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Shame and Sexual Dysfunction In our sex therapy work with sexual dysfunctions, we find that shame is not far behind. We are taught that sex should just work. If you love someone and you’re attracted to them, your body should just do what you want it to do, right? Unfortunately,
Shame Reactivity versus Taking Responsibility Shame and taking responsibility are not opposites. Whenever we have to take responsibility, we are going to be living with some element of shame. In fact, shame is in the underbelly of most aspects of our lives. It reflects our human need to connect, and
7 Things to Remember When We’re Sick Don’t let anyone tell you that there is no shame in being sick. That’s simply not true. We may feel sadness, sympathy, empathy, or hurt for those who are dealing with illness. When it comes to ourselves being sick, we are not usually
Taking Steps to Connect Is All About Accepting Fear I recently came across a request from a journalist who was asking for ways that people can be “fearless” when trying to connect or make changes in their lives. It’s understandable to want to erase fear from your life when stepping
Why You Should Avoid Reparative Therapy For people who are coming to accept that they are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender, there can be a lot of fear. One of the biggest things that you might fear is being rejected by others in your life. This can make this part
Using Empathy to Help Your Partner Heal After An Affair The period after cheating has been discovered is painful, chaotic, and anxiety provoking. The vulnerability from the uncertainty of this experience can leave you feel like you’re crawling out of your own skin. Our natural reaction to this type of
Holidays are a stressful time for all of us. We have to leave our normal routines, buy gifts for people, and spend time with people that we have a long history with. It’s true that holidays can be a great time to catch up and share in experiences with those
In traumatic situations, it’s very common that the person who was traumatized blames herself for the event having happened. Whether this be the event itself, or what they feel they should’ve done, there is a great deal of pain associated with this. Survivor’s guilt, and even worse, survivor’s shame can
The shock of Robin Williams death by apparent suicide still hovers around today. How can people who appear happy be so unhappy on the inside? People put on a facade that they present to the public. We all do it. We’ll show others that we feel different than how we
Shame is something that we often try to avoid. Walking through a place of such vulnerability is understandably undesirable, because human beings are naturally quite pain aversive. Our aversion to pain doesn’t exclude emotional pain. However, can we grow without a certain level of discomfort? Can we really begin to