Hello! I am in my final semester of URI's Couple and Family Therapy graduate program. Having worked closely with victims of domestic violence and their children in the past, my research interests include trauma and how witnesses of psychological and physical abuse (children especially) develop into adulthood. I am also interested specifically on how victims of sexual assault or abuse in childhood/adolescence take charge of their sexuality and how they learn to understand it. I am excited to learn more about how sexuality and how to address it systemically with couples and other clients. I consider myself to be very in tune with my sexuality and quite open about it, but it is so interesting to me how a number of my clients and friends, across all age groups and cultures, are confused sexually or still on a journey discovering their sexual selves. We're all human; we learn more about ourselves every day through our experiences-bad and good. I find that what differs amongst all of us is how some of us choose to face our experiences head-on or, on the other hand, choose to shut them out and pack them away. For example, take two young men who were both sexually assaulted at the age of 14. One of the men decides to participate in social movements for victims of sexual assault in the coming years, speaks publicly, writes a tell-all book about his experience and overcoming of the event. The other male keeps his story to himself except a private journal that he writes in when the memory floods him. He changes the channel when a parade for victims of assault is being documented on the nightly news. He feels better avoiding the constant reminders of what happened to him and says to his close friends that he just wants to live and not let his story define him. Are either of these men coping in the "right" way? Are either of the men going to feel more comfortable in consensual sexual experiences with partners in their future? No, and we would probably need much more information about the men to make more of a determination about how they have coped, or if their choices of coping are working for them. My point is that it is so interesting to see how people who go through the same stuff make their own route to getting past whatever the experience was. Excited to discuss things like this with all of you this semester!