Therapeutic BDSM–healing trauma with kink

What happens when kink meets therapy? In this lively conversation, Dr Yulinda Renee Rahman, creator of Therapeutic BDSM™, explains how trauma can be healed when a kink professional, therapist, and client work together.

In this episode:

• Therapist Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman, creator of Therapeutic BDSM™ and founder of KPSA
• Kink Professionals Standards Alliance (KPSA) Summit, October 25-26
• Books by Dr. Rahman on Amazon
• Karen Yates – sex educator and healer
• Wild & Sublime

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Transcript

Wild & Sublime, S8E4 

Therapeutic BDSM--healing trauma with kink

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  0:03  
People who often don't find space or community elsewhere, a lot of times they find that in the kink community, right? People have already been finding healing or catharsis in the community. This has been happening before we put language to it. This is to put language to it and to also add some intentionality to it, with some support from people who've gone to school to help with this, right? Who that's their job. But now you do have, like you said, some more guardrails or support, some intention, some ethics and some framework around it.

Karen Yates  0:38  
Welcome to Wild & Sublime, a sexy spin on infotainment, no matter your preferences, orientation or relationship style. Based on the popular live Chicago show, I chat about sex and relationships with citizens from the world of sex positivity and comedy. You'll hear meaningful conversations, dialogs that go deeper, and information that can help you become more free in your sexual expression. I'm sex educator Karen Yates

Karen Yates  1:07  
Our monthly patreon supporters pay for a large part of our operating expenses. Their contributions from $5 on up, help us big time. Plus members get discounts on show tickets and merch and receive wild and sublime news before anyone else and more interested in helping us spread the message of sex positivity, go to patreon.com forward slash wild and sublime. 

Karen Yates  1:35  
Hey, folks, welcome. We have an excellent episode for you today. We are now deep into season eight about healing sexual trauma, and we are now turning the spotlight onto kink. Kinksters have been using BDSM and its attendant power dynamics for years to address to and release trauma from the past. Kink professionals such as DOM and fetish providers, many times have the ability to hold the healing container through a planned scene in order to allow that to happen. So what happens when therapy meets the Dungeon? Today, I'll be interviewing therapist, Dr Yulinda Renee Rahman, aka Doc U Roc about her new program Therapeutic BDSM (TM), which bridges therapy and kink and is a system whereby a therapist, client and a kink professional work together to create BDSM scenes to help heal the client's trauma in a collaborative manner. We'll dive into how all of this works and who will benefit, in addition to creating Therapeutic BDSM, Rahman is a trauma informed clinical sexologist, board certified sex therapist and certified divorce mediator. I think you will find this conversation quite stimulating, especially if you are a kink practitioner, both yolinda and I recorded on the unceded lands of the Council of Three Fires, the Ojibwe, the Odawa and the Potawatomi nations, colonially known as Chicago. Enjoy.

Karen Yates  3:17  
 Dr Yulinda Renee Rahman, welcome, 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  3:20  
Yay. Thank you. 

Karen Yates  3:22  
I'm really excited to talk today. You have a very interesting program, and I think folks are going to want to hear about it. So I, as I mentioned in the introduction, was in on your webinar this past week with a bunch of us learning more about this modality, and we will be opening that up in a second, but first I thought we could begin just talking about kink, and it for some context, for folks who might not have experience with kink, it might seem counterintuitive that through BDSM practices, people can shift trauma, yet for folks in the world, we definitely know it can happen. So explain for folks why it happens, why it's possible.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  4:10  
Yeah, so if we think about like, let's take someone who has chronic pain, for instance, right? Someone who might have fibromyalgia, or, you know, something like that, where they do not get to choose how their pain shows up, where it shows up its intensity, but someone who decides that they are going to engage maybe in an impact scene, right in that they get to reshape their relationship with pain, with sensation, because they can say, how much the impact, where do you strike? How often do you strike? How long this lasts, and just having the capacity to choose what this relationship looks like for someone can really change our relationship with not just that sensation, but with ourselves, right? And so that's just one example, and another one could be someone who might have had some body based trauma, right? Whatever that could look like assault or something. Else, and again, having the opportunity to formulate a scene that says, hey, I want to experience this type of sensation, this type of activity. However, my non negotiables are this, this and this. You know, my heart limits are this and this. I'm willing to potentially play around with this. But this is an automatic no just having that capacity, again, to have choice when at one point in your life you didn't, is really healing. For a lot of people,

