Sex Therapy for Sexual Dysfunction in Men
Whether you’re dealing with erectile issues, low desire, or premature ejaculation, sex therapy can help. It is also an option for those who are unsure of their sexual orientation, but who are looking to live in a more authentic way. Sex therapy can offer a safe place for men to process these challenges. This video explains different ways that sex therapy can help.
Hello, Michael Salas from Vantage Point Counseling Services. Thank you for watching this today. One common thing that I run into when talking with either potential clients or even clients that I already have is how sex therapy can help with a problem with male sexual dysfunction. So I was going to take a little bit of time and just talk a little bit about ways that sex therapy can help with that.
There are a series of exercises that sex therapists are trained in to help people who are dealing with sexual dysfunction. Whether it’s premature ejaculation, low sexual desire, delayed ejaculation, or erectile dysfunction. Most of these include increased understanding of the body, and what kind of signals the body is giving to indicate it’s okay with arousal. These are non-pharmacologically based interventions. However, as a sex therapist I certainly do refer to local physicians and urologists if there is a problem that really should be assessed. Because a lot of times, we do want to also rule out that there is an underlying medical issue that is causing this. If there is not, what we typically work with is trying to help you to understand and mood issues that you could be dealing with. Whether it’s depression or
anxiety, and ways to sort of overcome those.
Sometimes there’s an underlying sexual desire that is difficult to talk to your partner about. And so sometimes we try to figure out is this something that we open a doorway to discuss, or at least accept yourself so that you are able to find a way to talk with your partner about it, open up about it, utilize fantasy, [etc]. There’s a bunch of different possibilities there.
Other times people are uncomfortable with levels of intimacy and vulnerability. It feels too vulnerable to be in sexually intimate situation, even with their partner. And this can result from a variety of reasons, including sexual trauma, attachment issues, [and] on and on. So what we try to do in those situations is do a little deeper work. Sometimes it might be some trauma related work, like Somatic Experiencing, or EMDR [to help with trauma]. Other times it might be more talk therapy, to try to draw lines between what you’re currently dealing with, and kind of drawing connections to something that maybe happened in your past. And that understanding, a lot of times can open a doorway, so that there can be some work that you can do. This sort of frees up whatever is blocking you in that situation.
So there’s a variety of ways that in sex therapy that we kind of go about tackling an issue. For men, who are dealing with sexual dysfunction it can be pretty complex. It can also be pretty simple. And so it always kind of starts off with just an assessment of the overall issue, and treatment plan to determine what direction that you and your therapist are going to go in. One of the things I would say is it’s really important to find somebody who has a good education. And sex therapy is not something that is [focused] on in most masters and and even doctorate level programs. They don’t spend a lot of time talking about human sexuality and interventions that you can use. So that’s why a sex the American Association of Sexuality Counselors, Educators and Therapists maintains a database of people who are certified in sex therapy and sex counseling. [There are many skilled professionals] to help people with this, but [it’s hard to find] those people who have extensive training in sexuality, and so it’s really something to keep in mind as you’re looking for someone to help you with this.
