When You're Ready to Stop Performing And Start Leading For Real
Dr. Catalina Lawsin doesn’t do safe. She’s the intimacy disruptor Fortune 500 leaders, burnt-out clinicians, and high-functioning seekers call when emotional intelligence theater stops working. A licensed psychologist with over 25 years of clinical and research experience, including as an NIH-funded professor, Dr. Catalina blends science, sensuality, and subversion to call out what most professionals avoid: that disconnection, not dysfunction, is the real epidemic.
Her signature framework, the Pleasure Quotient (PQ), is not a mindset hack, it’s a trainable nervous system capacity that rewires how we connect, lead, and relate. Dr. Catalina teaches individuals and institutions to stop outsourcing safety and power, and instead build it from within. No fluff. No coddling. Just radical truth that lands in the body.
Keynote Experiences
Each talk can be tailored for professional, cultural, or academic audiences. No fluff. No clichés. Just radical insight that lands.
Ideal For:
-Social impact conferences
-Cultural institutions
-Universities
-Human rights
-Inclusion forums
Assholes Need to Get F*cked: Optimizing Pleasure to Cure Division
Alternate Title for Academic/Corporate Audiences: Optimizing Pleasure to Heal a Divided World
The world is divided. Each day we move further from democracy, equality, safety, connection, and living life led by pleasure. Systems of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and ableism script us into control, repression, and autopilot. The cost is devastating. Loneliness is epidemic. Aggression is normalized. Life feels harder, unsafe, and miserable for the majority.
Pleasure is the cure to division. Pleasure is not indulgent. Pleasure is responsibility. Dr. Catalina’s research, and that of others, shows that sexual satisfaction is both a marker of health and wellbeing, and one of the most efficient and effective drivers of human behavior and relationships. Yet most people do not know how to cultivate or sustain it. The same is true across every domain that demands regulation, integrity, and security.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient, a measurable and trainable resource to explore our likes, learn how to want, and allow desire to lead. As PQ increases, so does our capacity to empathize, to try to understand, even when we disagree. Instead of projecting hatred and division, we create safety and connection.
Audience Takeaways
- Why systemic oppression disconnects us from pleasure and fuels division
- How PQ restores empathy, curiosity, and connection across differences
- Why pleasure is the foundation of democracy, intimacy, and human resilience
- A call to reclaim pleasure as collective responsibility
Ideal For:
-Social impact conferences
-Cultural institutions
-Universities
-Human rights
-Inclusion forums
Pleasure Over Performance: A Radical Approach to Modern Leadership
Modern leadership is addicted to metrics, control, and output, but those fixations corrode culture, creativity, and people. Leading through pleasure isn’t about indulgence, it’s about choice, trust, and sustainable power.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient (PQ), a measurable and trainable capacity that reshapes how leaders show up for themselves and their teams. Leaders with high PQ generate far more than profits: they foster engagement, reduce burnout, and retain top talent. Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, and over two decades of clinical expertise, Dr. Catalina shows why leaders who lean into pleasure don’t just perform better, they create healthier workplaces and stronger results.
Audience Takeaways
- Why performance-driven leadership breeds burnout, disconnection, and turnover
- How the Pleasure Quotient creates trust, resilience, and loyalty in teams
- Practical ways to shift from control to connection without sacrificing results
- A new framework for measuring leadership success beyond output
Ideal For:
-Social impact conferences
-Cultural institutions
-Universities
-Human rights
-Inclusion forums
Healing Medicine: Reclaiming Pleasure to End Burnout and Bias
Healthcare is collapsing under impossible demands. Providers are exhausted, hospitals are unsafe, and the culture of medicine is eroding under anti-intellectual movements and non-scientific quick fixes. Physicians are leaving in record numbers, many rebranding as health influencers, while those who stay are overwhelmed by burnout, division, and unconscious bias.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient (PQ) as a professional responsibility: the ability to stay present, curious, and connected even in high-pressure environments. When providers increase their PQ, they not only protect themselves from burnout but also reduce implicit bias, strengthen patient trust, and reclaim the humanity at the core of medicine.
Audience Takeaways
- Why burnout and bias share the same root: disconnection from embodied pleasure and capacity
- How PQ strengthens empathy, resilience, and decision-making under pressure
- Practical strategies for healthcare leaders and providers to reconnect, regulate, and resist division
- A radical reframe of pleasure as essential, not optional, in clinical practice
Ideal For:
-Healthcare systems
-Hospitals
-Medical schools
-Public health forums
-Clinician and provider summits
Why Book Dr. Catalina?
- Bold, evidence-based voice redefining intimacy, identity, and powe
- Combines clinical depth with real-world storytelling
- Speaks to midlife, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and high-functioning but emotionally exhausted leaders
- Disrupts performative leadership culture with actionable, embodied strategies
Dr. Catalina Lawsin doesn’t do safe. She’s the intimacy disruptor Fortune 500 leaders, burnt-out clinicians, and high-functioning seekers call when emotional intelligence theater stops working. A licensed psychologist with over 25 years of clinical and research experience, including as an NIH-funded professor, Dr. Catalina blends science, sensuality, and subversion to call out what most professionals avoid: that disconnection, not dysfunction, is the real epidemic.
