You have questions!
You will also find answers to questions you didn’t even know you had.
Here’s the big secret: WE ACTUALLY TALK ABOUT SEX and all things SEXUAL! I have training in how to talk about it, ask questions, support curiosity about wants, desires, arousal, body parts, and so much more.
Just like all psychotherapy, sessions are confidential, providing a safe enough container for your most vulnerable explorations.
This is a very common experience, and there is no rush! We get to explore the discomfort in ways that are not too uncomfortable. The goal is to find where that discomfort about s-e-x is getting in your way.
It’s also where my experience providing care for trauma and dissociation steps in: rushing through does not make you heal faster. In fact, the first time we meet I’ll introduce a tool on consent that I use with every one of my clients, and we’ll practice using it together to have a shared framework to continuously check in together on your comfort levels.
If you are “wanting to want” sex, we’ll explore what you actually want versus what you think you are supposed to want. For some people sex therapy is about exploring permission to actually remove sex from the table.
Sex therapy does not involve sexual activity in session (don’t worry, you aren’t the first to wonder).
Sex therapy can involve strategizing approaches for practicing sexual activities outside of sessions. It can also focus on a whole range of topics, including gender, sexuality, and learning strategies for communication.
This dual expertise means I understand how past experiences can impact current intimacy, and I’m equipped to navigate both with care and skill. In merging trauma and sex therapy, our work together is always collaborative and consent-based. Nothing is rushed, and safety is always the priority because that’s actually how the deepest healing occurs!
You’ll build skills you can apply, whether solo or with partners. We’ll figure out core beliefs you hold (meaning, those stuck places that live beyond what you logically might know to be true yet feel true) and get curious how they have served you, and also why it might be time now to update and adapt them.
You’ll gain confidence in knowing what you want and what you don’t want. Your partners will likely feel safer opening up, knowing that communication is clear and mutual.
Let’s connect! (or scroll down if you need to learn more)
The Flows
Let’s see if my approach is a good match for your needs! We’ll talk through what you’re hoping for in the “nutshell version” of what’s bringing you here and what success might look like.
If you are inquiring for couples/relationship therapy everyone needs to be on this call since we’re focusing on the relationship as a whole. If you identify as a system/having parts, one representative is perfect (though others are welcome to join or observe from the wings).
Before we meet, you’ll reflect on some prompts I’ll send to help clarify your intentions. I’ll review your responses, then we’ll use this session to further understand each other, get the vibe and co-create focused goals and directions. You will:
- Share information about yourself that is most important to you!
- Decline answering as many questions as you need or want to.
- If it is difficult to decline answering or say no, you are welcome to tell a lie for your response! (Ask me more about this if you would like.)
- You can choose how much or as little detail to share.
Sometimes we discover the timing isn’t quite right, which is valuable information, too.
This portion is available in-person or via telehealth, presuming all parties are located within Connecticut due to license requirements.
For individuals only, weekly sessions (60 minutes) create consistency and foster week-to-week integration.
An option for both individuals and couples/relationships, extended sessions are for focused, uninterrupted work. We’ll end by creating a realistic action plan, such as calendar entries and strategic post-it notes.
Bio breaks happen as needed (there are even restaurants downstairs from my office for post-session transitioning and/or celebrations).
Reach out for your free 30-minute consult call:
FAQs for curious clients
Well, those might actually be sources you turn to! In fact–not a joke–those might be options worth trying first, and perhaps my services will not be needed. Though you will be learning strategies that can be taught in those contexts, these are being integrated into psychotherapy. As a psychotherapist, I will be attuning to specific dynamics of your relationship and sharing what I observe through a lens of trauma and sex therapy.
Yep, arousal can occur. You are welcome to keep the information private (ie, to yourself); if not, we can explore the meaning (ie, shame? Delight? Information for what to bring home to apply?) in session.
No. Never. You aren’t the first and nor will you be the last person to wonder this.
Fuck. I’m sorry, and wish it weren’t an anticipated experience for some people. If my language hurts or harms, I want to know and make amends. I take seriously learning and updating my knowledge, and this includes learning through what my clients share. That said, it is not your responsibility to educate me (ie, recreating expectations for those with oppressed identities and social locations to bear the burden of teaching), yet we can explore where my growth is in order to differentiate what your needs are from the “at home work” for me to do on my own.