Karen Yates  5:27  
sure, and just for folks who might not know anything about kink, a scene is a planned engagement within the kink circles, and there is negotiation around it. There's a beginning, middle and end. There's aftercare. So it's a built out structure when we are referring to a scene. So you are involved in somatic work, obviously. And talk a little bit, if you can, about the intersection, not to get too in the weeds with nerd theory stuff, which I'm sure we're both grooving on, but not to get too much into it, but talk a little bit about polyvagal theory around the nervous system and how trauma heals through the addressing of the vagus nerve and just the nervous system in general.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  6:19  
Yeah. Yeah. So to make it as plain as possible, if we think about like the Body Keeps the Score, if we think about like Peter Levine, the one who really, you know, named somatics, if we think about an animal in the wild, a deer, or something else, where they are acoustic by like a tiger, right? And then this is a traumatic experience for them, but they don't have ongoing trauma, because they get to complete the experience by, like, shaking it off, right? You often see, like an animal in a while, they'll shake it off. However, for a lot of humans who've had experiences, they don't get to do that, right? So if you have been assaulted, you might not get an opportunity to say no, you might not get an opportunity to run away, right? So that trauma gets stuck in the body, meaning that you don't have an opportunity to process it out. So when we think about our nervous system, it impacts how we then screen for danger, right? Because now we are hyper alert to danger. And even in a situation where it's quote, unquote normal, there isn't any danger. We're hyper aware to anything that might look like or remind us of our traumatic experiences. We're now responding to it in real time, right? Because we never got to really fully process out that experience so it gets stuck in the body.

Karen Yates  7:36  
Absolutely, absolutely. Thanks for explaining that. [they laugh] You did a pretty good job, I think/ So you have now with Therapeutic BDSM, the name of your modality, you have, you've created a therapeutic framework, therapeutic BDSM, and utilizing a modality called self reconciliation therapy. And can you just explain what it

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  8:07  
Yeah, so self reconciliation therapy itself is an opportunity for someone to rescript their relationship with their self, their body, other people. And it first started out looking at people like me, specifically right, black women with a history of sexual trauma, right? What can it look like to help me get back into the body? What can it look like to help me release a lot of the rage and anger that was stuck in the body? And so when I created self reconciliation therapy, which is the like the house of therapeutic BDSM, it was a lot of like radical self awareness and self honesty, right? So really looking at, how do my triggers show up in what circumstances do they happen? So it's four pillars you have awareness, which is, again, your coping skills, your triggers, you know, all of those things. And then it's acceptance, accepting that this happened. Right? For a lot of us, it's hard to manage our traumas, because there's a part of us that's still in denial that it even took place, right? So being able to accept, yes, this was a part of my story, then it gives us the opportunity to move forward, and then we have attunement, which is, What relationship do you have with your body? Right? Because a lot of people who have experienced body based trauma have disconnected from the body, right? We don't even recognize if our body's in pain, if we're sick or whatever else, because we're in our head, because the body doesn't feel safe, right? And then lastly was atonement, and if we think about it biblically, right, it's like there's something to atone for. But with this, it's more like a spiritual thing, where you are atoning for the fact that it might have taken you a while to get to this place, and you're forgiving yourself for taking a while to say, Okay, I am going to take responsibility for where I am now. I'm not taking responsibility for what happened to me, but I am taking responsibility for moving forward, and that attunement invites in therapeutic BDSM, where you can. Use those scenes to help you with that atonement process. So that's kind of self reconciliation therapy in a nutshell.

