What Is Psychosexual Therapy?

Media stories, documentaries, and movies often give the impression that sex therapy is a hands-on profession and includes the actual act of sex or a display of some kind of intimacy. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Experiencing psychosexual therapy

I spoke with a psychosexual and relationship therapist, Albertina Fisher, who told me how psychosexual therapy focuses on talking about our preoccupations, thoughts, and emotions when being intimate with ourselves or our partner.

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage.” Lao Tzu

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Albertina reassured me that there is no sexual act or performance of intimacy of any sort during therapy sessions. These sessions are all about talking. In fact, the only expectation of intimacy is in the form of tasks set and agreed upon during sessions and done in the privacy of the client’s own home. What a relief.

But how can homework or scheduled intimacy help us overcome our sexual difficulties? In the past, we have probably relied on spontaneity to ignite our passion.

Albertina tells me that these tasks or homework are not set for the purpose of completion, returning the result to be marked, as if we are back at school.

The tasks are meant to help us create the space in our relationship with our partner or ourselves for intimacy to happen. By the time we are ready to look for help, this is often the very thing that is missing and so difficult to re-establish by ourselves.

How challenges are worked with

Psychosexual therapy has its challenges and clients often find themselves surprised at the obstacles they face. Whatever these may be, they are talked about as they happen, which makes psychosexual therapy more than just a set of tasks to be completed.

This type of therapy is a gentle though intriguing journey that explores an area of our lives we rarely have an opportunity to consciously develop. As adults, we are expected to know about intimacy and how it's done.

The issues brought to psychosexual therapy

Some of the issues that are typically seen in psychosexual therapy range from low libido or erectile disorder to more complicated issues linked to past experiences or medical conditions. In fact, any reason why we are not experiencing intimacy the way we would like to is a good enough reason to seek psychosexual therapy.

We might believe that psychosexual issues predominantly affect the older age groups. Surprisingly it is becoming more common for younger people to experience sexual challenges and to seek the help they need. Often symptoms are caused by stress and expectations of life, catapulting us into a state of anxiety, which of course can be an antidote to passion.

Why seek psychosexual therapy?

Sex is part of an intimate relationship, and even if we choose not to engage with sex, it is a part of who we are. When there are sexual issues, the knock-on effect for individuals and relationships, if these are left silenced and untreated, can be devastating.

Of course, the prospect of talking about one's own sex life, especially when it isn’t working the way we would like it to, can be excruciating. We might prefer to let the issues stay hidden or we try to ignore them, hoping the symptoms will disappear by themselves. But hidden issues have a tendency to show themselves in ways that can be damaging to our self-esteem and will no doubt affect our daily experiences of life.

Encouraging messages

The two most important messages that came out of our conversation were:

1. Psychosexual therapy can help with any kind of intimacy difficultly we experience regardless of whether it is caused by medication, by a physical condition, or if it is completely natural, seemingly with no explanation.
2. Psychosexual therapy is a specialised therapy. The therapist will be trained not only in a therapeutic discipline but will have a knowledge of how our bodies function and the medical conditions that can affect our sexual performance and will be educated in the research focused on sex, sexuality, and intimacy. For this reason, it is important to make sure that the therapist we see is qualified to work therapeutically with sex and intimacy.

Finding the courage to make an appointment with a psychosexual and relationship therapist might seem unthinkable. However, I am convinced that once we start the conversation in this therapeutic space, we will benefit more than we can imagine.