762: Natasha Helfer Parker - Mormon Sex Therapist Pt. 1

Mormon Stories Podcast

Dr. John Dehlin

Religion & Spirituality

4.5 • 5.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 July 2017

⏱️ 96 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In this series on Mormon Stories, we interview the fabulous Natasha Helfer Parker, MFT, CST — moderator of the Mormon Mental Health podcast — to finally hear her “Mormon story.”

This interview covers:

*Being raised in the Church with convert parents in Spain and her eventual move to the US
*Natasha and her family’s concerns about the practice of polygamy and frustration that their questions never seemed to be answered, yet remaining true-believers
*The impact of being a victim of sexual abuse as a child and teenager and how it influenced her experiences exploring her sexuality as a teenager and young adult
*Her removal from BYU because of her sexual experiences and her thoughts now about the unintended consequences of honor code enforcement
*How she met her husband and disclosed her sexual past in an act of transparency, and how it affected the first years of their marriage
*Her thoughts now about the difference between behavior and self-worth within the Church, especially as it relates to sexual behavior
*Her decision to become a sex therapist and how her move to the Midwest became an impetus to develop a wider online presence
*How being a believer in the faith, but having a nuanced view of sexuality led her to being widely known as the “Mormon Sex Therapist”
*How cracks developed in her Orthodox faith foundation
*Her feeling of being in a continuing faith transition for much of the 20+ years of her practice

http://www.mormonmentalhealth.org

https://www.symmetrysols.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Mormon Stories is a production of the Open Stories Foundation and relies solely
0:04.2	upon the support of people like you, its listeners. To help keep the podcast
0:08.4	alive or to become a member of the community, please become a monthly
0:11.8	subscriber by visiting MormonStories.org and clicking on the Donate button on
0:16.7	the right side of the page under Support. All contributions to Mormon
0:20.4	Stories are completely tax deductible and go towards producing the podcast and
0:24.6	building communities and programs of support for Mormons like you. Thanks for
0:29.3	supporting.
0:33.4	We kindly light a myth in circling blue,
0:42.8	lead thou me on the night is dark and alive.
0:48.8	Welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Delin.
0:54.4	It is June 28th, 2017, and I am super excited for today's interview as I always tend to be.
1:08.2	We are going to be interviewing today the lovely, the brilliant, the super well-respected,
1:16.1	the sweetheart of Mormon therapy worldwide.
1:23.1	The Mormon therapist herself, Natasha, help for Parker.
1:27.1	How's that for an introduction, Natasha?
1:29.1	Is that work?
1:31.1	Sure, I'll take it.
1:33.1	Before we jump in though, I want to welcome everyone who's joined us.
1:40.1	We do have several people who are joining us through Facebook Live because we are live streaming as many interviews as we can, because we think that's a fun way to make things interactive.
1:50.1	So as people are joining us, we want to thank you for joining us and ask you to prepare your questions and comments, because we want to integrate questions and comments into these episodes that makes them more interactive and more fun.
2:03.1	Before we actually dive into Natasha's interview, though we want to make a few announcements.
	...

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