Intimate partner violence is an emotive issue that you may encounter as an added factor to other areas of crisis that GSRD clients bring to therapy. With professional thinking on this topic mostly coming from a heteronormative framework that imposes defined roles and gender stereotypes on victims and perpetrators, you may find yourself challenged as a Counsellor, Therapist or Mental Health Professional by the complexities and differences that can present with the GSRD client group.

Pink Therapy’s Intimate Partner Violence & Minority Stress online-learning CPD module outlines a framework for understanding GSRD clients in the context of their relationships, the specific minority stresses that may have an impact on them and the physiological processes that influence responses and behaviour as a result of trauma. With safety as a starting point for your therapeutic approach, you’ll be encouraged to consider optimistic ways of working underpinned by recognition of responsibility and deep commitment to change. You’ll also be supported to consider the impact of your own experiences and responses to client material to acknowledge your self-care needs as a therapist engaged in reflective clinical practice.

This 15-hour-CPD module offers you the opportunity to:

  • develop your understanding of how the dynamics of GSRD relationships may differ from heteronormative models that address intimate partner violence and consider the implications of this for your clinical practice
  • explore the impact of the minority stresses on GSRD couples that can perpetuate and entrench intimate partner violence in their relationships in profound ways
  • understand the neurochemical processes that are relevant to GSRD clients engaged in relationships affected by intimate partner violence and the connection with the habitual responses and repeated patterns that can overshadow clients’ lives and styles of relating
  • learn how GSRD clients’ past experiences of being safe and unsafe in their particular personal contexts are vital to informing your therapeutic approach
  • understand what creates change within GSRD relationships that have been affected by intimate partner violence and explore interventions that will support effective, compassionate and optimistic practice
  • consider your own responses when working therapeutically with intimate partner violence and what this means for your self-care needs as a reflective practitioner

You will receive a Certificate of Study worth 15 hours CPD credit from Pink Therapy if you submit and pass a tutor-marked assignment.

About the Authors:

Dr. Sarah Head qualified as a Psychotherapeutic and Counselling Psychologist in 2013 but has worked in the voluntary, public and private sector within a therapeutic capacity since 2005. She currently works in the public sector with children, adolescents and their families.

As a researcher and writer, Sarah has a specialist interest in intimate partner violence within sexual diversities. Over time, her work has evolved to have a specific focus on developing insight and understanding, into the bisexual experience of partner abuse.

Pamela Gawler-Wright is Director of Training for BeeLeaf Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy and a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist since 1994. Her training work includes Pink Therapy and several organisations internationally, across different modalities of psychotherapy. Areas of practice include recovery from trauma, addiction and dependency, co-dependence and working with identity distress. Service to UKCP committees include the Ethics Committee, the Diversity and Equality Committee and Education, Training and Practice Committee.

As a Contemporary Psychotherapist, a range of approaches are integrated according to the client’s needs, sometimes working in brief therapy and some times longer term. Pamela works with individuals and couples, and also as a consultant to organisations. Psychotherapy sessions last between 60 and 90 minutes so that there is time to explore and integrate into life what has been discovered in the work together.

Pamela is a Senior Accredited Practitioner of Pink Therapy, and has been out as bisexual since 1980 and is married to her female bisexual partner of over 20 years. Important to her is working with transgender people in supporting their outcomes individually and collectively and she was highly active in achieving the cross-organisation, trans-inclusive Memorandum of Understanding on Conversion Therapy 2017.

Pam wrote the initial versions of the IPV and the Working with Sexuality & Gender Identity Conflicts modules.


Purchase the course by clicking the button below.

You will have access for two years from date of purchase.