Karen Yates  10:06  
It's interesting talking about atonement. I mean, I think like when I went through my trauma work healing, there is, I think you look back on the past, you're like, wow, why didn't I see this? Or why didn't I figure it out earlier. What the hell is wrong with me that? God, it's so glaringly obvious now the impact, but wow, people walk through their whole lives without any sense that there's trauma that's that is completely impacting them. And I really, I like this idea of, like, just kind of taking yourself by the hand, I mean, like, hey, yeah, this happened, and it's so you're okay, but first really embracing yourself and saying, Okay, I was unaware, you know, I was unaware, and now I'm aware, and now I can go forward.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  10:54  
Yes, 

Karen Yates  10:55  
that's huge. 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  10:56  
Yeah,

Karen Yates  10:57  
explain to me the role of the therapist and the Pro, either Dom or the kink professional, let's just say the kink professional and the client. What does this all look like? Because it looks like three folks in on something,

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  11:14  
yes. So it's like a treatment team, right? It's a collaborative effort between three different positions. So the therapist is from the outset, they are part of the process. So their goal, their their position, is to help the client, really, to identify if we're going to do therapeutic BDSM, what do you want it to do for you? Like, what are our treatment goals? Right? And are you prepared to go into that type of container? Right? Are you aware of how your no shows up in your body, right? Because if you say yes verbally, but your body is saying a hell no, are you able to determine that? Because again, we want this person to be in their body enough to be able to have a conversation with the Pro and says, Hey, if I'm starting to sweat profusely, and I say yes, that's an indication that I am stressed out, you know? And so the therapist helps them figure out your treatment goals, like, why are you here? Your coping mechanisms, your triggers, giving you language. And then they are on the other side of the scene. They work in collaboration with the Pro. All right, let's together. Let's brainstorm a scene that can really point back to their clinical goals, right? Let's work together. The Pro is the one who is the holder of that space in the scene, that therapeutic space, which is a huge responsibility. So for any professional kink practitioner to say, yes, I want to have that space, they have to also have their own training. So that's a another piece. And then after the scene is completed, they go back to their therapist and say, Hey, this is what I experienced. And they help with the integration with the input of the pros, because the pros don't say, Hey, this is what we dealt with. This is what came up. And again, this back and forth communication to really center the need of the client is the whole point.

Karen Yates  12:53  
So a couple of like clarifying questions, if the client, I mean, so many people are disassociated from their bodies and and are not even aware of it. You know, I used to think I was like, so connected to my body. I'm like, hello, you're not. So does the therapist work with the client through somatic means to to help the client connect with their body before it all begins before? Yes,

Speaker 1  13:21  
yeah. So if we go back to SRT, that attunement process, so they might do some body scans, there's something in there, because I wrote a guidebook for this whole process. But there's something called solo sensate that they would have the client go through. And it's four levels of where it might just start off, where you introduce yourself to your face, like, hi, face, you know, like and just really paying attention to us. How does it feel to just put your face in your hands? Right? Like, does that feel comforting? Does that feel nourishing? Does that feel scary, right? Does that feel threatening? And as they go through these levels, and then it becomes more like, you know, maybe you'll grip your arm. Do you like, a firm grip? Does that feel threatening? And they go through the scaffolding of or this titration of sensation, and they get to a point where it could be sexual or not sexual. But again, this is with self, right? Exploring self. Like, what do you like? What don't you like? Where is touch threatening? Where does it begin to feel threatening? Like, maybe you are okay with a hand close to your neck, but not around your throat, right? So this is really helping the person become much more aware of how station feels in the body, how they feel about that sensation when it shows up in the body, so that they have some language and some insight before they go into the scene.

Karen Yates  14:33  
And then, when you talked about the professional, the kink professional and the therapist working together. This is, like, on a phone call talking. Is that what that looks like?

