POSA™ Blog

On April 17th, 2012 Lili and Terre hosted a Facebook live stream event with our friends from PornHarms on the devastating effects of porn on the partner of the user.

We felt our community may like a replay of this event We hope you are inspired, and will share it
with those you know who may benefit from seeing it, and promote it to your support networks.

At the APSATS training for Partner-Sensitive Trauma Treatment (in sex addiction) recently in Dallas, which I was fortunate enough to be enrolled in, I was particularly struck by one of the Board member's presentations. Dan Drake, an articulate and well-informed therapist trained in sex addiction presented on the many ways partners are often psychologically manipulated by their sex-addicted significant other and the effects thereof. His presentation of this often misunderstood and even more often unaddressed aspect of the partner's experience left me feeling relieved that this information was finally out there.Plus, I was inspired that he was teaching a whole generation of other therapists from the partner-sensitive trauma model.

I am sharing a transcript of my interview with Dan in the hopes that you, our faithful readers, will know that there will soon be an end to the days when one cannot find treatment providers (coaches and therapists) who work from a partner-sensitive perspective. The days are soon coming when the term "co-addict" will be a relic of the past.

APSATS TRAINING JUNE 26- JUNE 29, 2013 DALLAS, TEXAS

I caught up with Dr. Barbara Steffens and Richard Blankenship (another APSATS Board member & sex addiction therapist in GA) after the completion of the first-ever training to certify clinicians in the new partner-sensitive trauma treatment model. We were exhilarated and spent, having come through a four-day training so intense there wasn't even enough time for breaks. At night, we "processed" with our fellow trainees and stuffed ourselves on delicious Tex-Mex food in the 100-degree + heat of the Dallas summer.

I couldn't help but often feel emotionally overwhelmed during and especially after our training: there was grief at all that had been lost to those of us who had Discovery in the pre-trauma-model days. Grief not just for our own selves and our own relationships lost, but for those of many of our clients.

I'm delighted to introduce all our PoSARC readers to my interview with the author of Your Sexually Addicted Spouse, Dr. Barbara Steffans. I think you'll find her as warm, intelligent, compassionate and fiercely committed to helping partners of sex addicts as I did.

You can read our book review of Barbara (and Marsha Means') book here to learn why this read is so invaluable for those of us who wake up and find ourselves partnered with a sex addict/compulsive (SAC).

And....you can sign up to watch this free video series right now with the godmother of the Trauma Model for POSA in the video box on the homepage here.

I absolutely adored meeting Dr. Steffans and spending hours talking with her on all things POSA-related over the course of three long days. We met a couple of weeks ago at the First International Conference on Sex and Love Addiction here in New York and spent time every day connecting and sharing. Barbara was there to promoteAPSATS, her new certification program for clinicians to learn how to treat the partners of sex addicts using the Trauma Model.