Explaining the Sexual Tipping Point: A Guide to Enhance Your Sex Therapy Practice (Part 1 & 2)
1h 32m
Michael Perelman
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Sexologist
Trailer
Content and aim: Evolving over the 45 years, including two decades of collaboration with Helen S. Kaplan, the Sexual Tipping Point® Model by Michael Perelman is intended to optimize the understanding and treatment of sexual disorders. The Sexual Tipping Point® model easily illuminates the mind-body concept that both physical and mental factors can “turn you on” as well as “turn you off.” The Sexual Tipping Point or STP depicts a person’s moment to moment sexual response (or lack), as regulated by the interaction of their predisposing biological capacity with biomedical, psychosocial and cultural determining factors. An individual’s STP differs from one experience to another, based on the proportional impact of one factor dominating, as others recede in importance. The STP model can illustrate both the intra and inter-individual variability characterizing sexual response and its disorders for both men and women. Each factor may vary in terms of magnitude and valence, and maybe bidirectional. Initially, the STP was considered one of a number of “Dual Control” models. By 2018 it was recognized as the first “Variable Control” model, reflecting advances in our biological, psychosocial and technological knowledge about the human body. Besides illustrating all etiological permutations, including normal sexual balance, the Sexual Tipping Point® concept is particularly useful for modeling treatment and can easily be used to explain risks and benefits for patients with sexual disorders. The STP model can be used to teach clinicians and patients when and how to prioritize focus on different treatment targets, depending on the assessment of their etiological determinants. Teaching the STP model to the patient and partner can reduce patient and partner despair and anger, while providing hope through a simple explanation of how the problem’s causes can be diagnosed, parsed, and “fixed”. In fact, the Sexual Tipping Point® also allows for modeling of a variety of future treatments, including medical/surgical interventions not yet discovered or proven. This transdisciplinary vision emphasizes the integration of sexual counseling with appropriate use of medical interventions (as required) to optimize care. The main advantage of the STP over other models is its simplicity and the ease with which it provides clinicians as well as their patients (and partners) with a common-sense explanation of sexual problems and potential solutions thus inspiring hope.
Learning Objectives: This intermediate instructional course is designed to help clinicians:
- Learn to define the variable control Sexual Tipping Point Model® and to differentiate it from other biopsychosocial models.
- Learn to evaluate a patient’s “sex status” and implement the Sexual Tipping Point Model® to enhance diagnosis, treatment formulation and treatment planning.
- Learn why the Sexual Tipping Point Model® is an ideal aid to explain diagnosis and treatment to patients/partners to increase understanding, motivation and hope for a successful outcome.
Produced in 2022
Michael Perelman
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry & Sexologist
Distinguished Guest
Dr. Michael A. Perelman is a Clinical Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and former Clinical Professor of Reproductive Medicine and Urology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City.
For more than 30 years, he co-directed its Human Sexuality Program, founded by Helen Singer Kaplan. The program is among the longest continuously running sex therapy case conferences in the world, providing continuing education for graduates and guest clinicians. A former National Institutes of Health Fellow, Dr. Perelman wrote the first dissertation on sex therapy in Columbia University history in 1976. He completed his clinical internship at Duke University Medical Center, where he served as Chief Intern, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship in sex therapy at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. In 2011, he founded the MAP Education & Research Foundation, a public charity dedicated to advancing a biomedical, psychosocial, and cultural approach to sexual health disorders. The Foundation also serves as the steward of his Sexual Tipping Point® (STP) Model and sponsors annual STP Awards recognizing outstanding professional presentations and abstracts.
An international leader in sexual medicine Dr. Perelman has served on the boards of several professional organizations and was President of The Society for Sex Therapy & Research (SSTAR). He is a Fellow of the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA), The International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH), and The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality (SSSS). Dr. Perelman has received Awards for Excellence from the American Psychological Association’s Division 38 (Health Psychology), APA Division 43 (Society for Couple and Family Psychology), AASECT, and the University of Minnesota. He has also received Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Sexual Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA) and The International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health (ISSWSH). He co-edited the textbook Management of Sexual Dysfunction in Men and Women: An Integrated Approach and served as Editor-in-Chief in re-establishing Springer’s Current Sexual Health Reports, where he now holds the title of Emeritus Editor-in-Chief. Dr. Perelman has authored more than 225 publications, including over 70 peer-reviewed articles, more than 25 book chapters in sexual medicine, numerous abstracts, and over 300 invited presentations worldwide. He also writes the invited Psychology Today blog, The Sexual Tipping Point. He also serves on multiple editorial boards and as a consulting editor and reviewer for professional publications.