Sex therapy, first developed by Masters & Johnson in the early 1960s, can be wonderful—life-changing, cost-effective, marriage- (and therefore family-) saving.
But we can’t do everything that people want or need. Here are some things I’m asked to do periodically, which I just don’t know how to do—and I doubt that my colleagues, can, either.
Many therapists are not sexually literate—and they can harm people unintentionally. If your therapist seems uncomfortable talking about sex, challenge them—and perhaps replace them.
People want more passion in long-term (and even some new) relationships.
The solution may involve saying goodbye to our youthful model of intense desire, and creating a relaxed, communicative model of sexual interest that is sustainable through the lifecycle.
A number of people have come into my office this past month inquiring about various forms of non-monogamy. Of course there’s the traditional one-sided clandestine affair, in which one person thinks the couple is monogamous while the other person knows that isn’t true (because he or she isn’t). For people who want a consensual arrangement, two of the more common ones are: * Open relationship: Each person has one or more sexual partners outside the couple, which they freely acknowledge to each other; * Polyamory: The couple finds other people (usually one or more couples) with whom to have a…
It’s National Psychotherapy Day. I’ve been a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist for 34 years—over 35,000 hours of therapy with men, women, and couples. I make a living from it. Most of my friends are therapists. Like most therapists, I’ve been in therapy more than once. I really, really believe in it. Nevertheless, it’s time, once again, to critique the institution of therapy. Today’s criticism: If the public knew how little most therapists learn about sexuality, they’d be stunned. While there are exceptions, here’s what most therapists (and social workers) in America learn about sex as they’re being trained: *…
We’ve learned two things from the Ashley Madison hack-a-thon: “Internet security” is an oxymoron—like working vacation, compassionate conservatism, science magic, free speech zone, and the one true religion. You can make a lot of money pretending to offer men a chance to meet strangers for extramarital affairs. What we have NOT learned is that tens of millions of men actually want to arrange extramarital affairs with virtual strangers. That’s because we don’t know how many men joined AM specifically to get laid (yes, of course many did), and how many joined for other reasons. These could include: “I wonder who…