Want To Recharge Your Sex Life? These 6 Online Programs Can Help

Maybe you and your long-term boo have some bedroom bloopers you want to work through. Maybe you have your own personal challenges around sexuality and want to know, “Am I normal?” Whatever the case may be, if you’re reading this, it’s because you’re curious about the idea of sex therapy—plus, how you can access it from the comfort of your own home. 

Sexual well-being is part of overall well-being, and online sex therapy can be a great way to get support from a professional in creating a healthy and positive relationship to your sexuality. Ahead, three sex therapists answer all your questions about sex therapy and recommend the best online sex therapy services that could help you and your partners.

At its most distilled, sex therapy is a form of talk therapy. What sets sex therapy apart from other forms of talk is that during sex therapy people talk specifically about the ways that their sex, sexuality, gender, sexual trauma, sexual behaviors, and kinks are informed by and can impact their romantic, sexual, familial, and platonic relationships, explains Laurie Mintz, Ph.D., a sex therapist and author of Becoming Cliterate & A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex. 

“The main focus is helping people solve for their sexual challenges and find ways to enhance their sexual satisfaction and sexual functioning,” she tells mbg.

People can attend sex therapy as a single, couple, polycule, or any other relationships structure where they’d benefit from trouble-shooting sexual issues, which might include erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, sexless relationships, low libido, anorgasmia, dysparenia, and much more, she says. Other issues like healing from sexual trauma, shame, or infidelity can also be addressed in sex therapy.

In order for someone to be a sex therapist, they must become a licensed mental health professional (i.e. licensed psychologists, therapists, or clinical social workers) and have received specialized training that enables them to treat clients with sexual issues and concerns, says Mintz. 

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, online therapy has become more popular. And online sex therapy functions more or less how other online therapy does, according to Mintz. The main difference? While a therapist specializing in phobias might help a client unpack and treat their specific fears, a sex therapist will help a client with their specific sexual concerns, explains licensed couples therapist Jamie Schenk DeWitt, LMFT.

Once you connect with a therapist you like, you’ll meet regularly over some kind of video call for your therapy sessions. Your first session with a sex therapist will start just as any first therapy session: with some basic intake questions. “The therapist will get a history of the specific concern that brings you in, asking questions about how long has it been going on and whether or not any specific event precipitated the concern,” explains Mintz. In future sessions, the therapist will help the client work through the issues through a combination of verbal processing, visualization, and hands-on homework assignments.

You read that right: homework assignments. “Often, sex therapists give their clients sex therapy assignments to practice on one’s own outside of session,” she says. Typically, those homework assignments are sexual in nature, such as looking at your genitals in the mirror, masturbating, or saying a set of affirmations about your body in the mirror, for example. 

“Sex therapists will also often help clients by providing realistic science-based information about sex,” says Mintz. For instance, they might tell a client what the research shows about how many people with vaginas need clitoral stimulation to orgasm, she says. “They might also try to reduce shame with science-based information,” she says. For instance, they might share statistics in order to help a client understand just how normal their turn-ons are.

While online sex therapy services can be very convenient, you don’t have to go through an online service to get access to professional care virtually. These days, most individual therapists–including those in private practice–will also offer virtual therapy sessions, meaning that you can just look for certified sex therapists in your area and then ask for online sex therapy sessions. (The “in your area” part is important because that’ll make it more likely that they’ll accept your insurance if you have it. Most therapists are also only licensed to practice in the state they currently live in.)

With that in mind, here are three tips for finding a local sex therapist: 

1.

Use an online directory.

Word of mouth is also a great way to find a sex therapist you click with. “If you have a friend who has gone to sex therapy and feels positively about it, ask them for their therapist’s name and number,” suggests Mintz. 

If that feels too close to home, you could ask your pal for the name of the office their provider works at — they might have a colleague who’s currently accepting new clients. 

3.

Ask another one of your healthcare providers.