Sexuality Programs

Sex, Love, and Intimacy: Defining, Discussing, Enhancing

Many Americans use the words sex, love, and intimacy interchangeably. These do not mean the same thing, however, and our culture’s confusion about this contributes to both relationship and sexual dissatisfaction.

This workshop will present innovative definitions of love, sex, and intimacy; discuss how our culture–and psychotherapy–confuses them; examine how patients can communicate about them more effectively; and explore strategies to understand them independent of each other–so patients can better connect them when appropriate, enriching their lives.

Using this perspective, we will focus on issues including:

• Power dynamics in sexual and intimate relationships
• Diagnosis and treatment of desire discrepancies
• The role of “casual sex” in people’s lives
• Does therapy take sex seriously?
• Companionate marriages
• Non-monogamy and other non-standard arrangements
• The therapist’s own issues about sex, love, and intimacy