We are pleased to announce The Dr. Gina Ogden Curatorial Scholarship for Integrative Approaches to Sex Research and Therapy (The Scholarship) from the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections, Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. We invite applications from professionals and students, including undergraduates who would benefit from using the library and archival materials at the Kinsey Institute.

The intent of The Scholarship is to stimulate new ways of building on Dr. Ogden’s integrative Four-Dimensional Wheel (4-D) approach to sex research and therapy, and to carry forward Dr. Ogden’s award-winning work. 

Requirements of the Scholarship

This Scholarship requires that recipient(s) produce a tangible result: that is, an addition to the integrative practice of sex research and/or therapy that incorporates the complex relationships among body, mind, heart, and spirit.  This result could take the form of a scholarly paper, a book proposal, a 4-D strategy for addressing a specific issue, or a popular way to address issues in the personal or professional communities of the recipients.  Ideas might include, but are not limited to: 

• Sex surveys: A retrospective that examines how shifting attitudes toward marriage and women weighted the questions asked over the course of sex survey research in the U.S.
• The #MeToo movement, and/or other feminist movements in light of past sex research and present trends in sex therapy.
• Social justice as it is practiced in today’s sex research and therapy regarding underserved populations.

Scholarship recipients are also expected to contribute to the organization, preservation, and/or accessibility of Kinsey Institute collections. Examples include, but are not limited to, the creation of:

• Annotated bibliographies
• Collection guides
• Finding aids
• Digital presentations
• Media productions

Terms of the Scholarship

• There may be up to two recipients selected for the Scholarship.
• Each recipient of the Scholarship will receive $3,000.
• The Scholarship must be used to cover travel, lodging, and research expenses associated with research at the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. 
• The Scholarship recipient may stay between two to four weeks at the Kinsey Institute within one year of receiving the award. 
• The Scholarship recipient may use the Dr. Gina Ogden archives exclusively, or use them as a portal through which to examine further resources in the vast Kinsey Collections, including, but not limited to, books, articles, works of art, film, science, and erotica.
• Recipients’ scholarly work will belong to them, and may be solicited for inclusion in the Kinsey collections.

Additional benefits

• Possible publication: At this writing, editors at Routledge will review with interest a book proposal based on recipients’ work with this Scholarship.
• 4-D Network: Recipients of this Scholarship will receive a one-year certified membership in the 4-D Network, subject to approval by 4-D Network directors.

Eligibility 

• Applications are encouraged from professionals and students including undergraduates who would benefit from using the library and archival materials at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University. No U.S. citizenship is required. Non-U.S. citizens must be enrolled in a college or university in the United States and have a valid visa for the duration of their research at the Kinsey Institute.
• Applicants 18 years old or older and of all genders, and sexual, cultural, and spiritual orientations are invited to apply by sending a letter of interest and intent.
• Successful applicants will be familiar with Dr. Ogden’s 4-D approach as outlined in her books (Ogden, 2006; 2008; 2013; 2015; 2018), and on 4-DNetwork.com 

Application Process

Application date for the 2025 scholarship will be announced in Fall 2024.

Gina Ogden Curatorial Scholars

Current Scholars:

Dr. Marcy Brink and Dr. Christopher Walling

Previous Scholars:

• 2023 Sahar Khanpour and Claudia Johnson
• 2022 Evan Theis (Inaugural Scholar)

WE INVITE DONATIONS TO THE DR. GINA OGDEN CURATORIAL SCHOLARSHIP FOR INTEGRATIVE APPROACHES TO SEX RESEARCH AND THERAPY FUND

This Scholarship has been established by contributions from Dr. Gina Ogden and other individuals.

Your donation in any amount will help extend this integrative scholarship to serve more recipients.

The mission of the Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections at Indiana University (a 501-C-3 corporation) is to acquire, preserve, research, interpret, exhibit, and provide scholarly access to print, manuscript, audio, and visual materials, as part of the Kinsey Institute’s overall mission to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the fields of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction.  The Kinsey Institute Library and Special Collections constitute a world premier research center that contains rare books, monographs, journals, magazines, manuscripts, institutional/organizational records, research data, films, artwork, artifacts, and photographs.

The Kinsey Institute is grateful to Dr. Gina Ogden for entrusting her collection to our care, and establishing this Scholarship opportunity for students of sexuality.

