Begin Your Recovery – Attend a Workshop!

A workshop is a safe, structured program to help you begin to recover from paruresis. Much of what happens involves relearning how to urinate in the presence of others.

Find your workshop here.

The IPA has hosted hundreds of shy bladder sufferers in these events over the years. Many people report that they were nervous before the workshop and quite reluctant to sign up, but after the first few hours wondered why they hadn’t sought help for their paruresis earlier. The fearful feelings are normal, so don’t worry too much about them, just bring them with you to the workshop and anticipate meeting a group of people just like yourself. You’ll feel at ease right away.

The IPA hosts three types of Shy Bladder Recovery Workshop events:

Live 3-Day In-Person Weekend: This is our traditional format over a weekend starting Friday night, continuing Saturday, and ending around 2 p.m. on Sunday. If you are ready for the experience, Sunday’s practice takes place in a nearby shopping area.

Hybrid Virtual & Live: A one-day in-person workshop with pre- and post-event virtual support group sessions. If you’re unable to commit to a full weekend with us, try our new “Hybrid” format. The week prior to the in-person meet-up, participants meet online for the “getting to know you” and life-story sharing activities, along with learning how the exposure process will work on Saturday in-person. The following week, after real-world practice on your own, another virtual session is held to see how the new concepts are “sticking” in your life.

Virtual Workshop: A one-day online event through Zoom that uses an abbreviated version of the full experience agendas. Practice sessions are conducted using private breakout groups.

• A few general notes regarding workshops . . .

At the beginning of each workshop participants share, often for the first time, their stories of what it has been like living with paruresis. This usually proves to be a very cathartic experience, as people realize that they are not the only person in the world who suffers from this anxiety disorder.

Practice sessions involve discreet, graduated exposure exercises, usually with one or two other people in the role of “pee-buddy.” Attendees always start practice at a level that feels comfortable and that will give the best chance of urination. Any practice using graduated exposure – whether resulting in peeing or a “mis-fire” – is always classified as success. Success that you are working toward improvement and collecting data to inform your journey of recovery. Typical workshop content includes:

Preparation Session

• Introductions, Workshop Overview, and Sharing Our Stories
• Graduated Exposure Approach to Treating Paruresis
• Learning the “How-to” of Practice
• Constructing Behavioral Hierarchies

Core Session

• Bladder Facts
• Anxiety and the Brain
• Self-Compassion and Disclosure
• Adjunct Shy Bladder Therapies
• Multiple Graduated Exposure Exercises and Debriefing

Practice/Re-enforcement Session

• Questions and Answers
• “Real World” Graduated Exposure Exercises and Debriefing
• Where Do You “Go” from here?

A few more “boring, but important” details regarding workshops. . .

We set two minimums when we are planning for workshops. For in-person or hybrid events, we need a minimum of five registrations at least one month prior to the scheduled date. Why? We contract with host hotels that have a cutoff on when we can cancel and still get our money back. For virtual Saturday events, we need at least ten registrations by the end of the Wednesday prior. This number of participants is needed to have the virtual breakout sessions work for the best. For both live and virtual, if we don’t meet these minimums, we need to cancel or reschedule the event. We understand that our community has as one of its characteristics “avoidance” which means it’s hard for attendees to register. But please register as early as you can so that we can call each event a “go” as early as possible. If you have any questions about the status of any event, or if you’d like to know more details, please use the Contact the IPA form.

Your registration is 100% Money Back Guaranteed. If the IPA does not hold this event due to not meeting our participant minimum, we will refund your registration fees. Women: if you require a female “pee buddy” and we don’t deliver, we’ll refund your fee, as well.

Lastly, we want you to know that workshops are part of our nonprofit mission. Yes, we charge registration fees for them, yet our overall all workshop program goal is to break even on revenues versus expenses. (For 2025, the board has authorized a small loss on events.) Many of our other programs are offered at no cost. These workshops – and all our operations – are made possible by the generous gifts of our donors. We make every effort to make these events affordable while also being good stewards of IPA funds. You’ll find 20+ years of IPA financial reports at this link. Thank you for investing in the IPA and in yourself when you register.