The ISIS Wheel or ISIS Model of Sexual Experience is a template for sexual awareness and growth.  It is based on the Medicine Wheel, an ancient concept that has a spiritual dimension as well as physical and behavioral dimensions. (“ISIS” is an acronym for “Integrating Sexuality and Spirituality,” my national survey, from which the model developed; Isis is the Egyptian goddess known as “Initiator into the Sexual Mysteries.”)

The ISIS Wheel offers a graphic presentation of four dimensions of sexual experience: physical, emotional, mental, and  spiritual.  It serves as a cognitive frame for organizing and categorizing complex information about sexuality, including desire, function and dysfunction, partner preference, gender issues, affairs, polyamory, and other issues clients may present.

The ISIS Wheel can be used with individuals, couples, or in a group setting and can be integrated with any therapeutic approach, including performance-oriented sex therapy.

Using the ISIS Wheel can further the therapeutic process by providing collaboration between therapist and client, allowing therapists to “witness” more, “fix” less, and be more transparent about teachable moments and other therapeutic choices.

Using the ISIS Wheel in Therapy Sessions

Advantages of using the ISIS Wheel include the opportunities it creates for movement and for concretizing abstract concepts—that is, inviting clients to disclose multidimensional information in a concrete way.

Creating movement

A simple and effective way of creating movement in a therapy session—even with clients who seem stuck—is to show clients the ISIS Wheel template and invite them to tell their story from each quadrant: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual.

Speaking from different quadrants often activates new ways for clients to describe their problems.  It also gives them an opportunity to voice specifics of their desires, and may lead them to discover their own solutions.  Moreover, it helps both clients and therapists organize complex material.

For couples: telling their stories from each quadrant  shows partners where each locates him/herself when partner is speaking from a physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual place.

Concretizing clients’ issues

A simple and effective way of concretizing clients’ issues is to ask your clients to bring two  objects to a therapy session: one object to represent a part of their sexual story they want to keep, another object to represent a part of their sexual story they want to move beyond.

As clients tell you the story of what each object represents for them, you will find they bring fresh perspectives and nuances to the therapy process and reveal a large amount of complex information in a short time.

To increase the effectiveness of concretizing clients’ issues in this way, invite clients to locate their objects within the ISIS Wheel wherever they feel they fit—physical, emotional, mental, spiritual.  You can also ask them to explore each of their objects from each quadrant of the Wheel.

The objects clients bring vary tremendously, and may surprise you—and they may surprise your clients, too.  They become “power objects,” whose usefulness can extend beyond the session, because they take these objects home, where they continue to resonate.

If you would like more complete suggestions about how to use the ISIS Wheel I am happy to send you a free handout—and would love your feedback about how you decide to use it.

Please fill out the form below.

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