxiety and offer a sense of control in an otherwise powerless situation. 

When an illness is chronic, patients can go through the stages of grief for loss of their former lives or abilities.  When people endure pain over long periods of time, they tend to disengage from their bodies, and consequently, from sexual interaction.  Pain can also cause people to avoid sexual behavior.  Loss of sexual ability or connection can lead to loss of identity and confidence; people who no longer perform as they used to sexually have described feeling like they are not “performing their duties” as partners, like they are “less than human,” or “freaks of nature.”  Working with a sexologist who can understand these changes and provide pleasurable options at an early stage can facilitate coping and maintenance of identity.
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2. When partners become involved in treatment.
Patients willing to involve partners in their healing are often encouraged by practitioners to do so, as it can give clients a sense of control over their healing processes, facilitate healing, and enhance relationships.  Bringing in a clinical sexologist at that stage can enhance the transition process by encouraging communication about what this change in role means to each partner, by addressing the anxiety that comes along with trying new things, by addressing how treating sexual organs in a clinical manner could affect the sexual partnership, and by collaborating with couples to identify if and how the treatment be integrated into their sexual patterns.
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