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Why Try Sex and Relationship Counseling?


If any of these sound familiar to you, it could be time to try sex and couples counseling.  You deserve happy relationships and a healthy sex life, and sex and couples counseling can help.

As we grow older, we might experience decreased sexual intimacy as a result of changing life roles or even problems with arousal and dysfunction. It’s important that we can talk openly and address these things since sex is such a huge part of who we are.  That’s exactly what we do in integrative sex and couples therapy – we resolve issues regarding communication, anxiety, sexual energy, self-concept, and barriers to desire and arousal.


Sex and Relationship Issues Happen to Most of Us

There are lots of reasons we experience decreased sexual connection – we get busy, we get bored, and we experience sexual traumas. Sex is a crucial part of health and wellness, and it’s important to process these things with someone who specializes in these areas.

Sometimes we think we’re the only ones, but there are lots of other people who experience what we experience – in fact, sexual pleasure issues are estimated to affect about 43% of women and 31% of men, according to a study by Rosen in 2000.  Sex and relationship issues happen and, with the help of an experienced sex and couples counselor, we can get you to where you want to be.


Sex and Couples Counseling Can Help You Regain Pleasure and Satisfaction

In sex and couples counseling, we work on discovering the roots of the problems using lots of communication. You will be encouraged to complete homework assignments with your partner or partners as well. We’ll discuss the success and the struggles you had with the homework, and I’ll likely assign new tasks at the following session.

We discuss a whole range of topics in sex therapy, from your sexual history to mental health, relationships with family, trauma, your sex habits. Why? Because to engage in sexual activity is human, as human as eating, sleeping, and breathing. We are sexual beings, and it is part of human nature. So often in counseling we ignore that part of ourselves or think it’s too inappropriate to discuss. Culturally we may have been taught that sex is “bad” in some way or that we should be embarrassed about it. In sex therapy, it’s our job to uncover what those preconceived notions are, especially if it’s problematic to our lives.

There are two kinds of energies in relationships — compassion and eroticism, or what we can refer to as Eros. The opposite of Eros is Thanatos, or death, so if you are alive you have Eros. The compassion is defined as the caring for each other, working together as one team, raising children perhaps, taking care of life responsibilities, going to the movies, spending time with your families. The Eros is the sexual energy — romance, kissing, sex, intimacy. Eros is a part of being alive, yet we don’t talk about it too often. We might even feel ashamed of it due to cultural issues, familial morals, or being traumatized in the relationship (i.e., lied to, cheated on).  In sex and couples counseling, we resolve issues concerning compassion and Eros.

Specific interventions we may focus on include Imago Therapy, cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), sensate-focused therapy (i.e., mindfulness for sex), and making referrals to other professionals as needed, such as pelvic floor therapists, physicians, and gynecologists.

You Can Have a Happy and Healthy Sex Life

You deserve happy relationships and fulfilling sex lives, so let’s get you there.

According to research done by the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists, families and couples who have attended family or couples therapy sessions indicate high levels of patient satisfaction (GuideDoc, 2021). Over 98 percent of those surveyed reported that they received good or excellent couples therapy, and over 97 percent of those surveyed said they got the help they needed. After working with a marriage or family therapist, 93 percent of patients said they had more effective tools for dealing with their problems.

If you’d like to know more about me and about sex and couples counseling in general, check the FAQs page.  I also offer 15-minute phone consultations to answer any questions you may have – click "Schedule an Appointment" at the top of the page or reach out using my contact info below.  You deserve happy relationships and a healthy sex life, so let’s get you there.


SOURCES

GuideDoc, R. T. (2021, January 18). Does marriage counseling work? 10 surprising Statistics & Facts. GuideDoc. Retrieved August 29, 2022, from https://guidedoc.com/does-marriage-counseling-work-statistics-facts

Self-Report Instrument for the Assessment of Female Sexual Function, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26:2, 191-208, DOI: 10.1080/009262300278597

The State of Marriage Counseling | MidAmerica Nazarene University. (2017, November 3).

MidAmerica Nazarene University.

https://www.mnu.edu/graduate/blogs-ideas/the-state-of-marriage-counseling-study