In Defense of Casual Sex
Sex without commitment can improve your life. In the new film “Shame,” an examination of the extremes of human sexuality, Brandon Sullivan, a successful, handsome New York executive afraid of intimacy, has frequent, random sex with prostitutes and strangers. At work, he sneaks off to masturbate in the men’s room or extends his lunch hour with trysts. The movie harshly depicts casual...
The Soul of Therapy
Our Problems Are Our Solutions. As I continue to teach and lecture among my colleagues around the world, I have become increasingly aware that most psychotherapists train and practice within a paradigm that sees patients’ problems as rooted in pathology. These therapists wait and watch for a symptom to see how it might fit into a a category of...
A Dangerous Method: Can Sex Restore Mental Health?
Sexual Desire in Therapy The newly released film “A Dangerous Method” tells the story of the complex relationship between Sigmund Freud and his much younger heir-apparent, Carl Jung, both early founders of the modern field of psychology. Freud and Jung came to represent differing schools of psychoanalytic thinking, a separation not only hastened by intellectual...
Forbidden Desire: The Cost of Living Without Sex
Sexual denial never succeeds and sexual desire can never be buried. Why do some of us choose to live without sex? What is the emotional cost of sexual abstinence to parts of our lives? The secret life story of former FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, a closeted gay man, told in the new Clint Eastwood bio-pic, tragically...
When Too Much Sex Is Bad for You
When is sex bad for you? Among mental health professionals, that question is hotly debated. Definitions of sexual pathology can range from sex that crosses legal lines to any form of sex involving humiliation or self-harm that leads to lowered self-esteem. And there’s just as much disagreement about what constitutes “compulsive” or “addictive” sex or even if such...
Fact or Fantasy: Men and Women Are Sexually Alike
Regardless of gender, sexual fantasies are windows into our psyches. My daughter Alyssa, a psychotherapist in Portland, Oregon, knows me well enough to question and even challenge my thinking where other colleagues might not. Despite my thirty-six years of practice, Alyssa is able to introduce me to the latest scientific thinking and research and, with freshness and excitement,...
What We Can Do When Sex Leaves a Relationship: Making Sex Positive Choices
Brinking Sex Back Part Three: Crossing Conventional Boundaries Most of us, gay and straight alike, feel that having a life-long partner is preferable to going through life alone or with a series of affairs or short-term relationships. There is much in our culture that supports this notion, from the large number of tax benefits given...
