My Areas of Practice

Expert in Relationship & Sexual Health Issues Including:

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• couple’s interactions on a daily basis

• couple’s communication struggles

• improving both spouse’s overall comfort level around sex

• improving both spouse’s overall comfort in communicating about sexual topics

• how to properly give and receive sexual information from your spouse

• self-confidence issues

• low or high levels of desire

• desire discrepancies among partners

• erectile dysfunction

• menopause and age related sexual functioning

• difficulty with orgasm

• painful sex for both men and women

• issues with body image including genital shame

• rapid or delayed ejaculation

• struggles around orientation or gender

• performance anxiety and maintaining erotic focus

• sex and infertility

• sex-related shame originating from religious or family upbringing

• intimacy after illness, disability or aging

• out of control sexual behaviors, including pornography and masturbation addiction

• assisting people in their personal definitions of healthy sexuality

• intimacy after infidelity or abuse

• exploration of alternative marriages including modern matriarchal marital structures

• working on integrating a plan to add physical intimacy back into a relationship

• negotiating kink within a relationship and managing a fetish if it produces distress

• helping navigate consensual non-monogamous, poly, or open relationships

 

These issues may feel like they have no resolution but often they do.  Many times, one issue from this list above has occurred and becomes a wedge between the couple, the longer the wedge is present the deeper and deeper it drives the couple apart if no resolution is managed. And unfortunately, many couples are not comfortable enough to adequately discuss the root issues with their spouse in a productive way that leads to a a meaningful solution. 

 

For example, an aging man first goes to the internet to understand what to do about his Erectile Dysfunction. Possibly he then goes to the doctor for a medicine. A woman finds sex painful after menopause and tries to tell herself to relax or white knuckles through the pain. After a few attempts to solve the issues, or years of therapy with a therapist with no training in sexual health, the person decides there is no solution and the wedge is driven further and further.  Because we tend to not talk about sex, and often fear our partner’s response to sensitive sexual issues, it can easily drive a wedge within our relationships. The issue is often dropped and people begin to lose not only the sexual connection, but also communication and intimacy within the relationship many times leading to divorce which could have been prevented through effective therapy. 

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Resentments and feelings of anger and sadness grow over time.  The fact that the relationship is non-sexual becomes the couple’s secret.  People often go years living in shame because they don’t feel comfortable taking the risk to talk about the issue, because this issue is sexual in nature and creates vulnerability and shame.  In fact, studies have shown that a staggering 33% of couples have sex not at all, or less than one time a month. Leaving each other to cope alone in isolation.