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  14:44  
Yeah. I mean, before, like, that'll be afterwards. Beforehand, we might do, like a virtual conversation meetup, you know, like, if you're going to have the treatment team at the table, right, come together and so, yeah, we'll have a conversation the we'll already know ahead of time, what this. Pro is adapt that. Like, you know, maybe they're gonna impact or fire or just being having that energy of the DOM, like, whatever their expertise is, we'll know about it, and then we'll come together. We'll have the treatment team conversation about what this is going to look like. Then afterwards, yes, like, might be an email, might be a conversation, whatever it's necessary to really get the communication across about like, what did this scene look like? If it's a an emergency, then we'll have quicker ways to get in contact. You might have their your cell phone to text, right depending on what's going on. So the level of communication will depend on the the need to get that information across. If that makes sense,

Karen Yates  15:39  
absolutely okay. One of the things I wanted to ask is, you know, what seems sort of self evident, but I want to, I want to kind of open it up here. What have you seen as a therapist working with folks that are kinksters? You know, they're coming, they're coming to your office. They're telling you about scenes like, what can go wrong, maybe in a kink scene, and why have you felt called to create this structure?

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  16:09  
Okay, before I answer that question, I'm going to kind of frame it a little bit, because a lot of what we're hearing is either like two camps who are in kink are all traumatized, they're all effed up, something's wrong with them, and then you have the other side is, oh, there's no correlation between kink and trauma, right? Like, those are the two Absolutely, absolutely. What's actually happening is there's a lack of nuance. There's a lot of people who are in the kink community who have a background of trauma, because most people do, right? But here's what people miss, the people who are in the kink community, their trauma isn't necessarily a tie to their kink. It's usually a tie to their identity, and this is what I mean. There's a lot of marginalized people in the kink community, right? Whether it's neurodivergence, whether it's race, whether it's gender, and people are often traumatized not necessarily by the kink, but because of who the hell they are, right? And people who often don't find space or community elsewhere, a lot of times they find that in the kink community, right? So when you bring a lot of marginalized people who've been traumatized because of who the fuck they are into one community, what you will find is a lot of people who've been traumatized, right? And that's missing in the conversation.

Karen Yates  17:21  
Wow. Yeah, absolutely. And so, do you see your your program as a kind of guardrail, I mean, a way to Yeah. Is it a is it guard rails? What do you see it as, like? How do you look at it?

Speaker 1  17:36  
Yeah, I kind of see it as, first of all, to acknowledge and a nod that people have already been finding healing or catharsis in the community, right? This has been happening before we put language to it. This is to put language to it and to also add some intentionality to it, with some support from people who've gone to school to help with this, right? Who that's their job, but also to acknowledge and honor the fact that pros have been holding therapeutic space for a long time. So how can we support one another and work together to best meet the need of these people who've basically already been kind of doing this, but now you do have, like you said, some more guardrails or support, some intention, some ethics and some framework around it.

Karen Yates  18:19  
So do you ever find that does this ever occur with clients who aren't kinky? Do you ever have clients who are like, I'm vanilla, but then it's they end up working through this modality? Does that occur ever? 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  18:33  
So this is a brand new modality, but I can definitely see this being something that quote, unquote vanilla people would gravitate towards. Because if you think about like people who do extreme sports, or people who go into like plunges or whatever, who you get to choose the level of shock or intensity of sensation, right? And people are long distance runners, they're finding ways to reconnect and to discharge a lot of stored energy that way. This is just another way to do that. So the way your scene might look might be a bit more quote, unquote, vanilla than someone who's a hardcore kicker, but it's still giving you that that frame and that structure to say, You know what I am interested in, like what it would feel like to be hit with a flogger because I'm choosing to versus the fact that I used to get my ass with by my parents when I was three, you know what I mean. And so it's still taking that same experience, but now you get to shape what it looks like, and you get to utilize your no so yes, I can see vanilla folks wanting to do it as well.

