On September 16th and 17th, the Sexual Health Alliance hosted an incredibly illuminating and truly sexceptional summit, learning more about the science behind relationships. We were joined by a range of professionals—in the field of psychology field and beyond—such as Dr. Marie Thouin, Dr. Lisa Neff, Dr. Sarah Stanton, Dr. Bill Chopik, Laura Vowels, Dr. Dylan Selterman, Dr. Nicole Prause, Dr. Taylor Kohut, Dr. Christopher Agnew, and Dr. Lisa Diamond. A special thank you goes out to Dr. Rhonda Balzarini both for her powerful lecture and for organizing this summit. Our students extended their knowledge of traditional attachment theory and learned more about some key predictors of committed, successful, and satisfying relationships. The tools and knowledge acquired through this weekend experience are sure to aid our students both in their careers as clinicians and other helping professions as well as in reflecting on their own personal relationships.
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Day One — Saturday, September 16th
Our day began with Dr. Chris Agnew, who talked about commitment in relationships. Our students were introduced to the investment model, a leading model over the last decades of research which suggests that satisfaction level, quality of alternatives, and investment size (be that children, money, mutual networks, etc.) all predict and give rise to commitment. In response to the traditional investment mode, Agnew’s presentation considered the factor of time, seeking to validate or disprove the whole “right person, wrong time” quandary and taking more into account the individual's receptivity to a relationship: did they desire and feel ready for one?
After this, Dr. Lisa Neff explored the idea that relationship maintenance might be challenging despite both parties putting in the effort and having the traditional tools we often talk about in therapy settings. Neff went on to suggest that some very “fragile” relationships without the good communication and tools we often talk about may survive forever because they never encounter a toxic environment, whereas other relationships which are very strong on paper don’t survive because of those very toxic environments. Neff concluded by encouraging our students to look at relationships from the perspective of a civil engineer: a structure's durability is relative to the environmental forces it can withstand without disintegrating.
Our final speaker before lunch was Dr. Anik Debrot, who talked to our students about the benefits of physical touch in healthy relationships. She began by explaining how touch is an inherent part of the human functioning both in stages of early development as well as throughout the later courses of life. Debrot spoke to the COVID19 pandemic, where many were starved of touch due to social distancing measures, and reflected on touch in relation to people who had experienced intimate partner violence to highlight the nuances in the claims surrounding the benefits of touch in relationships and personal well-being.
After lunch, Dr. Bill Chopik talked about attachment style and its development across the course of life. After revisiting well-known aspects of attachment theory, Chopik discussed how research has largely disregarded what happens to our attachment and attitudes to relationships as we continue into later adulthood and older age. The data presented by Chopik supggested some baseline stability in regards to attachment style, but also that the relationships we have during life come to shape and change us. Based on these findings, Chopik concluded by encouraging our students to reflect on attachment buffering processes in order to help guide their clients towards more secure attachment styles.
Next up was our conference organizer, Dr. Rhonda Balzarini, who talked to us about how the grass is often greenest where you water it. In a world where alternatives are increasingly easy to come across and it is easier than ever to compare relationships with others, many couples see a gap between their ideal and their real relationships. Balzarini highlighted how responsiveness in particular could act as a moderator during stressful times and highlighted the importance of revitalizing self-expansion and novelty in relationships in order to avoid relational boredom.
Our first day was concluded with Dr. Marie Thouin, who offered our students a fresh perspective on break-ups. She highlighted the importance of not stigmatizing breakups or seeing them as a failure, but rather to consider them a natural and likely part of a relationship cycle. We broke down a lot of common myths such as that according to which the longevity of a relationship is a key indicator of success and the myth that it's impossible to be friends with an ex. In response to this dealing with the grief that commonly comes along with a beak-up, Thouin discussed treating it largely like other grieving processes—which require time and reflection.
Day two — Sunday, September 17th
The second day of the conference began with a talk from Dr. Laura Vowels, who talked to our students about discrepancies in desire between couples. Vowels highlighted how often the lower desire partner is problematized and that many treatments seek to manage this in some way which might be failing to address the issue more concretely which can lie more within attachment theory and how different attachment types interact. We examined what we might think of as “pursuit and withdrawal” cycles, which can trigger both partners and reaffirms their negative beliefs about themselves.
Next up, we heard from Dr. Taylor Kohut, who dove deeper into the topic of pornography. Kohut critiqued multiple previous studies on pornography and highlighted how many tend to simply assume porn is the causal agent of some negative change. Kohut suggested through his research that the common denominator between porn use and infidelity has to do largely with gender and may reflect in general the societal permission and socialization processes that influence the behaviors of cisgender men. Kohut also talked about his research on porn use and relationship satisfaction and urged us to deconstruct the current research on the topic, which has largely failed to consider the ways in which porn is used by the people in the relationship.
Dr. Sarah Stanton introduced some of her research and findings on attachment and responsiveness, echoing our other speakers on the importance of responsiveness in relationships and suggesting that responsiveness can have a mediating role for anxiety and depressive symptoms. She highlighted the importance of “buffering” interventions, especially for anxiously and avoidantly attached partners, by encouraging especially self-expansion activities between couples which can help encourage and sustain growth without suffocating those who are more avoidantly attached.
After lunch, we were joined by Dr. Lisa Diamond, who explored the topic of sexual fluidity within relationships. We began by deconstructing many of the narratives still present in research and society about the rigidity of sexuality over time, with Diamond noting that change is more common than stability when we talk about sexuality. By centering diverse and fluid experiences, Diamond called on our students to reexamine the structures and boundaries which govern our society and so many of our experiences in and outside relationships. We concluded by reflecting on how it is unproductive to respond to negative discourse about fluidity with arguments that frame individuals back into normative structures.
We were then joined by Dr. Dylan Selterman, who spoke to the heated topic of infidelity. Using data from the affair-centered dating app Ashley Madison, his research found a higher prevalence of idiosyncratic reasons for infidelity: there was little link between relationship quality and an enthusiasm or enactment of infidelity. Selterman called on us to consider that one can still have a healthy and great relationship despite the possibility or presence of infidelity.
Our final speaker, Dr. Nicole Prause, presented the importance of avoiding harm when recommending or offering therapies to clients. As many of our students are licensed clinicians, we reflected on how we know if one of our clients is genuinely getting better—or is getting worse. With a focus on the serious risks and shortcomings of Critical Incident Stress Debriefing, NoFap, and conversion therapy, Prause encouraged our clinician students to remain informed and stay vigilant so that we may most effectively avoid doing harm to clients.
This weekend was an incredible opportunity and source of knowledge, both for our clinician students as well as the rest of our SHA community. Thank you to our amazing speakers and organizers, as well as to our always engaged—and engaging—SHA students.
Written by Ellen Gisto.
Ready for another Sexceptional Weekend? Join us on January 20th, 2024 when we are joined by Dr. Joe Kort!