What is sex therapy?
Sex therapy is talk therapy. Nothing more, nothing clinical in the exam-room sense — no physical exams, no touch, no equipment. It’s simply a space where you can talk openly and specifically about sexuality, in a way most people never get to anywhere else. As an AASECT-certified sex therapist, I’ve done additional training beyond standard clinical work specifically in human sexuality, which most therapists never receive. That extra training is what lets us go past the surface-level advice and actually work through what’s keeping desire, connection, or pleasure stuck — whether that’s a specific dysfunction, the aftermath of betrayal or trauma, or simply wanting a fuller, more satisfying experience of your own sexuality. You don’t need to be in a relationship to benefit from this work, either; plenty of the most useful sex therapy happens with individuals, on their own timeline.
How I approach it
My approach is pleasure-centered and sex-positive, and it treats sexuality as one part of a much bigger picture rather than an isolated problem to fix. That means looking at the medical side of things when relevant (illness, injury, the normal effects of aging), the emotional landscape someone’s carrying, the dynamics between partners, and the cultural and, often, religious backdrop that shaped what they were taught to believe about sex in the first place. I hold deep respect for a client’s own values, including a religious or conservative upbringing, and work within that value system rather than against it. Good sex therapy isn’t a script — it’s custom work, built around your history, your relationship, and what you actually want your sex life to look like going forward.
What we’ll work on together
Finding what’s in the way.
Reduced desire or difficulty with arousal is rarely just physical — it’s often tangled up with stress, a health condition, medication, anxiety, or the state of a relationship. Part of this work is a bit of detective work — carefully shining a light on what’s actually getting in the way, together. I’ve developed good ways of doing this over years of practice, and what I’ve learned is that it’s rarely just one thing; it’s often, no, it’s most often, many things at once. That’s actually good news: it means there are a lot of places to influence the system for the better.
Getting back to something honest.
A lot of us find ourselves living out a storyline around sex that we didn’t consciously choose — shaped by upbringing, past experiences, or influences we absorbed long before we had any say in the matter. Part of this work is sorting out which parts of that narrative are actually yours, updating the files that no longer serve you, and giving you room to change the plot — with care, especially if trauma is part of the picture — so what you’re working toward is authentic rather than inherited.
Protecting connection.
We’re wired for connection — for the attunement and harmony that come from being truly met by another person — and for pleasure itself. At its best, sex isn’t really a thing we do so much as a place we go: an erotic space we enter with a loved and trusted partner, and getting there together can be one of life’s greatest pleasures. For couples, this work is also about the ongoing negotiation between two people’s physical and emotional needs — desire differences, conflict, rebuilding after betrayal — and building the communication that keeps a relationship feeling alive rather than just maintained. That connection is worth protecting, not as an extra, but because of how much it colors the rest of life.
Sex therapy across the life stages
What a good sex life needs to look like changes as life changes, and I work with couples and individuals at every stage of that arc.
Newly married and young couples are often figuring out how to build a sex life together for the first time — real intimacy, not just what they were told to expect — while also navigating the arrival of children. Balancing lovemaking with baby-making, and then holding onto a strong adult connection while life reorganizes itself around a small child’s needs, is a genuine challenge — and one that sex therapy can help you navigate.
Midlife couples tend to be dealing with a different stack of pressures: bodies changing in ways that affect desire or function, health issues showing up for the first time, aging parents who suddenly need care, kids launching out of the house, and years — sometimes decades — of relationship history to make sense of. It’s also common at this stage for couples to find themselves quietly examining whether they want to stay together, now that the busiest years of parenting are behind them. All of that deserves real attention, not just a line item on top of an already full life.
Older adults are too often dismissed or overlooked when it comes to sexuality — by providers and by the culture at large. I love helping clients at this stage pursue pleasure and connection, and letting that add depth and richness to a life well lived. There’s a real gift in that — being fully present in your body, feeling alive in a moment instead of just moving through it — and that gift doesn’t come with an expiration date. The years themselves bring their own complexity — illness, medication changes, the loss of a partner, new relationships later in life — and navigating all of it deserves skilled help. Whether you’re updating an intimate life that’s changed, or building an amazing one for the first time, age is never a reason to stop.
I work with individuals and couples around concerns like:
- Low or mismatched desire
- Painful sex
- Erection and performance concerns
- Rebuilding intimacy after infidelity or betrayal
- Sexuality after trauma
- Navigating sexuality and faith background
Sessions are held in person at my Atlanta office or over a secure video platform, anywhere in Georgia or Utah. This work asks for privacy and trust, and I’ve built my practice around giving you both, wherever you’re joining from.