Course Description

   Reclaiming Sexuality After Trauma is designed for mental health professionals seeking a deeper, integrative understanding of how trauma reshapes sexuality across emotional, developmental, relational, and neurobiological domains. Drawing from contemporary trauma science, sex therapy, attachment theory, and embodied approaches, this course reframes traumatized sexuality as a multidimensional condition that extends beyond traditional PTSD symptoms. Clinicians will explore how sexual trauma, childhood sexual abuse, military sexual trauma, and complex trauma contribute to disruptions in desire, arousal, pleasure, sexual self-concept, and relational safety. The course emphasizes that while evidence-based trauma treatments reduce PTSD symptoms, they do not reliably restore healthy sexual functioning, highlighting the need for sexuality-specific interventions. This course is NBCC and Florida board approved for 1 CE hour.

Please review the course materials prior to purchasing the course. Often, individuals will print a copy of the course worksheet to complete while they view the course material. Once you are ready to complete the course, please enroll in the course and complete the course requirements, including the course post-test and course survey. You will receive your certificate automatically for printing or downloading after achieving an 80% or higher on the post-test and completing the course survey. 

Reclaiming Sexuality After Trauma Course Text.pdf

Reclaiming Sexuality After Trauma Course Worksheet.pdf

Course Author:  Bryan Glazier, PhD, LMFT, LMHC,, FL Qualified MHC/MFT Supervisor 

Course Time/Location: 1 CE Hour, Location: www.directceu.com (web-based, asynchronous/home study) 

Course Text: Reclaiming Sexuality After Trauma

Course Board Approval Statement(s): NBCC, Florida Board Approved

Directceu, llc has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider, ACEP No. 7411. directceu, llc maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

directceu, llc (BAP # 50-17578) is approved by the Florida Board of Clinical Social Work, Marriage and Family Therapy, and Mental Health Counseling. directceu, llc maintains responsibility for this program and its content.

 Financial Disclosure Statement

directceu, llc is committed to providing our professional colleagues with unbiased information. directceu does not accept commercial support and our course authors have no significant financial interests or other conflicts of interest pertaining to the material.

Learning Objectives:

Through the completion of this course, participants will be able to:

  1. Describe the multidimensional mechanisms, neurobiological, cognitive-emotional, relational, and somatic, through which trauma disrupts sexual desire, arousal, pleasure, and intimacy. 
  2. Differentiate PTSD symptom reduction from sexual recovery, explaining why standard trauma treatments rarely resolve trauma-related sexual difficulties. 
  3. Conduct a comprehensive trauma-informed sexual assessment, including sexual self-schema, relational dynamics, pelvic floor responses, avoidance patterns, and cultural context. 
  4. Apply integrative, evidence-informed interventions, mindfulness-based, CBT/sex therapy, relational, somatic, and pelvic floor strategies, to support sexual healing and embodied safety.


 Course Syllabus:

II. Introduction to Traumatized Sexuality

  • Defining traumatized sexuality
  • Distinctions between sexual trauma, non-sexual trauma, and sexual sequelae
  • Epidemiology and prevalence across populations

II. Conceptual & Theoretical Foundations

  • Ecological and developmental models
  • Neurobiological, relational, and identity-based mechanisms
  • PTSD vs. complex PTSD in sexual functioning

III. Sexual Self-Schema, Identity, and Attachment

  • Negative sexual self-beliefs
  • Attachment disruptions and relational safety
  • Emotion regulation and alexithymia

IV. Clinical Presentations & Symptom Profiles

  • Desire, arousal, orgasm, pain, avoidance
  • Pelvic floor hypertonicity and somatic responses
  • Dissociation, shame, and conditioned fear

V. Assessment & Case Formulation

  • Trauma history, sexual functioning, relational context
  • Validated measures and multimodal assessment
  • Cultural and minority-stress considerations

VI. Evidence-Based Trauma Treatments & Sexual Outcomes

  • CPT, PE, EMDR, DBT-PTSD, TF-CBT
  • Why these approaches minimally affect sexual functioning

VII. Treatments Targeting Traumatized Sexuality

  • Mindfulness-based sex therapy
  • CBT and schema interventions
  • Integrative trauma-informed sex therapy
  • Somatic, pelvic floor, and pain-focused interventions

VIII. Special Populations & Ethical Considerations

  • MST survivors
  • LGBTQ+ survivors

IX. Continuing Competence and Application to Practice

  • Professional Growth: Ongoing education in brief therapy models and telebehavioral practice
  • Outcome-Based Practice: Data-informed decision-making and accountability
  • Integration in Practice Settings: Primary care, EAPs, telehealth, and private practice applications
  • Reflective Practice: Lifelong learning, supervision, and ethical excellence