Dr. Gina Ogden and Her Legacy

During more than four decades as a family therapist, sex therapist, researcher, supervisor, and mentor, Dr. Ogden has written 13 books, along with numerous book chapters and articles. She conducted the only nationwide survey on integrating sexuality and spirituality, which moved beyond current assumptions and quantifiable data to invite respondents to explore how sex feels and what it means in their lives. Most importantly, she worked continually with both colleagues and clients to develop the 4-Dimensional Wheel, an active client-centered approach to sex therapy, and the only clinical practice based directly on results of sex research—as clearly outlined in her latest books (Ogden, 2006; 2008; 2013; 2015; 2018).

Dr. Ogden’s work increasingly centers on social justice aspects of sexual healing, a natural outgrowth of her activism in 1970s feminism, and ultimately including people of all genders and sexual, cultural, and spiritual orientations. The 4-D Wheel and 4-D Core Dynamics uniquely offer organic ways to expand the relationship between client and therapist beyond a focus on symptoms and goals, as in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunction.  As we know from neuroscience, focusing only on the performance aspects of sex leaves out much of what is crucially important for people of all genders, especially as we grow older: self-esteem, pleasure, and the immeasurable joys of erotic connection. Her principal is that as researchers and therapists ask new questions, so will clients. What is out there for all of us to discover is a rich new sexual landscape of sensation, feelings, meanings, and connections.

 About the 4-Dimensional Wheel Approach to Sex Research and Therapy

The current social climate raises increasingly complex questions about sexual issues and optimal ways of researching these issues and helping clients. At this writing, the #MeToo movement is in full flower, which gives particular immediacy to social justice concerns such as consent, power, and male privilege, along with any kind of privilege that exploits. Consider also the sexual and social concerns involved in racial, cultural, and ethnic differences; the sexual and social challenges presented by age, illness, and injury; the sexual and social judgments underlying LGBTQ identities and behaviors, kink and BDSM, infidelity and affairs; the sexual and social constraints involved in repressive religions and civic policies. Add to all of these: Internet access to constant information, including pornography, whose uses have generated their own sexual and social issues, including those labeled “compulsive,” “out-of-control,” and even “addictive” uses.  These form the tip of the iceberg, open to many more issues that affect the lives and practices of Scholarship applicants.

The 4-D approach intrinsically incorporates any and all of these issues because it is based on collaboration.  The original research study evolved from questions raised by clients about how sex feels  and what it means—emotionally and spiritually as well as physically.  Responses from 3,810 survey respondents established the basic template for discovery as a multidimensional Wheel through which to explore interactions among physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual perceptions, not only in the here-and-now but also as they resonate through time, with past, present, and future experience.

Four-Dimensional Wheel of Sexual Experience

Two decades of inviting clients to experience the Wheel has established that clients stepped into the Wheel to describe and explore their own constellations of issues rather than relying on experts to diagnose and treat their dysfunctions. Using the Wheel to train practitioners has established that therapists, coaches, and other professionals felt free to move beyond their role as experts to create space to listen—as if they were  travelers in their clients’ land, intent on learning the nuances of a new language. In the 4-D approach, the role of expertise therefore rests with both clients and practitioners, and amplifies opportunities for growth and change. 

“Whatever else we do as sex therapists, we must first of all do no harm. Primum non nocere is the oath of medical ethics, and is the underlying ethic of sex therapy, whether our primary mode is psychology, sociology, or neurobiology, whether we are psychotherapists, teachers, bodyworkers, or coaches; no matter where we look for information and inspiration—in the literature, in the spirit world, in our own experience. 

 “To do no harm requires that we clear ourselves of whatever keeps us mired in our own dramas so that we can focus always and steadily on the well-being of our clients, not on how much we know (or fear we don’t know) as therapists.  The core of extraordinary sex therapy is relatively ordinary after all, although it is not always simple to practice.  It is that we listen to our clients, create safe space, encourage movement—physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, and trust our clients to do their own work so we are not working harder in their therapy than they are.”     —Gina Ogden, from the Introduction to Extraordinary Sex Therapy (Routledge, 2015)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

For more information about Dr. Ogden and her work: https://ginaogden.com/

For more information about the 4-D approach: https://www.4-dnetwork.com/

Additional information and materials available upon request from Liana Zhou: zhoul@indiana.edu