Her work goes where others won’t, naming how capitalism, patriarchy, and perfectionism erode intimacy, leadership, and health from the inside out. With a global audience of over 180,000 and features in The New York Times, Washington Post, NBC, and USA Today, she turns passive listeners into embodied leaders.
Her signature framework, the Pleasure Quotient (PQ), is not a mindset hack, it’s a trainable nervous system capacity that rewires how we connect, lead, and relate. Dr. Catalina teaches individuals and institutions to stop outsourcing safety and power, and instead build it from within. No fluff. No coddling. Just radical truth that lands in the body.
Keynote Experiences
Each talk can be tailored for professional, cultural, or academic audiences. No fluff. No clichés. Just radical insight that lands.
Ideal For:
-Social impact conferences
-Cultural institutions
-Universities
-Human rights
-Inclusion forums
Assholes Need to Get F*cked: Optimizing Pleasure to Cure Division
Alternate Title for Academic/Corporate Audiences: Optimizing Pleasure to Heal a Divided World
The world is divided. Each day we move further from democracy, equality, safety, connection, and living life led by pleasure. Systems of capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and ableism script us into control, repression, and autopilot. The cost is devastating. Loneliness is epidemic. Aggression is normalized. Life feels harder, unsafe, and miserable for the majority.
Pleasure is the cure to division. Pleasure is not indulgent. Pleasure is responsibility. Dr. Catalina’s research, and that of others, shows that sexual satisfaction is both a marker of health and wellbeing, and one of the most efficient and effective drivers of human behavior and relationships. Yet most people do not know how to cultivate or sustain it. The same is true across every domain that demands regulation, integrity, and security.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient, a measurable and trainable resource to explore our likes, learn how to want, and allow desire to lead. As PQ increases, so does our capacity to empathize, to try to understand, even when we disagree. Instead of projecting hatred and division, we create safety and connection.
Audience Takeaways
- Why systemic oppression disconnects us from pleasure and fuels division
- How PQ restores empathy, curiosity, and connection across differences
- Why pleasure is the foundation of democracy, intimacy, and human resilience
- A call to reclaim pleasure as collective responsibility
Ideal For:
-Social impact conferences
-Cultural institutions
-Universities
-Human rights
-Inclusion forums
Pleasure Over Performance: A Radical Approach to Modern Leadership
Modern leadership is addicted to metrics, control, and output, but those fixations corrode culture, creativity, and people. Leading through pleasure isn’t about indulgence, it’s about choice, trust, and sustainable power.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient (PQ), a measurable and trainable capacity that reshapes how leaders show up for themselves and their teams. Leaders with high PQ generate far more than profits: they foster engagement, reduce burnout, and retain top talent. Drawing from psychology, neuroscience, and over two decades of clinical expertise, Dr. Catalina shows why leaders who lean into pleasure don’t just perform better, they create healthier workplaces and stronger results.
Audience Takeaways
- Why performance-driven leadership breeds burnout, disconnection, and turnover
- How the Pleasure Quotient creates trust, resilience, and loyalty in teams
- Practical ways to shift from control to connection without sacrificing results
- A new framework for measuring leadership success beyond output
Ideal For:
- Corporate leadership retreats
- DEI and HR summits
- Executive education
- Innovation conferences
- Team offsites
Healing Medicine: Reclaiming Pleasure to End Burnout and Bias
Healthcare is collapsing under impossible demands. Providers are exhausted, hospitals are unsafe, and the culture of medicine is eroding under anti-intellectual movements and non-scientific quick fixes. Physicians are leaving in record numbers, many rebranding as health influencers, while those who stay are overwhelmed by burnout, division, and unconscious bias.
Dr. Catalina introduces the Pleasure Quotient (PQ) as a professional responsibility: the ability to stay present, curious, and connected even in high-pressure environments. When providers increase their PQ, they not only protect themselves from burnout but also reduce implicit bias, strengthen patient trust, and reclaim the humanity at the core of medicine.
Audience Takeaways
- Why burnout and bias share the same root: disconnection from embodied pleasure and capacity
- Practical strategies for healthcare leaders and providers to reconnect, regulate, and resist division
- A radical reframe of pleasure as essential, not optional, in clinical practice
Ideal For:
- Healthcare systems
- Hospitals
- Medical schools
- Public health forums
- Clinician and provider summits
Why Book Dr. Catalina?
- Bold, evidence-based voice redefining intimacy, identity, and power
- Combines clinical depth with real-world storytelling
- Speaks to midlife, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and high-functioning but emotionally exhausted leaders
- Disrupts performative leadership culture with actionable, embodied strategies
Booking Dr. Catalina
Bring a speaker who challenges the status quo with science, soul, and clarity.
- connect@theintimacydoc.com
- theintimacydoc.com/speakin
@theintimacydoc
