Gary Katz, LCSW, CSAT, CPTT, and Jennifer Acker, LCSW, CSAT-S, CPTT-S
Dear Colleague
Our understanding of secret sexual lives and betrayal trauma has changed drastically in the past 10 years.
In fact, for the longest time, psychotherapists were taught to treat the betrayed partner in ways that are actually harmful, because we didn’t fully understand the trauma that comes with betrayal and how to break through the entitlement of the betraying partner.
This relatively new field of study recommends a radically different approach to helping couples.
Join us for Secret Sexual Lives and Betrayal Trauma: Repairing the Most Damaging Wounds to Intimacy to learn the latest and most effective way to help couples and individuals in crisis.
In this training, you will learn to identify the different types of trauma present in a couple, the psychological layers of the betraying partner, how to recognize “difficult dynamics” for the couple, and how to hold each person accountable with dignity. You’ll also get the latest research into entitlement, couple dynamics, the layers beneath narcissism, and more so that you can be the most effective in helping couples rebuild and repair.
Over the course of six modules that include video sessions with Gary Katz and recorded Q&A calls co-taught by Gary Katz and Jennifer Acker, we will study:
- Betrayal Trauma
- Part 1: What it Is, Origins, and Evolution of Treatment
- Part 2: Impacts, Types, and Treatment
- Secret Sexual Behaviors and Entitlement
- Part 1: The Role of Gender
- Part 2: Why Do People Hurt the One They Love Through Secret Sexual Lives?
- A Roadmap for Working with the Couple
- Part 1: The First Session to The First Year
- Part 2: Therapeutic Disclosure and Continuing Treatment
This is a non-shaming, non-pathologizing way of treating couples who want to repair their ruptured relationships.
With all the unprecedented stress we’ve collectively experienced over the past two years, so many couples need your help more than ever.
We look forward to seeing you inside the course!
Six Video Training Modules with Gary Katz
Six Q&A Call Recordings with Gary Katz and Jennifer Acker
Academy of Therapy Wisdom Membership Site
Secret Sexual Lives and Betrayal Trauma Takehomes
Here’s Everything That’s Included
Essential Glossary of Betrayal Trauma and Secret Sexual Lives Terminology PDF
This glossary will provide a quick reference guide for key terminology in the course.
Causes of Compulsive Sexual Behaviors Informational Graphic
Quickly review the possible causes of compulsive sexual behavior so that you can identify what might be present in your clients.
Disclosure Document Template
This example of a disclosure will help guide you and the betraying partner in sharing the details of their secret life.
Emotional Impact Letter Template
When working with the betrayed partner, this template will help them express their feelings clearly to their partner.
Letter of Restitution Template
You can use this guide to help couples create a shared vision of their repaired relationship.
Therapeutic Disclosure: A Guide for the Therapist PDF
This provides you with a step-by-step guide for determining if, when, and how to disclose information from the betraying partner’s secret sexual life.
Introduction Video: Challenges of Creating Lasting Change when There has Been Betrayal
This video helps you identify some of the issues that could arise when helping a couple repair the rupture between them.
Exclusive Video with Gary Katz: Is Sex Addiction Real?
Sex Addiction is a controversial subject. Learn more about the nuances of compulsive sexual behaviors and how to identify them.
Bonus Business Training Video from Gary Katz: How to set up your practice to help these clients
This video looks at the business side of therapy to help you create an environment that fosters healing for couples in crisis.
PLUS These Bonuses…
Betrayal Trauma: What it Is, Origins, and Evolution of Treatment
In this first module, we will look at the evolution of approaches to treating betrayed partners and the ways that partners can be harmed if treated with outdated methods. We will also look at the evolution from the codependency approach to the betrayal trauma approach, and how the impacts of betrayal trauma meet nearly all of the criteria for PTSD and, sometimes, Complex PTSD. We will examine some of the misdiagnoses of partners who have undergone betrayal trauma and how to differentiate between the misdiagnoses and betrayal trauma.
You will learn:
- What betrayal trauma is and how the concept developed
- What is the most damaging phase of betrayal trauma
- How the symptoms of PTSD and Complex PTSD are present in those who have experienced betrayal trauma
- What happens that causes betrayed partners to almost always say, “I don’t even recognize myself anymore.”
Betrayal Trauma: Impacts, Types, and Treatment
Attachment Theory has given us an additional understanding of how our sense of self-worth, as well as feelings of security and safety, evolve. These feelings continue to be affected by our attachments throughout life, and especially our attachment to our primary partner. Understanding attachment is essential to understanding the depth and breadth of the impact of betrayal trauma. We will take an in-depth look at what happens in each of the three phases of betrayal trauma so that you will be prepared to help partners through each phase.
