Therapists need lovin' too

Mon, 08 Aug 2011 21:43:48 +0100

I felt that my first blog ought to speak to the relationship between sex, and those of us interested in it from a professional, hobbyist or general kinkiness perspective; the "therapists" or "practitioners" as I will call us from now on.

Hopefully this article resonates on some level with the many in these groups, but in many ways the intent of this article is to serve as a mirror for myself. Reflecting back to me, my own deeper philosophy and values.

There are many barriers that limit or hinder our full engagement in healthy sex positive attitudes and the wellbeing therein. And they are certainly interesting and challenging to navigate. For one, the true nature of Sex, as a deeply spiritual encounter, I believe, is yet to be fully understood, or even begun to be explored. And if that challenge wasn't enough, much of humankind's history has sought to trivialise, commodify, politicize and vilify sexuality. Indeed, perhaps the greatest barrier we've faced, our own divisive nature. I would go so far as to say that even the countless self help books and materials do nothing more than capitalize on mere bits and pieces, poorly understood in themselves, of a subject so profound that it literally coexists with the creative capacity of the universe.

Those are harsh words however. And judgemental. By all rights, we should enjoy all of the aspects sex brings to us, as trivial or kinky as we wish, once those interests harm neither ourselves or others. We are all heading to the same destination, if on differing paths. But it does sadden me to see that what is touted as education, is so diluted, and the richness we could receive, is lost.

But to put us back on track, I was speaking about the societal barriers that prevent a healthy relationship to sex as we see it today.

There are some however, who are brave, and who truly attempt to break down these barriers and seek out knowledge to educate themselves and others. So how much more interesting is it, when some of the barriers to be confronted exist in the mind of the practitioner her or himself. Although truthfully, I cannot speak for anyone else, but myself here.

Any practitioner dispensing education should try especially hard to recognise the old demons that lurk in the shadows. Old beliefs about sex, one’s self, and the self censoring and self defeating attitudes and fears that remain in the murky unconscious. I find that for me, the greatest challenge in confronting these aspects of my personality, occur when I am attempting to interact with new clients. It is certainly a vulnerable time which is an interesting juxtaposition considering it is when one is to be at one’s most confident.

Why this feeling of vulnerability? And again, I speak only for myself. I believe that it is because to expose someone to the importance of a healthy sexual attitude and the necessity to face their sexual demons, requires that we the practitioner go through this difficult trial ourselves. The cleansing fire of our Highest Judge and Saviour in one. We would have faced and continue to face, some very personal internal issues seeded from our past. Sex, money, and how we value ourselves and others. What exactly am I doing again and why?

Those two questions can make for a painful inquiry, as any business entrepreneur would tell you. But in regard to sexual therapy and the therapist, we still live in a world where, despite all its apparent openness about sex, it is still very sexually repressed. As such, the clients we are seeking to empower, can also be the one’s who initially judge us the most. The soft flesh of the therapist is laid bare to the terrible tooth and claw of the very people we try to free. And so, we as practitioners can end up often questioning our motives and judging ourselves even more harshly than we might need to.

Personal investigation is certainly never to our detriment, but the inquiry does, at least for me, seem, on some days, more difficult than most. I can assure you, I have my own personal hang ups that influence this article and my attitude to sex.

As we seek to open hearts and minds to the joys and the greatest potentialities of sex, we find that the first barrier is that we are strangers still to the undereducated; literally, as well as by virtue of our choice of profession. We are deviants in their eyes. And to compound the matter, those who are uninformed regarding the topic of sex are oftentimes, strangers to their own sexuality. Strangeness breeds distrust and the distrust can infect even the therapist. The worst being distrust of ourselves. And the value of what we do.

Also, a large part of the pain of the inquiry has to do with making money. We do this to pay the rent, to eat and to have some measure of comfort, like any other profession. But for some reason, the idea of money and pleasure, together, somehow seem difficult for society to accept. It is lambasted with shadow words like “prostitution”.

The benefits of healthy sexuality and physical and mental health of a person has not been fully given its dues in research. As such, in the eyes of “professionals” we’re seen as pseudoscience. Not really meriting any major acknowledgement.

And lets not even get into the specifics of the gender of the sex interested individual. A female might ask “Am I promiscuous?” A male might worry he is perceived as a predator.

Imagine if this is how we as therapists are viewed externally, consider the sheer effort in the self reflective process for the her or him. Am I legitimate or not? Am I a good person or bad? Should I “get real” and find what I’ve been told is a “real” job or am I just living out some perverted sexual fantasy?

The greatest sexual activity is the Union between the “male” and “female” polarities that bring Creation into being. Sex is a Creative energy. Creativity, not simply in the sense of being clever, or coming up with a artistic endeavours or good ideas, but in the deeper, more fundamental spiritual sense.

My sphere of experience bumps up against yours, both in the sheets and outside, and through that interaction, some mysterious co-creative process occurs. Our engagements, intimate and public are microcosms of a greater union and they should be honoured as such. We are creators, builders, shapers of the world because we’re all constantly “having sex” with one another, through our interactions! Two experiences joining to make a third, or forth or fifth experience, the “offspring” being the collective and cogenerated experience called our world.

Creating healthy offspring and a healthy collective experience requires having a healthy attitude towards the process in which that offspring and experience was created. Ergo, those of us who educate and empower ourselves and others about sex, who help to remove negative stereotypes, with the intention of reminding our clients of how beautiful and important their sexual energy is to the wellbeing of the world, are performing not just a valuable service, but dare I say a spiritual service.

Your workspace must reflect and affirm this belief with sex positive imagery. Your interaction with new people should carry the weight of this knowledge and it should be constantly reinforced in those that come back again and again.

Recognise the occasional shadow self that manifests as distrust in ourselves, our work and the value of what we do. It is a kind of unconscious cooperation with society’s negative projections onto sexuality

Strive to pay attention to the internal critics that constantly rear their little heads and learn to coax them to consciousness awareness. They are old attitudes and judgements that hark back from a time when we were vulnerable to puritan ideas. And more importantly, recognise how those criticisms may be projected onto our external world, clients and the service we provide. Next to my door, I have what I believe to be the greatest piece of advice ever offered to humanity: "Know Thyself."