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This 2 hour workshop will offer an overview of what happens in neural pathways during the development of romantic and sexual relationships. Janice Hiller will describe the brain processes underpinning couple relationships and sexual behaviour, drawing on recent neuroscientific research. Feelings of attachment, desire, and exhilaration at the start of a relationship are common, but pleasure during physical contact, and levels of emotional connectedness, frequently change over time, causing considerable distress. Positive and negative experiences between partners can now be described in terms of hormonal release and brain activation.
In this talk Janice will demonstrate how neuroscience can be integrated with psychotherapy, to provide a “neuropsychosexual” perspective, which, in her view, can enhance our current therapy techniques. Advanced imaging procedures and hormone testing methods offer fascinating insights into what happens in the brain during intimate couple interactions.
Why is sex often much more enjoyable at the start, and why do endings hurt so much? What brain factors underpin sex outside the committed relationship, and what brain changes occur in parents after childbirth? Is sex an essential part of long-term relationships or can partners stay together contentedly without physical intimacy?
Neurobiological research offers some answers to these questions. A neuropsychosexual approach can add valuable insights, and influence clinical work both subtly and directly, when clients are struggling with intimacy.
In this session Janice will offer an overview of what happens in neural pathways during the development of romantic and sexual relationships. Neuroscientific research into love and sex can add insights and depth to help make sense of the intense emotions accompanying initial romantic attraction, through to kissing, touch, arousal, orgasm, commitment, parenting, infidelity, and long-term relationships. Most notably Janice will share the research suggesting that couples who maintain rewarding partnerships have neural responses that show some similarity to the early stages of romantic attraction.
In this session Janice will offer case material to illustrate how she applies neuroscience to deeply inform and support her work with couples and individuals who are struggling with sexual intimacy. The talk will offer ways to help therapists to raise the subject of sex in the consulting room aswell as offer psychoeducation to clients. For those already experienced in working with sexual issues you will deepen knowledge into the underlying neurological complexities involved the work.
An opportunity to ask Janice Hiller questions relating to the presentation and how you might integrate her thinking into your clinical practice.
Janice Hiller is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist who worked in the NHS in adult mental health initially, before specialising in sexology. She set up and ran a Relationship and Psychosexual Service in North East London for many years and left to join Tavistock Relationships as an academic tutor in psychosexual studies, until 2017. Janice has taught on doctoral degree and training courses, presented at many conferences in the UK and abroad, and has published on a range of topics. These include sexual arousal and desire, pain disorders, biopsychosocial factors in sexual development, and neurobiological aspects of sexual responding. She was joint editor and contributor to Hiller, Wood, and Bolton: Sex, Mind, and Emotion (2006), and co-wrote a chapter for the European-wide Syllabus of Clinical Sexology. Janice has a private practice in North London and is especially interested in interested in biopsychosocial factors in sexual and gender development, and the contribution neuroscience can make to the understanding of sexual behaviour.
Standard Registration: £70
Trainee and NHS staff: £59.50
Group Rates (for 4 or more): Contact makeritafaumui@trtogether.com for customised pricing.
Trainee discount: To qualify for this offer you need to be taking a course which provides core practitioner training in counselling or psychotherapy that is at least 1 year full time or two years part time and recognised by the BACP or UKCP. TR Together reserve the right to ask to see evidence of training being undertaken.
Alumni: If you are a TR Alumni (TRAPC member) please email anitabruz@tavistockrelationships.org for a discount code to add at checkout
Your CPD Certificate will be available to download from your TR Together account 48 hours after the event.