Dr Sarah Ashton

Pronouns: She/her

BA Psych (Hons), PhD (Preventive Medicine), MAPS, Member of Society of Australian Sexologists (SAS), Member of Sexual Health Society of Victoria

Dr Sarah Ashton is a registered psychologist (AHPRA), Board Approved Supervisor (AHPRA), training author, and the Director and Founder of SHIPS. Sarah created SHIPS because she saw a deep need for safe and inclusive spaces to talk about sex and connection. She sees liberating expression of sexuality from fear, isolation, and shame as her personal and professional purpose.

Sarah brings over 15 years of experience, warmth and respect to the therapeutic space. Sarah is particularly passionate about working with manifestations of complex trauma (CPTSD, Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) & Borderline Personality (BDP), Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD)), attachment trauma, intergenerational trauma and sexual trauma and their impact on sexual and relationship functioning.

She believes that humans are inherently adaptive and sees therapy as a containing, safe space for supporting insight, self-healing and re-connection with internal resources. Utilising psychological frameworks, Sarah collaborates with clients to address sexual issues including erectile difficulties, sex and pornography addictions, sexual pain (dyspareunia), paraphiliac disorders, and difficulties with orgasm.

To provide safety and healing, Sarah believes it is necessary to name the impacts of marginalisation, stigmatisation and discrimination as distinct from individual pathology. She advocates for the inclusion of sex work, LGBTIQA+, kink, non-monogamy community voices in the training and delivery of healthcare.

Sarah is also the Founder and Lead Training author for our partner company Sexual Health and Intimacy Psychological Training has designed and developed skills-based online training and workshops for practitioners and students informed by psychological models, treatment modalities and current research. She a Sessional Lecturer at RMIT University, Academic Deakin University and is the Coordinator for the Victorian Sexual and Mental Health Network and facilitates professional development for practitioners working with sexual and mental health issues.

She is passionate about facilitating community engagement and challenging public discourse around sex and sexuality and writes resources and delivers workshops for the community. She has presented her research on pornography at Australian and international conferences, is a published author in prestigious journals, regularly writes articles for The Conversation, and has stared as a guest on Podcasts Sex Bi The Bi, ABC radio, Triple J - The Hook Up, Equity Mates podcast Meet Pay Love, and Ladies We Need to Talk.

MODALITIES:

Sarah’s approach to therapy is elective adaptive, and trauma-informed. She utilises: