About Wendy
Wendy Conquest is the director of SACC, her treatment center in Boulder, Colorado. Ms. Conquest’s passion is to understand and create paradigms for change. She has developed programs dealing with drug, alcohol, sex addiction, treating partners of sex addicts, enmeshment, trauma and healthy coupling and sexuality. These programs were with hospitals, agencies and treatment centers including Boulder Community Hospital, Colorado Sexual Recovery Center, Compass House and Medicine Horse consistently using and incorporating cutting edge research. She authored Letters To A Sex Addict; The Journey Through Grief and Betrayal and co-authored Letters From A Sex Addict: My Life Exposed. Most recently Conquest is a co-host on the podcast Conversations on Sex, Addiction and Relationships.
“After being a therapist for 20 years I have realized at some time in our lives, we need someone who is intelligent, sensitive, honest and direct to help us when we are in crisis. For the last 10 years I have specialized in infidelity. This includes assessment, education and treatment for pornography, sex addiction and betrayal trauma. Treating the addiction is the first part. Next is figuring out what a healthy emotional, psychological and sexual relationship is for the couple.”
Twenty four years of being a psychotherapist, twenty two years of working with couples and families, fourteen years of working with sex addicts and partners. I think that’s a long time. Research says it takes 10,000 times of doing something to become an expert so I suppose that qualifies me to know a thing or two.
So what do I know and what does that mean for you?
Why come to Boulder, Colorado to do an immersion?
What makes SACC and Wendy Conquest different than other programs?
Well, throughout this chunk of my life, I’ve learned a few things about people and relationships. Here are 8 of the core lessons.
- We know each other far better and more thoroughly than we realize.
- The people we are closest to are the ones that can hurt us the most, or heal us the best.
- Feeling our feelings, learning to effectively communicate, risking being vulnerable, catching our defenses and stopping words and behavior from this place…is hard work.
- Knowing and holding our partner’s early wounds when they are angry, defensive, critical and generally reactive, is hard work.
- Facing our own inner critic and shame takes great courage.
- Healing from our trauma hurts.
- Anything is possible if we are willing to keep trying with help and humility.
- Trauma of any kind severely alters how we think and feel.
“A great joy and honor for me is to be able to collectively work towards creating something meaningful.”
Wendy's Certifications
IITAP - Sex Addiction Therapist and Supervisor
Ms. Conquest was one of the last therapists to receive her clinical training in sex and porn addiction directly from Dr. Patrick Carnes, the founder of sex addiction treatment. She has been nationally supervising other CSATs since 2012 when she received her IITAP certification.
BrainSpotting
One of the main effective treatments for trauma, Brainspotting locates points in the client’s visual field that help to access unprocessed trauma in the subcortical brain. Originally trained in 2009 with certification in 2014.
IBP - Integrative Body Psychotherapy
Certified in 1995, this modality is crucial in Wendy’s work with couples and quickly identifying when sexual touch can be re-established and how to learn full healthy sexuality.
The Association of Partners of Sex Addicts Trauma Specialists
This training and mindset is seeing a partner of a sex addict as highly traumatized versus a “co-addict”. All education and treatment is based on this belief and research.
EMDR - Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Original bilateral trauma protocol to move trauma from the midbrain to the cerebral cortex. Wendy was trained in 2000 and has used this modality throughout her career.
Wendy's Books
Letters To A Sex Addict: The Journey Through Grief and Betrayal
Diving deeply into the psyches of those whose lives are shattered by betrayal and the resultant feelings of hurt, rage, resentment and despair, this book directly mirrors a partner's experiences from multiple perspectives. Each letter, written by the author, explores a different facet of the relationship dynamic, the addict's illness, and the partner's thoughts and feelings throughout all the stages of this devastating experience.
Letters From A Sex Addict: My Life Exposed
Co-written with Dan Drake, these letters show the progress of an addict’s mind from active addiction through into recovery. Each section has specific reflective questions for both the addict and the partner to be used as a workbook or within couples therapy sessions. For anyone who better wants to understand the internal workings of a sex addict’s mind.