Policing Pleasure: The Impacts of Cultural and Religious Perspectives on Pleasure
Presenter: Joe Dennis, MA, CMHC, CCTP
Date: August 6, 2026 | 7:00 PM MST
Format: Live, interactive synchronous webinar | 1 hour
Content Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Target Audience: Clinical Mental Health Providers, Health Providers, General Public
CE Credits: 1 continuing education credit
Certificates Available: ASWB/NASW, AASECT, THGI, UMHCA, UAMFT
Course Description
How did we learn to distrust pleasure — and what does that distrust cost us and our clients? This one-hour live training examines how Stoic and conservative Christian traditions have shaped cultural attitudes toward pleasure, and what hedonist philosophy offers in response. By questioning how we and our clients understand, control, pursue, and resist pleasure, clinicians can cultivate richer intimacy, deeper self-knowledge, and a more nuanced sense of self in both their personal and professional lives.
Through engaging lecture, interactive polling, and Q&A, participants will explore key Stoic, religious, and hedonist perspectives on pleasure — examining how each tradition has contributed to the cultural frameworks that shape clients' assumptions about desire, self-concept, and personal decision-making. The training draws from current peer-reviewed literature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and sexual health, and invites clinicians to evaluate how their own cultural and professional formation may have shaped their implicit attitudes toward pleasure and intimacy.
The course also addresses how cultural beliefs about pleasure intersect with identity, including how religious shame, gender norms, and purity culture beliefs compound one another — and how a pleasure-informed clinical lens can support clients in developing deeper meaning, greater connection, and a more self-determined sense of purpose.
This training is grounded in the core values of dignity and worth, the importance of human relationships, and a commitment to social justice — affirming that supporting clients in reclaiming a healthy, autonomous relationship with pleasure is both a clinical and ethical imperative.
Learning Objectives
At the conclusion of this training, attendees will be able to:
Identify key Stoic, religious, and hedonist perspectives on pleasure and explain how each has contributed to contemporary cultural attitudes toward desire and sexuality.
Evaluate how cultural beliefs about pleasure shape assumptions and practice of intimacy, self-concept, and personal decision-making in both clients and clinicians.
Apply a pleasure-informed lens to support deeper meaning, connection, and purpose in personal and clinical work.
Limitations, Risks, & Benefits
This online training presents foundational and intermediate-level content that builds on existing knowledge and is not intended to be comprehensive; clinicians are encouraged to seek out supplemental resources and peer-reviewed literature. The virtual format may not fully replicate the interactivity of in-person learning. The evidence base may have limitations in generalizability across diverse populations, cultures, or practice settings, and where contradictory evidence exists, differing perspectives and their sources will be presented. Participants may experience discomfort as they explore sensitive topics or challenge existing beliefs. Benefits include increased foundational knowledge of philosophical and cultural frameworks around pleasure, enhanced ability to apply a pleasure-informed lens in clinical practice, and greater confidence and competence in supporting clients navigating the intersection of culture, religion, intimacy, and self-concept.
Cultural Sensitivity
This training explicitly addresses the influence of culture, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, disability, and socioeconomic status on how individuals understand, experience, and police pleasure. Participants are invited to examine their own unconscious biases related to pleasure, desire, and religious or cultural background — including assumptions about what constitutes healthy sexuality, appropriate pleasure-seeking, or moral self-restraint — and to consider how these biases may affect clinical decision-making, assessment, and treatment planning. The training addresses how the intersection of multiple identity factors, including religion, gender, and sexual orientation, can compound experiences of shame, self-denial, and barriers to affirming care. By drawing from diverse philosophical and cultural frameworks and incorporating strategies for culturally responsive practice, the training supports clinicians in developing the humility and self-awareness needed to hold space for clients whose relationships with pleasure have been shaped by forces far larger than individual choice.
Course Content
This training presents foundational and intermediate content on cultural and religious perspectives on pleasure through engaging lecture, interactive polling, and facilitated Q&A. Drawing from current peer-reviewed literature at the intersection of philosophy, psychology, and sexual health, the session examines key Stoic, conservative Christian, and hedonist frameworks for understanding pleasure — and explores how each has shaped individual and collective attitudes toward desire, intimacy, and self-concept. The course addresses the relationship between purity culture beliefs and rape culture attitudes, the psychological costs of misunderstood Stoicism, and the distinctions between hedonic and eudaimonic wellbeing as frameworks for clinical application. Throughout, participants are invited to reflect on how their own cultural and professional formation intersects with these frameworks and to develop a more conscious, pleasure-affirming clinical stance.
Relevance
Questions of pleasure — what it means, whether it is safe, whether it is deserved — are embedded in nearly every clinical conversation about intimacy, relationships, identity, and mental health. Yet many clinicians have received little explicit training in the philosophical and cultural roots of their own and their clients' attitudes toward pleasure, leaving important clinical territory unexplored. This training fills that gap by offering a thoughtful, research-grounded examination of the cultural and religious forces that shape pleasure attitudes across populations — and by equipping clinicians with a practical, pleasure-informed lens they can bring to their work immediately. By situating pleasure not as an indulgence but as a meaningful dimension of human wellbeing and self-knowledge, the training supports social workers, counselors, psychologists, and marriage and family therapists in providing more holistic, affirming, and effective care across diverse clinical populations and practice settings.
About the Presenter
Joe Dennis, MA, CMHC, CCTP, brings an eclectic history of work and experience to his practice as a therapist specializing in trauma and purpose — including past roles as a pastor, sixth-grade teacher, bartender, marketer, artist, and performer. He currently co-owns Rising Therapy Collective in South Salt Lake. Prior to 2024, Joe served as a director at a multi-county practice where he developed trainings and supervision on a variety of topics for clinical staff. His diverse background informs a clinical approach that is grounded, curious, and deeply attentive to the ways culture, meaning, and identity shape human experience.
Course Details
Delivery method: Live interactive webinar via the Institute learning platform
Course interactivity: Interactive — participants will engage in interactive polling, facilitated discussion, and Q&A
Posttest/quiz: Because this is a live interactive course, a standard posttest is not required. Participation will be monitored throughout the session.
Certificate issuance: Certificates of credit will be issued immediately after course completion to participants who attend the full session and complete the course evaluation.
Contact for questions: institute@thehealinggroup.com
Accessibility accommodations: To request accessibility accommodations, please contact institute@thehealinggroup.com prior to the event. We are committed to making our trainings accessible to all participants.
ASWB ACE Statement:
The Healing Group Institute, provider number 2716, is approved as an ACE provider to offer social work continuing education by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE provider approval period: 3/31/26 – 3/31/27. Social workers completing this course receive 1 continuing education credit.
AASECT CKA:
A. Ethics and ethical behavior.
B. Developmental sexuality from a bio-psycho-social perspective across the life course.
C. Socio-cultural, familial factors (e.g., ethnicity, culture, religion, spirituality, socioeconomic status, family values) in relation to sexual values and behaviors.
AASECT ST:
F. Ethical decision-making and best practice.
This presentation has been reviewed by Kristin Hodson, LCSW, CST, CSTS to ensure it meets AASECT standards.