Your Erotic Life And Sex Therapy

Tell me more about your erotic life, because I think it's important. As a sex-positive therapist working with couples in New York City, I am open to conventional partnerships as well as alternative lifestyles, identities, and gender expressions. Our differences are actually normal expressions of love. Sex and intimacy are topics that often arise during relationship counseling, and couples often wonder if it’s time to seek sexual counseling. It’s not always easy to talk about, but good couples counseling can help you have more authentic and meaningful conversations going forward. I’ve included in this post some questions that might help you decide whether you and your partner would benefit from sexual counseling.

What’s on your mind…

• Are you craving more exploration, surprise, mystery, novelty, excitement, desire and passion?

• Does your partner feel like a child or parent, thus decreasing desire?

• Do you struggle with sharing sexual concerns with your partner, especially your sexual desires and needs?

• Are you struggling alone with personal sexual issues?

• Do you worry about the frequency or lack of sexual frequency in your relationship?

• Do you feel turned off when your partner wants sex? 

• Does your partner struggle with sexual dysfunction?

• Do you feel sexually unfulfilled?

• Are you struggling to heal from a boundary violation, or sexual or emotional infidelity?

• Is your relationship long-term, and you're feeling more like roommates than lovers?

• Are you a new parent and having trouble with life/balance or feeling romantic and sexual again?

• Are you having hormonal or drug-related side effects or chronic pain and medical concerns?

• Are you in perimenopause or post-menopause and are experiencing hormonal changes?

• Do you have high levels of stress that are impacting your health and wellness?

How can sex therapy help you? From relational issues to individual or shared concerns, a sex therapist can help you discover your erotic life, explore your sexual identity and work through personal issues, inhibitions or past traumas that may be interfering with your erotic life.

Common difficulties addressed in sex therapy

• Hyper or compulsive sexual behaviors (feeling out of control)

• Low or Absent Desire

• Discrepant Desire (partners wanting different frequencies or types of sexual experiences)

• Recovery from Infidelity, Cheating and Affairs

• Erectile Disorder (ED)

• Sober sex and sexuality

• Self-esteem and body image-related concerns

• Communication

• sexuality throughout the lifespan

• infidelity/affairs/cheating/broken monogamy agreements

• Boundary issues

• Pelvic, Vaginal and Penetrative pain (GPPPD)

• Post-labor recovery and adjustment

• Sexual Trauma Recovery (from childhood abuse, sexual assault, rape)

• Premature or Uncontrolled Ejaculation (PE)

• Delayed Ejaculation (DE)

• Stress of Infertility on sexuality

• Social anxiety

• Family of Origin Stressors

• Performance anxiety

• Phobias

• Kink-related issues

• Navigating nonmonogamy and Poly relationships

• Peri-menopausal, menopausal and post-menopausal challenges (pain, absent desire, sense of loss)

For many reasons, sexuality changes throughout our lifetime—this is normal. It's important however, to be able to openly discuss and communicate your needs and wants with your sexual partner or spouse—what's working and what's missing in your life. Without this openness and connection, your relationship will certainly suffer.

Many enter marriage and couples counseling to fix problems in the relationship. It is possible to repair damages done to your relationship and restore intimacy and affection as well as create an exciting and robust sex life. It is also possible to heal from infidelity and any personal traumas that are impacting your sexuality. Perhaps you don't have any identifiable problems, but would simply like to enhance your sense of sexual adventure, novelty and erotic connection. 

As a couple, relationship and marriage therapist, I spend a fair amount of time helping couples develop or reconnect to intimacy, address sexual concerns and explore the need for more eroticism, excitement and passion. In my practice, sex therapy is exclusively "talk therapy," and there are no circumstances where sex therapy involves sexual touch or any inappropriate touch between therapist and client or between clients. During sex therapy sessions, we address psychological concerns and physical problems that contribute to a lack of desire and arousal, and when ready, we explore creativity, fantasies and needs.

How does one become a sex therapist? These professionals are licensed professionals such as psychologists, clinical social workers, marriage and family therapists and professional counselors. Therapists offering sexual counseling have generally received specialized training beyond what therapists receive during graduate training. 

I work with couples of all sexual orientations, genders, and races. My work is informed by esteemed couples therapists and psychotherapists such as John and Julie Gottman, Sue Johnson and Esther Perel.

Holistic Therapy & Wellness Manhattan
Boutique Integrative Psychotherapy For Adults, Couples & Midlife Women In Transition
Holistictherapywellnessny.com