We have this great patient who should really be doing stand-up comedy. Whenever she is in our office she has some new and funny story to share. She was having significant vaginal pain when she came to see us and had been misdiagnosed by her OB/GYN so nothing was helping. Our NP picked up that …
Continue Reading36 questions that lead to love.
I found this article in The New York Times very interesting. A reporter wrote about a study from 1997 by psychologist Arthur Aron. Aron had succeeded in making two strangers fall in love in his laboratory. He had succeeded by having the two strangers ask each other a series of questions, 36 questions to be …
Continue ReadingSex addiction.
We typically do not treat sexual addiction. However it is an issue that I have seen often in my work as a couples therapist. When an individual or spouse is struggling with sexual addiction and trying to understand what is happening I often suggest the book Out of the Shadows by Patrick Carnes. It can …
Continue ReadingIs it really just a phase?
“It’s just a phase”; an expression that after some digging, you’ll likely find anything from hope, relief, to total denial. By nature, relationships go through phases. From the time a relationship begins, it will experience countless phases over time and there will be a variety of the types of phases that are encountered. When a …
Continue ReadingSex ed: USA vs Europe.
I know we’ve all read about the contrast between American sex education and European Sex education, and here is another article on the subject. But it’s short and clear and makes the point effectively: Europeans tend to” normalize” sex; Americans tend to “dramatize” it. The fundamental idea is worth remembering. It’s not so much what …
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