Karen Yates  19:34  
So you're a sex therapist, among many things, among many accreditations, Are there aspects of sexual trauma per se that make it more responsive to healing through therapeutic BDSM than other sorts of trauma?

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  19:50  
Oh, that's a really good question. I don't know, because I don't have the backing to say, but as someone who has that as my personal experience, I know that true. Additional therapy itself didn't do it right? So I can speak to the fact that I've been in and out of therapy since 18, and I was very conscious of what was going on, but it still felt like my relationship with my body was still super complex, and to be honest, like a whole lot of hate, love, hate relationship with it. So I feel like this would be something for those people who have had body based trauma, where you really have an opportunity to, like, get to the root of that body disconnection that I feel like a lot of modalities don't center this modality was centered around people with a history of body based sexual trauma. So yes.

Karen Yates  20:39  
In your experience, does this like... As someone who's experienced EMDR, there were actually took two passes at it, one a year apart, like with working with different incidences? Do you see this as something where, basically, the client has the potential of doing more than one scene, a multiple of scenes, tweaking scenes?

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  21:04  
Yes, definitely. And I don't expect, I mean, it'd be great if one scene would, like, knock it out the park, and that'll be it, you know, but that's not the expectation. Yes, I would see, like you said, multiple rounds of EMDR. I'm also certified to do EMDR, so I can speak to that a little bit too. But yes, I think multiple scenes. And like you say, tweaking it, because a scene that was necessary at the beginning might no longer be necessary, and now you need something else, just like with EMDR, you might work with one incident and you process that out, but now I got this other one. And so yes, I think that would be a good thing we can do.

Karen Yates  21:40  
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Karen Yates  22:01  
[to Rahman] We just did a episode on surrogate partners, and this has very much. I can see the complete resonances between that. Do you, do you work with surrogate like, Do you have a relationship with surrogate partner networks or surrogate partners? I definitely

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  22:16  
looked at them as a model. Like, I was all over their website. So shout out to the circuit. I fall over it. I had a couple of people who went through their training as surrogates, you know, interested in what we're doing. So I had conversations with them. So definitely want to shout out to them for being like the standard for me to kind of look at how to do this in an ethical way, and how to also do this in a way that protects people who are not ready to be forward facing, right? So that's something I really loved about the surrogacy program, is that they protect the people who aren't ready to have their name out there, right? And so, yes, very resonant with the surrogacy program. The difference is, is that the clinician and the practitioners work a bit more closely together than they do in the surrogacy program. Like that's a really big or one of the main differences is the level of interaction between the Pro and the therapist.

Karen Yates  23:08  
Since kink is a modality of power, mostly power, power dynamics, right? Do you ever and so, you know, as I was on the webinar the other day, and as we're talking today, I always see the in my mind, I'm seeing the professional kink, the kink professional as a dominant, right? Is it ever a situation where it's the the dominant is the client, and what can that look like?

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  23:33  
I'm so glad you brought that up, because that was something I noticed, was a gap when I did the first training. Is that, although it didn't say this is for the top specifically, that was kind of the lens I was looking through. But then I'm like, okay, there are situations where someone who's operating as the bottom is creating healing space for potential tops, right, who never had that holding. So yes, I've since added additional training for people who are subs, who specifically want to hold space, for people who might struggle in their dominance or not, need someone who's able to hold that space just being present for someone who's never had someone be present for them before itself can be healing, right? And so I love that you brought it up, because it's often overlooked the healing capacity of a holding the container and being held, right? And so, yes, that's important. Fantastic.

