Membership Types

IAPST is a professional home for psychosexual therapists. Membership connects you with clinicians working in the same field across many countries, gives you access to the Association's journal, member listserv, and monthly colloquium, and, for those who want it, opens the route to certification.

There are four categories of membership.

The four categories

Certified Member

A practitioner who holds the C-PST credential, having completed an IAPST-accredited program and the supervised clinical component. Certified Members may use the post-nominal C-PST, receive a badged listing in the Therapist Directory that displays their certification certificate, and are eligible to be nominated for Fellow Status.

Full Member

A qualified practitioner in psychosexual therapy who does not hold, or has not sought, IAPST certification. Full Members are eligible for a listing in the Therapist Directory.

Associate Member

A professional in an allied field who does not practice psychosexual therapy. Associate Membership is for those whose work touches the field, including researchers, educators, and physicians, without being clinical practice in it.

Student Member

Someone in training. Student Membership is open to anyone enrolled in an IAPST-accredited program, and to students in higher education studying psychosexual therapy or a related field. If you are working toward certification, you must hold Student Membership throughout your supervision.

Benefits by category

Annual dues

Tier II applies where your primary country of professional practice is an eligible country. Dues renew on January 1 and are not prorated.

How the Association is governed

IAPST is governed by an Executive Board, which appoints the Association's constituent bodies.

Student Members elect a Student Representative for a two-year term, who attends the Executive Board meetings.

Members shape the Association through the Listserv, the Virtual Colloquium, by presenting at the Annual International Symposium on Sex Therapy, and through service on its bodies.

A global community

Psychosexual therapy is a small field spread thinly across many countries. Members can work for years on the same problems without knowing of one another, and much of what the Association does is aimed at closing that distance.

The Virtual Colloquium meets monthly, on the third Wednesday at 12:00 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time.

Members present work in progress, discuss current research, and hear from invited speakers on questions the field is facing. It is free to members and counts toward the continuing education certified members need to renew.

The IAPST Listserv is where members consult one another on difficult clinical questions, ask how a regulation or professional norm works in another country, and request referrals, for a patient moving abroad, needing a specialization the member does not offer, or requiring a language they do not speak. Members also announce their own publications and research, calls for contributors and participants, job openings, and professional milestones.

The Colloquium and the Listserv connect members across time zones. Once a year, the Annual International Symposium on Sex Therapy brings them together in person, and is where Fellows are conferred and member awards presented.