Sex Goals… Identifying Your Needs Out of Your Sex Therapy
Throughout the therapy process, I will check in with my clients. I regularly ask them what is it that you want. This can be out of therapy, but out of life and relationships as well.
On the surface, it sounds like an easy question. It seems like it should be second nature to identify what you want out of the therapy that you have sought out. However, it is common that people aren’t really sure of what they want. They see the problem, and they know that they want the problem to be minimized or disappear, but they don’t know what would take them to greater sexual well being.
In other words, it is easy to identify that you want less of the negative. Well being, on the other hand, is more about identifying goals and positives. This means it could be easier to answer what you don’t want, rather than what you do want.
What I encourage people to define is the addition of something that would make things better. Rather than focusing on the extraction of something to make things better. For example, many problems with sexual dysfunction are secondary to other emotional issues. If you’re focused only on taking away the sexual dysfunction symptom itself, you’re avoiding dealing with the cause.
The cause might be more related to frustration in aspects of your life, a struggle to connect, or a problem coping with something. It could be a lack of happiness, or a lack of life satisfaction. So imagine what it would be like if you focused on increasing your happiness and satisfaction, rather than decreasing the negative symptom.
Regardless of whether or not you’re dealing with a problem in your relationship that specifically is dealing with sexual dysfunction, identifying your goals is important. If you’re in a relationship, you’ll need to match these up with your partner. It’s very possible that your partner’s goals may be very different. In sexual relationships, you’ll have to unpack what you want.
It’s also important to focus on the present. In many situations, people look at their long-term goals, without paying attention to the shorter term realities. If you’re unable to sexually perform this week, it’s unlikely that there will be a big shift in the next week. So you have to determine what a success would look like in the next week. This will push you to expand your sexual focus beyond the most obvious barriers.
Finding and discovering successes can improve confidence. It can help you increase optimism as well. With this, you can slowly redirect the negative cycle that you’ve been in, and shift it in a more positive direction.
