With Awareness Comes Change:
Love, Sex and Relationship – Finding Fulfilling Connection through Vulnerability
Love and sex are natural, healthy aspects of fulfilling relationships. Being vulnerable about our sexual needs, desires and fantasies may be difficult or impossible if they are associated with guilt, fear or especially shame. Guilt, fear and shame act as barriers to connection and a lack of connection can lead to the end of a relationship. According to the American Psychological Association, 40-50% of marriages in the United States end in divorce, and many of those divorces stemmed from an unfulfilling relationship.
With Awareness comes change. When you are clear about your own sexual needs, desires and fantasies, and you choose to be vulnerable no matter your story or your past trauma, you can create growth in your own self concept and increase your ability to establish trusting, open and honest relationships with those that you love.
What I can help with
- Increase in love and relationship skills
- Professional feedback on your personal sexuality
- Awareness of your own needs
- Exploring your fantasies
- Individuation in a relationship
- Learning to create an open dialogue with your partner
- Creating the relationship you want, whether that´s monogamy, an open relationship, or anything in between
- Dealing with difficult (temporary) sexual situations
- Dealing with sexual disorders & dysfunctions (vaginismus, desire disorders, orgasm disorders, arousal disorders, erectile dysfunction, premature or inhibited ejaculation, stimulation disorder, sexual pain disorders, sex addiction, asexuality)
- Supporting healing from trauma and building resilience
- Dealing with stressful emotions, experiences of violence, fantasies of violence
- Sexual anxiety and emotional confusion
- Sexual self-determination and vitality
Frequently Asked Questions
Why coaching and not therapy?
There are problems that don’t require therapy. Coaching is not about curing clinical symptoms, but rather about solving a specific problem or developing your personality. The main thing for me, as your coach, is to identify your strengths and deficits.
Recurring conflicts in love, sexuality, and relationship can cloud your ability to lead a satisfying life. However, sometimes the circumstances are difficult (conflicts, miscommunication, disconnection, disappointments, etc.) and require professional help.
Coaching can be a tool to help you make important life decisions. Sometimes we are torn. Having a professional viewpoint from your coach can help to make clearer decisions.
What concerns do clients come to me with?
- Depression caused by abusive childhood
- Restricted or no desire for sexual intimacy
- Different sexual needs in long standing relationships
- Affairs, secrets, and hidden sexual identity
- Inability to find the right partner
- Fear of commitment and bonding
- Sexuality in old age
- Sexual preferences, fantasies, and desires which conflict with a partner’s experience or lifestyle
- Disorders of sexual functions
- Issues of sexual orientation, questions of “coming out”
How can a love, sexuality and relationship coach help me?
Due to our upbringing, culture, religion or our surroundings, issues related to love, sexuality and relationships can be difficult to talk about because of their association with shame. Coaching in these areas can aid you in determining your personal dilemmas by analyzing your particular situation and determining what aspects of your life influenced your problems. My goal is to help you:
- develop personal solutions for conflicts and problems
- discover new perspectives and ways to see the big picture of your situation
- recognize recurring communication and behavioral patterns
- build awareness of how you think, feel and act
- communicate about your sexual needs, desires and fantasies
- engage in constructive dialogue
- remove blockages and traumas
- speak about shame, fear, pain and guilt
- build strength through vulnerability
What can I expect during a session?
Our first 90 minute session involves three aspects: 1) introductions and getting to know each other; 2) stating your needs, intentions, expectations, and your desire for change; 3) creating a path forward together.
Questions you can expect during our first session are:
- What´s the reason for your visit?
- What strategies or tools are you currently using in your life to help yourself?
- Have you previously received counseling, therapy or coaching?
- What goals do you want to achieve through coaching?
In the next two to three sessions we’ll work deeper with a behavior analysis to seek solutions for change and work on creating and achieving goals.
The number of sessions needed for each individual varies.
How can I schedule a session?
Even if it seems difficult to imagine at the moment: With the help of efficient techniques of couple counseling, it is possible to find each other again and again, and to find each other back to the thought of carefreeness and security.
Emotion-focused couple therapy, which I use to help couples out of the crisis, offers precisely such techniques. This therapy is a structured and effective short-term treatment method for couples, which is based on current knowledge from neuroscience as well as from psychotherapy process and psychotherapy energy research. A basis for emotion-focused couple therapy can be found in the attachment theory of the British psychiatrist John Bowly, which assumes that a secure bond between mother and child is crucial for healthy emotional development of children. The assumption that adults also need a secure bond for their psychological well-being forms the starting point of emotion-focused couple therapy. Couples no longer feel this connection, there are conflicting relationships. Often, partners get caught up in a vicious spiral of conflict that they cannot break alone. In emotion-focused couple therapy, I help you as a mediator to recognize your problems and the invisible obstacles in your relationship, to overcome them and to finally put them out of the way.
The effectiveness of emotion-focused couple therapy has been empirically proven, the treatment method is continuously being developed and is one of the most frequently used forms of couple therapy in most countries worldwide.
As diverse as the occasions and reasons for which couples choose to have a couple counseling, so are my counseling. So that I can respond to the individual wishes and possibilities of the couples, I use various forms of therapy within the emotion-focused couple therapy: the classic couple therapy session, individual sessions and the power day.