Same-Sex Couples Therapy for the Straight Therapist

Joe Kort on Learning to Forget Your Relational Stance

Couples therapists don’t pretend to know everything about their clients. But as objective as we’d like to be, we ultimately use our own notions of romance, boundaries, and sexuality as reference points. And sometimes, this gets in the way.

According to renowned sex therapist Joe Kort, the most important lesson straight therapists should follow when treating same-sex couples is simple: forget everything you thought you knew about heteronormative sexuality.

While love and romance are universal, Joe explains in this brief video clip how gay couples tend to think differently about romantic issues than straight couples do. Personal boundaries and frequency of sex are specially negotiated, he says, even varying between gays and lesbians.

Joe Kort explains why understanding same-sex couples means abandoning your preconceived notions about sexuality.

 

Joe Kort is a certified sex addiction therapist, a doctor of clinical sexology, and the author of Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician: The Essential Guide. This clip is taken from his session in our marriage video course:

The Changing Face of Marriage
Explore the forces shaping intimate partnerships today and the best-practice approaches for helping your clients—some of whom may hold ideas about partnership, commitment, gender roles, personal autonomy, and sexuality that are different from yours. Find out how you can:

• Develop a clear, nonjudgmental understanding of contemporary approaches to relationships and sexual behavior that may challenge your own values and beliefs


• Help couples balance their need for commitment and safety with their desire for more spontaneity, playfulness, and eroticism


• Address the centrality of economic issues and financial stress on couples, including helping them "right size" their lives


• Explore the wide range of meanings that emotional intimacy and sexual compatibility have in gay, lesbian, and straight relationships


• Understand the different patterns found among Boomer, Gen X, and Millennial couples, including how traditional gender roles and conceptions of masculinity and femininity are being redefined
  

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