According to the American Psychological Association, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) therapists focus on what is happening in the client’s current life “rather than what has led up to their difficulties…the focus is to primarily on moving forward in time to develop more effective ways of coping with life” (https://www.apa.org/ptsd-guideline/patients-and-families/cognitive-behavioral.aspx. This approach marginalizes those who have generationally and contemporarily been impacted by the power dynamics of respectability and desirability politics which are informed by the defaults of societal and sexual assumptions and expectations of the western “melting pot”. Additionally, conventional CBT lacks addressing the skills, knowledge, and attitude a skilled clinician and educator must possess to navigate these power dynamics and often reinforce The Defaults of societal and sexual assumptions and expectations to become comprehensively affirming and inclusive. To correct the harm cited by marginalized people and communities caused by CBT and improve their experience and outcomes, psychotherapy and psychoeducation must be restructured to not only center the marginalization of one’s lived experience and the impact of The Defaults, it must become inclusive of historical (i.e. ancestral) care practices and approaches that honors the wholeness of marginalized people and their communities .
For both client and clinician not only does contemporary research also shows and provide evidence-based the healing science of the mind-body relationship and its importance to marginalized people particularly those who are not able-bodied, cisgender, and/or heterosexual within psychotherapy and psychoeducation, it shows the effectiveness of complementary and alternative medicine which is inclusive of one’ relationship to spirit, or the conscious awareness of one’s energy. The latter being a fundamental value for people of color, some of the most marginalized by cognitive behavior therapy and other western psychotherapeutic and education practices. Contemporary research shows professions like social work, counseling, and medicine still have a long way to go to be intentional and affirmatively inclusive of the spectrum of human sexuality, marginalized lived experiences, and wholeness.
Integrative Cognitive Behavior Therapy & Approach (I-CBT)
Queen's trauma-responsive approach consists of using a somatic psychotherapy system, Integrative Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & Approach (I-CBT) and Somatic Sex Therapy. Developed by Lena Queen, LCSW, M.E.d, I-CBT is a three (3) module integrative trauma-informedhealing model informed by a person's lived experience honoring the relationship between one's identity, power, systems of oppression, in addition to their relationship to desirability, both sexually and non-sexually. One's identity could include but is not limited to race, ethnicity/culture, gender, class, ability, spirituality and power. I-CBT is a somatic psychotherapy.
Integrative Cognitive Behavior ( I-CBT), is a 3-module healing model supports a client's intutive relationship between mind, body, and spirit that by creating embodied safety and self-trust. When adding a 4th module of non-touch sexological bodywork to I-CBT , this framework transforms into Somatic Sex Therapy, a justice-centred approach to sexological healing and wellness. Both healing modalities, I-CBT and Somatic Sex Therapy includes the social-emotional coaching system, SHIFT, which is comprised of 4 integrative care strategies.These evidence-based frameworks incorporate trauma-informed comprehensive sex education with mental health psychoeducation & mind-body education. intervention depending on the intensity of the discomfort experienced. Each has been shown to be effective for tweens, teens and adults.
For pre-school and elementary age children, I-CBT also includes the emotional coaching intervention Feel-Think-Do, which has been to be useful to younger humans in maintaining their emotional safety.
I-CBT focuses on the embodiment of one's lived experience by addressing the question-Who Am I? We process this embodiment as it informs a person’s relationship to Self and others and is the undercurrent of their decision-making and health of those relationships.
Note: The change from intersectional to integrative is explained by Dr. Crenshaw's clarification of the use of intersectionality and how it directs support and care, which integrative or the synergy of mind-body-spirit and more appropriate to describe the WHOLE-Self experience of our approach.
Informed by Sandra Bloom's Sanctuary Model, I-CBT can be used in a variety of professional and community settings including professional settings , life coaching settings, outpatient, inpatient, residential, community-based, community centers, and schools.
Somatic Sex Therapy
Somatic sexology is not a new concept to sexology (sex education & sex therapy), but often seen as fringe because it teaches client’s how to improve their mind-body connection (experience-focus) which is unlike traditional sex therapy’s sensate focus (i.e. outcome/orgasm-focus). Like many other helping professions, sexology must undergo a transformation to disrupt and de-center dominant narratives that assume heterosexuality and monogamy and challenge research that is framed in those dominant narratives, which are rooted in Euro-centric views and values (i.e. White supremacy).
With Black Sexual Epistemology’s The Erotic Self (Gilbert, 2019) and grounded in the intersectional pleasure-manifesto, Audre Lorde's Uses of the Erotic, Queen's brand of Somatic Sex Therapy is a 4-module decolonizing, intersectional queer and trans-affirming approach to sexology that is an integrative, healing-centered, & body-based approach to sex therapy.
Personal & Professional Development Institute
I-CBT & Somatic Sex Therapy training can only available provided by Lena Queen, LCSW. M.Ed.
Learn more about Queen's professional development trainings and workshops, visit here.
Learning from the lived experience of Black and other marginalized sexualities , their ancestral and generational wisdom, in addition to, evidence-based sexological research , Journey Wellness & Consulting provides a comprehensive way of delivering therapy and supportive services that challenges "the defaults" or dominant narratives of pleasure, sexuality, gender, and bodies.
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