I offer various Workshops, seminars, training and speaking opportunities around issues involving Gender, Sexual and Relational Diversity. In particular male (homo) sexuality and masculinity, rites-of-passage into adulthood, intergenerational connection and mentorship, Leathersex and spirituality.  

CPD Workshop: Working Transpersonally with GSRD Clients

I can provide a weekend CPD Training workshop together with my colleague Gian Montagna on Working Transpersonally with Gender, Sexual and Relationally Diverse Clients. This is, at present, an online, interactive workshop for counsellors and psychotherapists who want to become more confident in working transpersonally with GSRD clients.

You can read my blogpost/article about this workshop here and if you are interested in us putting this Workshop on for you, please drop me a line.

The Workshops outlined below are now available in adapted Half-day or Full-day formats:

Workshop 1: Introduction to Gay Leather(sexuality)

“Combining a presentation of original field research data, together with transpersonal psychotherapeutic techniques, guided visualisations, historical material and fictional/non-fictional narrative stories, Nick will guide you, theoretically and experientally, through the lived experience of some gay men who explore their sexuality through fetish, BDSM, kink or Leather. Though specifically a gay, masculine, journey, the knowledge and wisdom shared from gay male ancestry is relevant to anybody, regardless of where you are along your own sexual and gender identity spectrum. The Workshop offers a meaningful and coherent model for viewing sexuality and relationships other than the ‘normative’ model  of heterosexual monogamy.“

Workshop 2: Working and living with ‘Gay Male Sexuality, Kink/BDSM and Spirituality’

“Expanding on the Introduction to Gay Leather Workshop outlined above,  Nick will guide you, theoretically and experientally, through the lived experience of gay men who explore their sexuality through fetish, BDSM, kink or Leather and offer up some suggestions for the possible implications around mental/physical and spiritual health. It offers useful guidance for people either living, or working with those living, alternative sexualities and relationships. Though specifically a gay, masculine, journey, the knowledge and wisdom shared from gay male ancestry is relevant to anybody, regardless of where you, or your clients, are along your/their own sexual and gender identity spectrum.“

Workshop 3: New Directions in Gender, Sexual and Relational Diversity: A Leathersex and Transpersonal Perspective for Therapeutic Training and Practice

“Based on a more professional and clinical focus to the workshops on Leather(sexuality) described above, Nick will guide you, theoretically and experientally, through the lived experience of gay men who explore their sexuality through fetish, BDSM, kink or Leather. Using the lens of the Transpersonal Psychotherapeutic model of Psychosynthesis, Nick will offer up some suggestions for the possible clinical implications of working with GSRD clients, and in particular, gay men who explore their sexuality through Leather/kink/BDSM or alternative sexualities and relationships.”

If you would like to discuss me holding a Workshop for you, if you would like me to present a talk, or if you are looking for someone to facilitate seminars around any of the areas I specialise in, please contact me here or give me a call on +44 (0)203 637 6566.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Recent Talks/Presentations/Workshops

CPD Workshop: Working Transpersonally with GSRD Clients

On 19 & 20th June 2021 I held a weekend CPD Training workshop together with my colleague Gian Montagna, on behalf of the Psychosynthesis Trust in London. It was an online, interactive workshop for counsellors and psychotherapists who want to become more confident in working transpersonally with GSRD clients.

You can read my blogpost/article about this workshop here

BDSM, Kink, Dominance & submission: Relational Dynamics, their shadows and the impact of Chemsex

On 26th February 2021 I presented the above to the Chemsex Crime Professionals Group of the Prison & Probation Service. This Presentation talked about BDSM and kink and the impact that Chemsex can have in this area of sexuality.

Kink and The Transpersonal

On 26th October 2018 I presented a workshop at Pink Therapy’s From the Bottom to the Top: Emerging Trends in Therapy & BDSM Conference:

Many people who engage in a ‘kinky’ sexuality have reported odd experiences that lend themselves to description in spiritual terms. They often include a number of rituals and rites that perform something of a devotional function and involve the explorations of transformed internal states that ‘feel’ spiritual, mystical or numinous in nature. Feelings of transcendence, healing, euphoria, intimate union with your partner(s), your god(s), even the entire universe. Many have described a profound and highly ethical process of personal awakening. However, it can also be experienced as a critical, experientially difficult and even traumatic psychological transformation that involves one’s entire being. These experiences are often so personal, so private, so…different, that we feel unable or afraid to discuss them with others. In this session, Nick will explore some of the experiences and issues involved, introduce the concepts of ‘Spiritual Emergence’ and ‘Spiritual Emergency’ and offer up a transformed sexual, spiritual and self-actualisation process that could be considered in therapy and therapeutic training.

Gay Men, Leather and the search for spirituality & meaning – A Transpersonal Journey through Gay Leathersex. 

On Saturday 25th March 2017, I presented a shorter, introductory version of an earlier Workshop (see below) at Pink Therapy’s Fifth International Annual Conference.You can see a video of the presentation here.

  

Adapted from the half-day workshop shown below, this shorter, introductory presentation will attempt to provide a summary of the findings and open up a psychological space between BDSM, male homosexuality and psychotherapy. Splicing reflections on my own life experiences and therapeutic modelling during training with those of three interviewees, I offer up a non-pathological guide to Gay Leathersex and diverse lifestyle communities, and an opportunity for a transformed sexual, spiritual and self-actualisation process that could be considered in therapy and therapeutic training.

It also had   approval for 6hrs CPD per day

Living Gay Leathersex, a relational source on alternative sexualities for therapeutic training and practice

      

On 3rd June 2016, I presented a Workshop at the International Psychosynthesis Congress: Psychosynthesis for the Future, in Taormina, Italy entitled: Living Gay Leathersex, a relational source on alternative sexualities for therapeutic training and practice

Based on original research for an MA and 2 Chapters for a book on Gender & Sexual Diversity due to be published shortly, this workshop attempted to open up a psychological space between BDSM, male homosexuality and psychotherapy. Splicing reflections on my own life experiences and therapeutic modelling during training, with those of three interviewees, I applied Psychosynthesis and Person Centred psychotherapy methodology to identify and validate psychological states of mind that can be experienced in gay male homosexuality. I discussed the  psychological equality that can exist in BDSM and looked at the meaning of transpersonal as an intimate connectedness and self-actualising process between sexual partners and within sexual communities. Further, I considered comparisons between psychological shifts/position in Gay Leathersex and conventional therapeutic sessions to advance Psychosynthesis and Assagioli’s take on sexuality further. I offered up  non-pathological guide to Gay Leathersex, alternative lifestyle communities and an alternative opportunity for a transformed sexuality, spirituality and self-actualisation process that could be used in therapy and therapeutic training.