You will learn:
- The different types of ‘discovery’ that lead to betrayal trauma
- How betrayal trauma fragments one’s sense of reality
- The different types of impacts that betrayal trauma can have on a person
- The different types of trauma embedded in betrayal trauma
Secret Sexual Behaviors and Entitlement
Part 1: The Role of Gender
In this session, we will explore how gender roles impact both men and women as a result of the unique expectations placed on them that are caused by how we socialize boys and girls. We will also look at how this can lead to deprivation of intimacy and nurturance, which can result in seeking secret sexual lives. Additionally, we will examine how one’s relationship with sexuality and early experiences around it has the potential to create secret sexual lives.
You will learn:
- How our roles of gender make it easier for men to be dismissive of women’s feelings
- Why empathy seems so hard for men when their partners are hurting
- How emotional illiteracy creates shame and how shame can actually be a way to help get in touch with feelings
- How entitlement enables the creation of secret sexual lives and disregards the harm it causes
Secret Sexual Behaviors and Entitlement
Part 2: Why Do People Hurt the One They Love Through Secret Sexual Lives?
When working with clients, getting specific details of their sexual behaviors often provides insight into how they may be stuck in a trauma reenactment or an attempt to gain mastery over it. In this module, we will review additional underlying causes of secret sexual behaviors connected to trauma and how to look for them when assessing a client. We will also touch on how culture, religion, and family structures can play a role in secret sexual lives.
You will learn:
- How to help clients understand the origin of their secret sexual behaviors so they can begin to see themselves with more self-compassion
- How to help clients connect their childhood experiences to their adult behaviors
- How traumatic splits shape personality and lead to compartmentalization
- How to treat clients with both the compulsion and entitlement of secret sexual behaviors
Roadmap for Working with the Couple
Part 1: The First Session to The First Year
It is important to become familiar with the common ways couples react and what they do during therapy so you can let them know what to expect and how to handle conflict. There are common themes and experiences that arise so that when they do show up in sessions, you can guide the couple with a knowing, steady hand. We will look at what to do in your first sessions with clients and how it is crucial to setting the tone for the remainder of the work to be done.
You will learn:
- How to help a couple feel held by you, the therapist
- How to work with a couple when you know there is still dishonesty happening in the relationship and in therapy
- How to care for yourself when dealing with intense couples
- What to expect the couple to deal with in the first few weeks and months and how to effectively work with them
Roadmap for Working with the Couple
Part 2: Therapeutic Disclosure and Continuing Treatment
In our final module, we will discuss the continued repair for the couple over the next year and the typical challenges they experience. We will also walk through the formal therapeutic disclosure process and discuss how to prepare for it and facilitate it so that the couple has the best chance possible for a healing experience of creating repair and new trust in the relationship.
You will learn:
- What to expect the couple to experience in the second year post-discovery
- How to use the process of therapeutic disclosure to create a relationship of transparency and trust
- When a therapeutic disclosure is helpful and when it is damaging
- What an emotional impact letter is and how it can give voice to the betrayed partner, increase safety, and help repair the ruptures created by betrayal
Here’s What You’ll Learn Inside Secret Sexual Lives and Betrayal Trauma
Meet your presenters
Gary Katz, LCSW, CSAT, CPTT
Gary Katz, LCSW, CSAT, CPTT, is the founder of The Center for Intimacy Recovery and Seen Therapy at the Center for Women’s Intimacy, in New York. Both of his practices focus primarily on intimacy and relationships. Gary has found that without a sense of intimacy with oneself, people can’t fully experience intimacy with someone else. He believes that because our hearts are fragile and we develop strategies to keep them safe and avoid getting hurt. Often these strategies later become maladaptive and stop serving us or they hold us back from achieving the connection and intimacy we are actually seeking. The Center for Intimacy Recovery and Seen Therapy both help clients to find ways to have the intimacy and connection in life that they are seeking.
Jennifer Acker, LCSW, CSAT-S, CPTT-S
Jennifer Acker, LCSW, CSAT-S, CPTT-S, focuses on helping clients develop and maintain authentic and fulfilling relationships with the self, first and foremost, and, secondly, with others. She is certified in sex addiction treatment (CSAT), sensorimotor psychotherapy (SP), trauma-sensitive HeartMath, post-induction training (PIT), intensive somatic attachment and trauma resolution, and eye movement desensitization reprocessing (EMDR). Most recently she has trained with Dana Childs in energy healing and Kelly McDaniel in Mother Hunger work. Jen has found that each one of these techniques relates to one another, and she uses them all organically depending on what seems appropriate for each client, giving each person their own unique recipe of treatment.
Karen Kennedy –
Secret Sexual Lives and Betrayal Trauma: Repairing the Most Damaging Wounds to Intimacy was was one of the best courses I’ve taken. It helped solidify some of what I already knew and was working with while opening up further information that has become invaluable within my practice. I have increased my wisdom to deal with infidelity that can seem insurmountable to the client, sometimes even to me, and gives me the courage and continued compassion to stay the path.