Intimacy, vulnerability, desire, confusion, secrets, shame....
Who or what am I when I'm sexual? What if I say what I really want to do...? Am I "weird" to want that...? Is it okay to have these desires? I don't feel very sexual. I don't want to have sex. My sex drive is too high/too low. No one fancies me. I'm too big/too small.
These are some of the questions you may have asked yourself or thought about your partner. My therapy offers you (as an individual or a couple) a safe space to begin this exploration, at your own pace. You will be supported to talk about anything that, up to now you haven't felt you could tell anyone. Or maybe you've spoken to lots of people about it and no one really gets it. The importance of this type of therapy is to offer you the confidential space to help you to think about what you want and need - without judgement. I work with you as a unique individual to hear your story, your thoughts, your hopes, your fears.
Sex therapy can open your mind to blocks you may have had and causing you the stuckness you feel now. It can help you to think about new, more meaningful ways of expressing yourself to get your needs met. Not just sexually but in many other areas of your life.
It can help you to let go of what you've been holding onto for a long time and open yourself to new possibilities.
Sex therapy is less about sex itself and more about what you think and feel about your "sexual self".
What happens in a session?
I will conduct a detailed assessment session to identify the origins of the problems and how it has been affecting you. You will be supported to explore your sexual history and the role this has played in how you think about and respond to sex now.
The importance of any type of therapy, is that you are respected for your individual values, beliefs and feelings. In psychosexual therapy this is essential for the intimate exploratory work to take place. For change to happen however, we all need to be challenged on what we think and why we think it, especially if these thoughts are coming from old, outdated messages that may no longer be helpful.
You will be invited to consider these beliefs and what they mean for you now. Often we don't think to question the things we've been told. We just absorb early learning as truth. E.g. messages such as: men are always up for it; women must be ladylike; good sex should result in an orgasm, if you don't want sex it must mean you don't want me... etc.
It's not easy to let a stranger (therapist) into your intimate world but it's often the case that you haven't invited your sexual partner into your internal world either. You've stopped letting each other in and a distance has slowly developed, unbidden. This is the core of the work - to understand what it is that's going on beneath all the anger, resentment and anxiety. I will support you in looking at this and explain what I'm observing and together we'll discuss options for change.
Common problems that can be resolved via Psychosexual Therapy
- Affairs/Betrayal
- Anorgasmia
- Arousal/Desire difficulties
- Birth trauma
- Body Phobias
- Dyspareunia
- Erectile Dysfunction (ED)
- Premature Ejaculation (PE)
- Retarded Ejaculation (RE)
- Sexual Addiction/Compulsion
- Sexual Aversion
- Sexual Identity
- Vaginismus
In addition to the BACP and NCPS, I also hold professional membership with The College of Sexual and Relationship Therapists (COSRT) and abide by their code of ethics for professional and ethical conduct. To find about more about this organisation you can visit their website: www.cosrt.org.uk