Karen Yates  24:29  
You know, part of your work is focused on the impact and prevalence of sexual trauma on and in the black community, and I would like to move our conversation to discussing the white dominated kink spaces and how this impacts, impacts black kinksters And like in Chicago, where we're at, you know, you can find bipoc Munches and you can find bipoc kink events. They're not in great supply, but they're there. I want, I want to talk a little bit about. Kink, the fact that in kink, you know, white centered spaces, like public access dungeons, there's there can be a distinct lack of sensitivity to black ancestral trauma, current power inequities in society, the In other words, the space might not feel safe to black sisters. Can you talk a little bit about this modality of therapeutic BDSM, and where you see that intersection between these, these issues.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  25:28  
Yeah, so the main reason, well, one of the things I highlight is wanting bipoc folks to be a part of creating this whole framework, because it's necessary for our like I said, ancestor, trauma, everything else to be relevant. And I think a lot of modalities in general just doesn't highlight the intersectionality of who is in the room, right? And what are we bringing to the room? And race, neuro divergence, body size, ability, all of the things impacts our relationship to kink and to the community, right? And too many people or too many modalities, miss that. So my goal is to get as many people as possible, as many diverse experiences and viewpoints as possible, black folks, plus neurodiverse, see all of the other things as well, because I don't know it all like I can't tell you what it's like to be a disabled person in the kink space, because it's not my experience, right? And so that is part of my goal, is to highlight as many diverse voices as possible as we are creating, kind of like this new field of kink professionalism. It's important that we are at the forefront of what this looks like.

Karen Yates  26:36  
And let me point out something I didn't bring up earlier, which I'm I'm assuming you will concur with that. There are a lot, a lot of therapists out there who are not sex positive, who you will go to. You're a kinkster. You're like, Oh, my new therapist. And you will suddenly feel frozen out, like your therapist is giving you the hairy eyeball for your practices. If you don't mind talking about that for a second. Oh, yeah.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  27:01  
Like, I hear that from a lot of people, and even those who might consider themselves like kink aware or kink knowledgeable, they still find themselves educating, right? Like I spent my whole like, 60 minutes telling you, what does it mean to be ABDL [adult baby diaper lover], you know, and, and do you side eyeing me? Because you don't know what the hell I'm talking about. So yes, there's so many, which is why, one of the one of the requirements for a therapist to be part of this process is you have to be kink knowledgeable, meaning, if I was to quiz you, you would be able to give me the correct answer. And if you don't have you either have to be trained, like because there's kink-conscious programs out there, either you have to come trained, or you have to pass an oral exam in order to be able to hold this space for these clients, because it's not their job to educate you, right? So it's a necessity. 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  27:46  
And with that being said, as the therapist, you are also not in charge, because a lot of questions or concerns the pros had is the therapist is going to think they're better than me, they're going to try and usurp this whole container. And it's like, if that's the case, they won't be a part of this process, right? We work in collaboration. Everybody is the professional in their lane, and we respect one another's lane. So just wanna put that out there, too. 

Karen Yates  28:08  
Great. So you have trained your first cohort, both of practitioners and professionals, yes, and you're opening up the next cohort very soon, like next month, right? In August? 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  28:20  
Yes, August 30th

Karen Yates  28:20  
Okay, so obviously listeners, who will want to get in touch with you, both pros, therapists, potential clients. How do they do that? Do they go to the website? And our right now, our folks are the therapists and the professionals in the professional kinksters, are they in Chicago? Is this across the nation, where, how, you know, I know this is just beginning. So,

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  28:51  
yeah, it's pretty spread out, like we have as far as international, we have someone in Canada, as far as you as we have someone in El Paso. We have someone a little small, clinical practice in San Diego is going to do it. We have someone in Chicago, we have someone in North Carolina. So it's pretty spread out, right? It's not a whole bunch of us. It's like 10, hey, that's cool, and right, and right, considering we're just getting started, but yeah, it's pretty widespread, which is why. So one of the first cohort I had a pro was like, You know what? It'd be great if we had access to the training, because the first was all live. It's like, it'd be great if we had access to the training before the class so we can already have, you know, gone through it. And I was like, You know what? So now it's hybrid, because I pivoted right in real time, because I also think that would be helpful for people in different time zones, you know, I mean, maybe it's 1am so you show up for the discussion, but you ain't got the brain length. You know, brain power to really suck it up, but if you had access to it two weeks prior, you can do it at your own leisure. And then the day of the live session is all discussion. So yeah, that's the pivoting in real time.