I use “scientific” language to describe parts of the body and sexual actions, yet as you share your personal language and term preferences (particularly as they relate to the specifics of you and your body), I will start using them with you.
You don’t! And part of what we might be addressing in the intensive is increasing comfort with being in a gray zone (by which I don’t mean graysexual, but that’s an option, too).
Sometimes clients can feel a little caught off guard by what I might notice. Though this can feel vulnerable, I offer my observations with gentle curiosity.
I view most “pathologies” as healthy responses to unhealthy (and possibly horrific) events, systems of oppression and pervasive environments. We’ll consider how your responses, beliefs and perspectives have and continue to serve you, while inviting in opportunities to update these adaptations.
Yes, which we will review together. The electronic health record I use includes Z Codes from the DSM-V-TR. Z-Codes are defined as “Other Conditions That May Be a Focus of Clinical Attention.”
One option is this, which is somehow simultaneously precise and vague:
- Z70.9: Sex Counseling, unspecified
Though the three of us will have to discuss potential risks and gains, YES, it is possible!
You and your current therapist are doing important healing together. My role will remain specific to how all things sex integrate into your healing.
Extended sessions allow us to go deeper by experiencing uninterrupted therapy time for all of those attending. For those with trauma and/or neurodiversity, this longer yet concentrated time provides time to settle in and transition out of sessions. It also reduces the frequency of coordination of schedules–that’s hard enough without adding in therapy!
In couples/relational counseling, sometimes one person wants to tell me something but not share it with their partner(s).
The seemingly simple answer is that I don’t hold secrets. Together we’ll find a way to apply the skills you are gaining to share what is likely weighing heavily on you and therefore impacting your relationship. We’ll also be distinguishing secrecy from privacy.
We’ll be applying the framework of consent: they don’t need to “want” to attend, however all parties need to be “willing.” And “willing” doesn’t mean being proverbially dragged kicking and screaming.
It might be that we meet for our consult call and identify that now is the time for you to attend individual sex therapy.
There’s no question too small or too silly, so reach out and ask me!
FAQs for curious providers*
*which are equally meant to be read by curious clients! And also worth noting: sometimes a client is themself a provider.
It’s simple: we’ll talk about sex. And talking about sex from a trauma specific lens is one of my favorite things! I trained in sex therapy because it’s an area I’ve been interested in since before I even knew what sex therapy is.
(A therapist friend created a joke tagline for me: “I create a safe place to talk with your clients about sex so that you don’t have to.”)
It includes those who:
- Are seeking sexual enrichment and communication, particularly after growth in healing from any form of trauma (ie, not just limited to sexual trauma)
- Are having sexual incompatibility, including desire discrepancies, with their partner(s)
- Don’t know how to talk to partners about their sexual desires
- Don’t know how to talk to partners about their realization of changing sexual desires, sexual identity, sexual orientations, etc.
- Changing the status of their relationship
- Experiencing trauma re-enactments during sex that are not fully resolving with individual therapy
- Have dissociated parts/members of their system having opinions about sex–be it curious with desires of their own or angry and threatened by sex
- Have dissociated parts/members of their system having opinions about gender–be it curious their own gender or threatened by the genders of the adult self or other members of the system
- When an individual (or one or more partner) has substance use, gambling or other process addiction that is highly/significantly impacting them. (How do we “measure” this, you ask? Well, it depends!)
- A person with recent trauma and very high intensity and frequency of symptoms that are not yet receiving therapy (or other healing modality) specific to their trauma
- Those who might want to first rule-out underlying medical conditions, such as for erectile dysfunction (aka erectile disappointment), vaginismus or vulvodynia.
- For those seeking couples/relational counseling: when there is frequent and high conflict
I hear your concerns. You also have the option to consult with me (or any number of sex therapists out there, happy to share a list!) for your own growth as a therapist!
Yes! I’d love for our field to more actively address sexual health and desires!
My policy with clients and therapists alike is that if they have existing weekly therapists that their original therapeutic relationship remains primary. End of story.