Sexuality & Gender Special Interest Group

Moderated by Offer Maurer and Nicole Manktelow

Gender and sexuality are two psychologically central and intertwined topics. Both run deep and have far-reaching influences for all human beings' lives. To date, the Schema Therapy formal literature and informal discourse have both left these issues largely unexplored. As a consequence, the ways in which needs, schemas, coping styles and modes are implicated in people's sexuality and gender are still very much unknown. Our new special interest group will focus its discussions on questions pertaining to sexuality and gender through a Schema Therapy lens. We will use various platforms to ask how should we best understand and treat sexual difficulties and dysfunctions using the ST model? Are there gender-specific schemas and/or modes, and if so, how should we work with these? Does gender multiplicity have any connection to mode multiplicity? And how do therapists' and clients' perceptions (schemas?) regarding gender and sexuality work together to promote or mute internal realities and experiences? These and many other issues will be at the heart of this new group's activity.

The Sexuality and Gender SIG will be meeting monthly (excluding July and August), usually on the second week of each month on Tuesday at 3PM (EST) which is 12AM (PST) and 8PM (London). 

All ISST members are welcome to join us. You don’t have to be an expert in sexuality or gender issues to join the SIG and attend the online forum. You will be part of a warm and vibrant group of colleagues who have different levels of expertise in the sexuality and gender field. 

Our meetings will be one hour long and we will use the Go to Meeting online platform. You will be sent a link to log in to our meetings using your computer, iPads , smart phones, or a telephone line.

The inaugural meeting will be at 3 P.M. Eastern Time on December 12th (with the following meeting on January 9th).

If you are interested in joining our group please contact Offer Maurer, one of the SIG's co-chairs: EMAIL

Warmly

Offer Maurer & Nicole Manktelow

Moderators' Bios

Offer Maurer Ph.D.is a clinical psychologist, the director of 'The New Wave in Psychotherapy  Program' at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Hertzeliya and the founding director of the ‘Gay-Friendly Therapists Team’, the first LGBT-friendly psychotherapy institute in Israel (15 years ago). He is the co-founder of the Israeli Institute for Schema Therapy and the Chairperson of the Israeli Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy. Dr. Maurer is a guest lecturer at various international programs on LGBT issues, Schema Therapy and psychotherapy integration. Contributed together with Eshkol Rafaeli chapters to edited volumes on Working with Emotion in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (Guilford, 2014) and on The Self in Understanding and Treating Psychological Disorders (Oxford Univ. Press, 2016).

Dr Nicole Manktelow is a clinical psychologist and queer feminist with 25 years clinical experience. She has worked in acute mental health community and inpatient settings with adults and adolescents, correctional settings and as Clinical Director for Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia. She has an interest in critical and queer intersectional feminist psychology and supervising clinicians in feminist practice. 

Nicole started her schema therapy journey in 2014 and hasn't looked back. Nicole offers keen clinical insights gleaned from her years of experience as a therapist and supervisor working with complex clinical presentations. Nicole currently works in private practice where she practices schema therapy and supervises clinicians seeking schema accreditation.