OUR FIRST FALL 2026 CE PROGRAMS ARE OPEN FOR REGISTRATION: ENROLL TODAY!
OUR FIRST FALL 2026 CE PROGRAMS ARE OPEN FOR REGISTRATION: ENROLL TODAY!
ACE Foundation Programs
This two-hour presentation empowers mental health professionals to see how routine clinical material can mask underlying sexual and intimacy themes that remain unaddressed in both individual therapy and couples treatment. Structured opportunities will be offered for exploring normative transitions such as work stress, financial anxiety, burnout, parenting issues, postpartum, grief, trauma, and family‑of‑origin dynamics, which may be quietly shaping emotional and sexual connection before clients explicitly identify them. Participants will learn how to identify these transitions/openings and respond with language that is welcoming, clinically grounded, and effective, so that intimacy can be explored with curiosity and openness. The presentation emphasizes permission-based inquiry, therapist comfort, and pacing as core skills that help clients feel safe enough to discuss avoidance, distress, and relational and sexual disconnection.
The session also includes practical sample wordings that therapists can adopt and adapt into their practice. It will cover clinical scenarios that invite discussion about how intimacy concerns emerge beneath presenting problems. Special attention is given to the role of avoidance, silence, and shame in limiting treatment progress, and to how skillful transitions can broaden the therapeutic conversation in all treatment modalities.
The presentation introduces proven sex‑therapy–informed strategies—including specific assessment questions, conversation templates, and intervention techniques—that therapists can comfortably integrate into their existing approaches. This deepens the treatment and addresses sexual and intimacy issues within any therapeutic frame. By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to recognize indirect indicators and subtle themes of intimacy concerns in client material. They will be able to initiate respectful, collaborative, and clinically appropriate dialogue about sex with greater confidence.
The presentation will conclude with a facilitated and optional 1/2 hour Q&A session where participants can share real cases, explore clinical questions, and get guidance on implementing sex-therapy–informed techniques in their current therapeutic approaches.
FOR CE CREDITS
NON-CEU CREDIT OPTIONS
Society Member – $55
Non-member – $75
Society Member – $60
Non-member – $40
Student – $30
*NYSSCSW Discount applies to NYSSCSW current members only.
**Student Discount only applies to full time students currently enrolled in social work and MHP master level programs.
Please register by Thursday, November 19 at 5pm.
Live Online via Zoom
The Advanced Clinical Education (ACE) Foundation of the NYS Society for Clinical Social Work, Inc. is recognized by the New York State Education Department’s State Board for Social Work as an approved provider of continuing education for licensed marriage and family therapists #MFT-0028; licensed mental health counselors #MHC-0045; licensed psychoanalysts #P-0017; licensed psychologists #PSY-0121; licensed social workers #SW-0056; and licensed creative art therapists #CAT-0120.
Out-of-state providers are welcome to request a certificate upon completion of the presentation evaluation but must check with their own state licensing boards to inquire about whether or not the certificate is recognized as transferrable for CEs in their state’s jurisdiction.
After attending this lecture, participants will be able to:
1. Identify common sexual and intimacy concerns, as well as life events and clinical presentations that may signal underlying sexual or relational difficulties in general psychotherapy practice.
2. Demonstrate increased comfort using respectful, clinically appropriate language to discuss sexuality and intimacy with clients.
3. Differentiate between concerns that can be addressed within general therapy practice and those requiring referral to a sex therapy specialist.
4. Apply basic assessment and intervention strategies to integrate discussions of intimacy and sexual wellbeing into routine clinical care.
Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, licensed psychoanalysts, nurse practitioners and family and marriage/couple therapists, mental health counselors and licensed creative art therapists.
This seminar is appropriate for clinicians with all levels of experience.
Brenda A. Lewis, LCSW, is a psychoanalytic psychotherapist and sex therapist in private practice in New York City, with a focus on individuals and couples. Drawing on psychoanalytic psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, behavioral and cognitive therapies, trauma work, and systems theory, she works with a wide range of concerns, including emotional intimacy challenges, sexual dysfunction, and complex relationship dynamics.
Her clinical specialties include sex therapy for individuals and couples, marital and premarital work, multicultural and acculturation themes, fertility and assisted reproductive technologies, parenting in natural, adoptive, and blended families, and trauma‑related presentations. She has extensive experience addressing sexuality and intimacy in the context of anxiety and depressive disorders, affect regulation, physical health concerns, career setbacks, and crisis.
Brenda provides individual supervision to therapists at all levels, with a particular focus on sex therapy and intimacy issues in diverse cultural and religious communities, including Orthodox and other ultra‑religious environments, Asian American, Hispanic, African American, LGBTQ, and immigrant populations. She also teaches and supervises Chinese psychoanalytic graduate students through the China American Psychoanalytic Alliance (CAPA), and has offered LGBTQ‑affirmative therapy seminars for PhD psychology externs at New York University.
Her education includes advanced psychoanalytic training and case presentation with Professor Martin Bergmann, fellowship training at the Greenwich Institute for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy, and an MSW from Yeshiva University’s Wurzweiler School of Social Work. She is the author of ABCs of Dating: A Guide to Love and Dating for the Openhearted, and has led numerous public workshops and ongoing groups on dating, sexuality, and relationships.
Brenda is an active member of AASECT, the American Psychoanalytic Association, the American Psychological Association, and multiple regional psychoanalytic and clinical social work societies, reflecting her commitment to integrative, contemporary, and ethically grounded sex therapy practice.
Contact Hours will be awarded once the entire course is completed, as evidenced by signing in and out and completing a course evaluation. Instructions for evaluating the presentation will be emailed within 5 days of the course date. Once evaluation is complete, CE certificate will be emailed to you.
ACE welcomes participants with diverse abilities. Please contact Kristin or Debbie at info.acefoundation@gmail.com, at time of registration, to request accessibility accommodations. Accommodation requests are considered in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities ACT (ADA), Section 505 of the Rehabilitation ACT.
Cancellations made at least five days before the event will be refunded less a 10% cancellation fee. For cancellation please call 1-800-288-4279, or email us at info.acefoundation@gmail.com.
Should Inclement weather occur, we will be notifying all registrants via the email by which the registrant signed up. Please be sure to check your email before you leave for the course.
Please visit our FAQ page to review our frequently asked questions.
