Sexual Desire, Intimacy & Orgasm
These articles dive into the ways people long for, avoid, negotiate, and rediscover erotic connection across the lifespan. They explore online flirtations, porn use, and the realities of aging bodies, as well as the impact of trauma, culture, and gendered expectations on sexual desire. These essays, interviews, and case studies highlight erotic intelligence, the role of fantasy in couples therapy, and the ways clients can bring mindful, embodied practices into their homes. Clinicians will find nuanced guidance for discussing sex without preconceptions, busting common myths on sex and sexuality, differentiating compulsions from exploration, and helping partners cultivate intimacy and pleasure that feel emotionally safe and mutually chosen.
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If you’re going to help a couple get closer and really learn to work harmoniously with one another, whether in bed or anywhere else, the key is helping... Read more
Porn is polarizing. Porn is confusing. Porn can be alarming. For therapists, porn can push us out of our comfort zone and trigger negative countertransference... Read more
In a sex-starved marriage, one spouse longs for more physical touch or sex than the other, sometimes placing the marriage at risk of infidelity and divorce. Read more
Esther Perel, a couples therapist whose TED talk has had more than 5 million views, believes that it’s time to challenge the mismatch between the romantic... Read more
How couples behave in bed is a remarkablv authentic expression of their emotional connection-or lack of it. Read more
America, in matters of sex as in much else, seems to be a goal-oriented society that prefers explicit meanings, candor, and "plain speech" to ambiguity and... Read more
The answers to some of the age-old questions about the trajectory of passion and the links between sex and love are being discovered in the research laboratory. Read more
Barbara Fredrickson’s research on the biology of love and positivity demystifies our ideas about the role of intimacy, connection, and resilience in our... Read more
A woman discovers that giving someone permission to sleep can be a deep expression of love. Read more
Esther Perel introduces the subject of a man’s sexuality, sexual practice, his approach to sex, and its place in his life in an effortless, organic way. Read more
A cyber relationship revives a marriage in the doldrums. Read more
Open porn use introduces a relational question that most couples never face: how to live with the knowledge that your partner's erotic fantasy-world often... Read more
Whether they know it or not, what most people are looking for in sex therapy isn't so much a change in specific behaviors as a way of developing a more... Read more
Many therapists assume that if they help couples improve their relationships, the improvement will naturally lead to a rewarding erotic life. But what if... Read more
Despite marketing blitz, Viagra hasn't turned out to be the neat remedy for erectile dysfunction for men over 50 that was promised. Can therapists offer aging... Read more
A therapist works with a rabbi struggling with his mental health and developing false relationships with phone sex operators. Read more
An erotic fetish disrupts a man's sexual history as well as his current relationship Read more
Despite all the hoopla, the dropout rate for Viagra exceeds 40 percent. A case explores the aspects of middle-aged sexuality that no drug can address. Read more
Many therapists fail to recognize that sexual desire doesn't always play by the rules of good citizenship. By counseling political correctness in the bedroom... Read more
In her new book, The Birth of Pleasure, Carol Gilligan has tried to probe the root of what makes intimate partnership between men and women so difficult. What... Read more
A book review of Emotionally Focused Couple Therapy with Trauma Survivors: Strengthening Attachment Bonds by Susan M. Johnson Read more
From the March/April 1999 issue Heighten Awareness of All the Senses William Masters and Virginia Johnson introduced to the West a technique called... Read more
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