Karen Yates  30:06  
So should they go to so your your website is, and I'll put this in the show notes, ecosystems of excellence. That's all one word, ecosystemsofexcellence.org, so should folks go there? 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  30:16  
Yes, that is for everything. 

Karen Yates  30:18  
And then you wrote a book. It is on Amazon. Therapeutic BDSM, an alternative form of healing.

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  30:24  
Yeah, it's a really good intro, and it's funny, so this would be the first place I'd mention it publicly. So I'm gonna let y'all know how little petty I am. It's okay. Look out. It's been out for a while. So every now and then I like Google therapeutic BDSM, just to make sure I'm the number one response. Maybe Google therapy, but like, what I noticed, so the book is usually number two, and I haven't had a whole lot of reviews, but it was still a five stars, and I noticed I'm like, it's only four point stars. Like, why? What's happening? So I go, and someone had gave me a two star review, and they were basically saying, like, this book is it's good. Like, you know, it's interesting, but it doesn't really give us enough meat. Like, basically, it's like, it's not going deep enough into what this is and how it looks in real life. And I was like, okay, valid. And I was going to respond and say, Hey, this book wasn't necessarily for that. This was an invitation, like, to just introduce it, but on Amazon, you cannot write a review in response, right as the author? So I was like, Oh, really that? So I wrote a book, and no, August 1, August 1. August 1. And so that one is called the edge of excellence, therapeutic, BDSM and beyond. And that one goes into what this looks like in real life. It talks about the ethics, the frameworks. It talks about the history of different you know, it gives it all to you. So that's August 1. It'll be on Amazon. So you just, if you look at my look me up, you'll be able to find, I'll put a link. 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  31:52  
And before we go, the KPSA has a summit coming up, October, 25 and 26th so if you want to know more about liking professionalism, who gets to define what that is? What does that look like? Come on through you can find it at kipsa summit.com,

Karen Yates  32:06  
anything else you'd like to say,

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  32:08  
and you know what? I'm just super excited that more people are interested in what we're doing. Like, and that was what I heard, like people saying that therapists have receipts, right? You know? And that's how a lot of this got started. They have licensures and certifications. Even coaches have an organization. Massage therapists have an organization, but kink professionals ain't got...they ain't got shit until right now, because we're creating it, because they wanted something to distinguish or to legitimize the work that they've been doing for probably decades, right? Like I've been doing this work, I've been considering myself a professional, but nothing record me recognizes me as that, because there's nothing that legitimizes us. And now together, we're creating something that does.

Karen Yates  32:53  
Oh fantastic. I loved talking with you. Dr Yulinda Renee Rahman, and I hope we get a chance in the future to talk again. Thank you so much. 

Dr. Yulinda Renee Rahman  33:05  
Thank you. This is great. 

Karen Yates  33:08  
Dr Yulinda Renee Rahman and her program Therapeutic BDSM can be found at ecosystems of excellence.org and we will link to that in the show notes, along with links to her books and the upcoming kpsa summit in October. Well, that's it, folks. Have a very pleasurable week. Thank you for listening. Wild & sublime is supported in part by our sublime supporter, full color life therapy, therapy for all of you at full color lifetherapy.com know someone who'd like this episode, send it to them, and we'd love a review or a rating on your podcast app. You can follow us on Facebook and Instagram. At wild and sublime, got feedback or an inquiry. Contact us at info. At wildandsublime.com I'd like to thank our design guru Jean Francois Gervais and editor Christine Ferrera. Our music is by David Ben-Porat. This episode is part of the Lincoln lodge Podcast Network. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai