Sandy K Wurtele, PhD

Sexual abuse of children was just a dirty little secret when Sandy Wurtele was growing up in all-American Nebraska City, a small town on the western bank of the Missouri River. After a B.A. at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and a master's degree and a doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Wurtele found herself in 1983 teaching at Washington State University, where she developing a behavioral skills training program that was more effective in...See more

Sexual abuse of children was just a dirty little secret when Sandy Wurtele was growing up in all-American Nebraska City, a small town on the western bank of the Missouri River. After a B.A. at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, and a master's degree and a doctorate in clinical psychology at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, Wurtele found herself in 1983 teaching at Washington State University, where she developing a behavioral skills training program that was more effective in teaching kids about sexual abuse prevention than a film on distinguishing "bad" from "good" touching. "During my practicum I saw how incest by her father had transformed a 6-year-old into what looked and acted like a 20-year-old prostitute," remembers Wurtele. "During my internship at the University of Mississippi Medical Center I ended up even more frustrated with therapy vs. prevention." In 1988, she moved to the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where she offered programs on body safety See less