AI, Sex Bots and Digital Intimacy

Credit

Speaker

Angela Gunn, LCSW, CST Related seminars and products

---

Angela Gunn, LCSW, CST (known as Soleil Merroir), is a licensed clinical social worker, AASECT certified sex therapist and supervisor, and a sex worker with more than 20 years in both industries. Within the therapeutic world, Soleil traversed child welfare, institutional, private practice, group and telehealth settings, bringing deep empathy and a systems change mindset to the work. They served as the sexuality expert for Talkspace.com and sat on the board of SPEEC, a sexuality non-profit formerly in Portland, OR. Teaching and facilitation accompanied much of their clinical work, including offerings related to trauma, alternative sexualities and communities, polyamory, BDSM and trauma, the intersections of sexuality and mental health, and pleasure centered care. They co-founded the Equitable Care Certification (ECC), a non-profit focused on training mental health professionals in sex work affirming and anti-oppressive therapeutic care.

Soliel’s more recent work has focused on the intersection of sextech, sex work, human relationships and community stewardship. Their work integrates trauma-informed, sex-work-affirming, and cyberfeminist perspectives to support ethical, human-centered practice and community development in digital and immersive environments.

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Angela Gunn has employment relationships with CyborgDreamDigital and Zepp Wellness Center. She is a workshop facilitator for Kink.com, SheBop the Shop, SeaGrape, Self Serve Toys, Curious Fox, NYC, and Council for Relationships. She receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. All relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations have been mitigated.
Non-financial: Angela Gunn has no relevant non-financial relationships.

Additional Info

Program Information

You will have access for 90 days after the program for review. For live CE credit, you must watch the live webcast in its entirety at its scheduled time and complete the CE quiz and evaluation within one week. Please note that this requirement may vary by credit type. Please see detailed credit information for specific requirements for each credit type.

Please note: There will be a 70-minute lunch and two 15-minute breaks; one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Lunch and break times will be announced by the speaker and at their discretion. A more detailed schedule is available upon request.

Visit our FAQ page at https://www.pesicanada.ca/faq or contact us at https://www.pesicanada.ca/contact-us.

Objectives

1. Describe how AI and digital relationships influence vulnerability, intimacy, and relational patterns.
2. Asses the role of AI, sexting, and digital relationships within individual and relationship therapy.
3. Apply a sex positive, harm reduction framework to differentiate adaptive from maladaptive technology use.
4. Implement EFT-informed strategies to support repair, emotional labor, and boundary setting within tech-based sexual and relational systems.
5. Apply clinical interventions to increase self-awareness and self-assessment without triggering defensiveness or shame when addressing unhealthy digital intimacy.
6. Apply DBT-informed interventions for boundary setting with technology in couple’s work.

Outline

Current Clinical Relational Landscape in The Digital Intimacy Space

• Understanding driving behaviors behind sexting, chat rooms and online erotic art
• Loneliness, isolation and loss of community fueling emotional dependence on AI
• Understanding digital expression and its function in sexuality
• Patriarchy and its role in men’s emotional isolation and women’s emotional labor
• Clinical assessment of sexual and relational health across genders identity

The Role of AI and Its Impact on Human Relationships

• Understanding how AI creates the illusion of attune and connection
• AI and its role in impairing relational skills of rupture and repair
• AI and control as a strategy to avoid vulnerability rejection and in real relationships
• Case examples

Psychoeducational Scripts and Worksheet for Unhealthy Behaviors

• Clinical interventions for separation support tools from relational substitutes
• Psychoeducational script on how AI mimics connection and the risks of using it as such
• Practice ready skills through a sex positive, harm reduction, shame free lens
• Worksheets, psychoeducation for mapping relationship systems and power dynamics

Clinical Skills for Complex Digital Intimacy Behaviors

• Clinical tools to assess digital habits and teach healthy vs. unhealthy online behavior
• IFS-informed interventions for self-awareness and exploration of sexuality and digital behaviors
• Clinical interventions for managing resistance and defensiveness when shame is triggered

Clinical Assessment, Boundaries & Repair in Couples

• Top 3 relationship issues tied to porn use, AI intimacy, sexting, and online infidelity
• Shame-free tools for creating share agreements and addressing the use in couples
• DBT informed interventions for boundary setting with technology
• EFT-informed interventions to explore attachment needs
• Case examples

The Therapist’s Role in Healing and Rebuilding Community

• Utilizing community as a tool against isolation and overreliance to romantic love
• Solution-focused strategies to help clients build emotional vulnerability with real people
• Ethical considerations and limitations on research
• Integration of learning into real-world practice

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Psychotherapists
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• School-based Professionals
• Case Managers
• Other Mental Health Professionals