relationships & sexuality

relationships 

The human brain is the most complex structure in the universe. So with two or more of them together in relationship, small wonder the results can feel so challenging?!

Whether you’re struggling in your relationships with family, friends or romantic situations, the underlying problems are often similar – fears of intimacy or separation, communication breakdown, imbalances of power… It’s often said that couples have only  one argument; that underneath the various disagreements and pains that play out, the same singular issue repeats. Psychodynamic therapy may take that a step further and suggest that, when you’re struggling in relationship with someone, it’s often the same two challenges that reoccur – the one you’re having, and the one the other person is. That is to say that we each bring such a dense history of past pains, relationships and experiences, very often when we’re struggling with someone in front of us in the present, we’re also struggling, less consciously, with figures or experiences from our past. It becomes a game of ghosts, where you’re grappling with your ghosts, the other person with theirs, and it’s hard to see each other clearly in the middle at all.

I often work with individuals to help them better understand themselves and their side of their romantic relationship. It may be that you’re struggling with your family or friendships; or with either fearing getting into certain relationships, or dealing with the pains and confusion of them ending.

 sexuality

Therapeutic beliefs about sex and sexuality have come a long way since the stuffy, heteronormative views of old. Contemporary psychodynamic work brings a kind of radical open-mindedness to all that sexuality can be. What perhaps remains true though is that, no matter how much sex might at times feel like ‘just sex,’ therapy often shows how much of a microcosm it can be psychologically, of what we experience in the rest of life too.

That might be about how you view yourself or your performance, or fears around how others will do the same. It could be about roles and power dynamics – what’s expected of you or what you’re allowed to want or expect for yourself. You may feel confused about your sexuality and want to explore yourself more, or perhaps feel comfortable in yourself but have experienced prejudice or judgement from others. Maybe you fear the intimacy of sex, or feel that something holds you back from getting all that you want sexually; or conversely you might experience a kind of hypersexuality, or an addiction to sex or porn that you want to understand more.

How you experience your sexuality can express something really core and true about yourself and your life, and taking the risk to talk openly about it in therapy, with no judgement, can illuminate so much.