Workshop in Tuscany with Esther Perel, MFT - The Paradox of Intimacy and Sexuality

• Why does great sex so often fade for couples who claim to love each other as much as ever?
• Can we want what we already have?
• Why does the transition to parenthood so often spell erotic disaster? 
• Why does good intimacy not guarantee great sex?

Based on the international bestseller: Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence (translated into 25 languages), this bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex grapples with the obstacles and anxieties that arise when our quest for secure love conflicts with our pursuit of passion.

The story of intimacy and sexuality in committed modern couples is one that often tells of dwindling desire that includes a long list of alibis, claiming to explain the inescapable weakening of erotic connection. The absence of fantasy, the proliferation of pornography and affairs, as well as a lack of understanding of the nature of erotic desire all contribute to this predicament. Lust, Romantic Love and attachment live in dynamic tension in our brains as well as in our lives.

In this workshop we will explore how our need for secure attachment and closeness co-exists with our quest for separateness and freedom. We will probe the intricacies of love and desire, how they can be inseparable, or incompatible and we will map the connections between partners’ attachment orientation and their sexual feelings and behaviors.  You will learn how erotic blueprints are formed, how our emotional history expresses itself in our sexual fantasies and in the physicality of sex.

The workshop will introduce an original approach to treat the decline of desire during parenthood.  We will show how to grant the body its profound capacities for emotional expressiveness reaching beyond intimacy as mere verbal communication.

In this workshop we will also examine the cultural pressures that shape domesticated sex and the puzzling inverse correlation between greater emotional intimacy and loss of sexual desire. Through clinical case material, exercises and video vignettes, Esther will introduce innovative strategies to help couples reconcile their needs for safety and stability with the excitement and novelty inherent in erotic pleasure.

This model applies to married and unmarried, heterosexual and same sex couples.

 Learning objectives:    

• Describe the tension between two fundamental human needs of security and adventure;
• Show how couples can balance their need for secure attachment with the quest for freedom;
• Offer a nuanced, relative and multicultural understanding of the differing notions of love, marriage and sexual behaviors, and to highlight the relation between culture and sexuality; 
• Clarify erotic Blueprints:  Understand how the psychology of desire is buried in the details of our childhood and how our emotional history is expressed in the physicality of sex;
• Examine the puzzling inverse correlation of increased emotional intimacy and decreased sexual desire; 
• Explore the differences between sexuality and eroticism and layout the concept of multiple sexualities;
• Present an original approach to treat the decline of desire during parenthood;
• Discuss the meaning of affairs, dilemmas around truth telling and boundaries, and rethink infidelity.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe the tension between our needs for connection and autonomy; 
• Invert the traditional therapeutic priorities thereby allowing the sexual relationship to serve as a lens into the intra-psychic layers and the couple’s interpersonal dynamics; 
• Develop therapeutic interventions to unlock erotic blocks and cultivate eroticism in couples;
• Recognize how to grant the body its profound capacities for communicating in its own language;
• Map ways for couples to draw pleasure from the hidden and the mysterious while respecting their needs for safety and stability; 
• Utilize experiential exercises to help couples confront their emotional blocks and their sexual inhibitions thereby open up communication of their erotic strivings to each other; 
• Facilitate clients voicing their erotic longings and moving beyond their familiar comfort zone into an expansive, fully charged sexuality. The workshop combines formal teaching, small group discussions, clinical case material, exercises and video vignettes.

Esther Perel, MFT

Esther Perel, one of the world’s most respected voices on erotic intelligence, is the author of Mating in Captivity, now available in 25 languages. Perel brings a rich multicultural perspective to her work as a couples and family therapist in New York City. She is an acknowledged authority on couple therapy, cross-cultural relations, and culture and sexuality.

Fluent in nine languages, Ms. Perel is frequent keynote speaker around the world. She has been interviewed in leading publications such as The Washington Post, The New Yorker, Vogue, More, (Haaretz, Stern, La Republica, The Guardian and the Observer, The Sydney Morning Herald, and the Australian.). Esther was named one of Elle Magazine’s 2007 IntELLEligentia and she is the recipient of the 2009 book award for Society for Sex therapy and Research. She has appeared on multiple television shows including the Oprah Winfrey Show, The Today show, CBS this morning.

Ms. Perel serves on the faculty of The Family Studies Unit, Department of Psychiatry, New York University Medical Center and The International Trauma Studies Program affiliated with Columbia University. She is a member of the American Family Therapy Academy and the Society for Sex Therapy and Research.

Workshop Schedule:

Friday 19 June: 7pm Welcome Reception
Saturday 20 June 9am to 1pm Workshop
Sunday 21 June 9am to 1pm Workshop
Monday 22 June 9am to 1pm Workshop
Tuesday 23 June 9am to 1pm Workshop

18 continuing education credits will be available for a wide variety of healthcare professionals.

Registration Fees:

Licensed Professional: $795.00 USD
Student or Intern: $595.00 USD

€ 133,00 triple

Group Rates: Please inquire ..... send an email to info@italyseminars.com with the names in your group. Then we will create individual invoices or each member of the group.

To check currency conversion rates go to: http://www.xe.com/.

What is included?

• Welcome Reception and Buffet Dinner (spouses/partners pay a nominal fee)
  
• Walking Tour of Old Lucca
• Shuttle to Downtown Lucca or Pisa each day
  
• Discounted Hotel and Meal rates at the Villa Rinacimento (breakfast included in room rates)
  
• Local expertise on excursions
  

Friday, June 19, 2009 at 7:00 PM
- to -
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 1:00 PM (GMT+0100)

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Pronto Seminars

PRONTO SEMINARS provides high quality workshops and retreats in Italy featuring participants and their families who come from all over the world and from several related disciplines. This is a wonderful opportunity to travel into local Italian culture with international colleagues and their families! Space is limited.

Professionals can obtain continuing education credits (CE and CME) while enjoying the beauty of Italy. We provide an affordable way to combine work and pleasure.

Our classes are designed so that your afternoons are free to wander through the countryside, have a wonderful meal, or visit a museum. Our participants tell us that learning in this environment, at a more relaxed pace, allows for a full integration of new material and practices.

Unlike large symposia and conferences, we aim to create an intimate setting where the presenter is available in a less formal way, where colleagues from all over the world get to know each other while enjoying the delights of Italy.

In June 2010 we are looking forward to enjoying (again!) the heart of Tuscany. The venue is 15 minutes by car from downtown Lucca and downtown Pisa, nestled in the Tuscan hills.

English is the main language of our workshops.

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