There can be a lot of barriers to accessing therapy. Do any of these resonate with you?
I hear you.
Therapy can feel like a luxury and that you need a certain amount of income to be able to afford it.
If you can’t afford it then you are at the mercy of a waiting list for free counselling/therapy.
Mental health is as important as physical health. If I had a magic wand I would make it possible that every single person had free access to therapy forever! If you are in a position, though, where you can only afford to feed yourself and keep a roof over your head, accessing therapy can be at the bottom of your list of priorities.
I would like to offer reduced price therapy to clients who are unable to afford it. Having only recently began private practice I am currently working out the best rate for you. I would like to encourage you to get in touch to discuss it with me, so use the contact form here and we can have a discussion about it.
I will, in the future, be offering group opportunities – so you pay a small amount of money and attend group sessions which focus on different sexual and relationship issues. If you would like to find out more, get in touch via the contact form and I will email you when I have news about this.
If you live a life which is considered to be ‘different’ and as a result get regularly judged for it, it could make sense that you feel like a therapist could judge you too and this may put you off seeking sex or relationship therapy.
If you are in a relationship which involves more than one person, I welcome you to my practice. I am a relationship anarchist myself and am comfortable with the ideas of monogamy being challenged, or not just fitting with your sexual orientation.
If your sex life involves BDSM or kink or fetish you might worry about what a therapist would think of this and whether it would effect the therapy you need. You needn’t worry about this with me. As a contemporary sex therapist, I know that there is a lot more to sex than ‘penis in vagina’. Power play, role play, S&M, sex with more than one person can often be rewarding and enjoyable ways of having sex. I don’t pathologise people who incorporate BDSM into sex. Just because you enjoy ‘alternative’ ways of having sex, it doesn’t mean that you have no need to come to sex therapy. I could help you work on agreements with your partner/s, ruptures in a relationship after consent was ignored and help you explore the idea of BDSM further.
Also – Sex work is work.
If you are LGBTQIA+ I have a page here for you.
Although I belong to a couple of minority groups, my skin colour isn’t one of the things that has the potential to make my life more difficult. Having spoken with people from different cultures and races I am incredibly aware of the fact that there still aren’t enough therapists of colour/that are BAME. I know how important it is to a lot of people that aren’t white to have a therapist that isn’t white either. You have experienced life in a different way to me and although I am an ally to black people and people of colour, this doesn’t mean that I get to say that I understand what you go through.
I used to be one of those people who said that they ‘didn’t see colour’ until the Black Lives Matter protests in 2015. I spent time challenging my assumptions and looking at my white privilege and was able to understand, for the first time, what systemic issues and challenges black people and people of colour experience. I’m sorry it took me that long.
I am not one of those white therapists that says ‘everyone is an individual, no matter what their characteristics’. I am a white therapist that invests in challenging myself and supporting those with skin a different colour to mine. I shut up and I listen.
If you choose to work with me, I will not ask you to educate me, I will not assume anything about your experiences and I will be mindful of how much we talk about it – following your lead on how much it impacts on your sexuality or how you are in a relationship.
If you would prefer a therapist that has a skin colour or a background similar to yours, I would be happy to help you find the right therapist for you.
For some reason, some people still believe/assume that people with disabilities can’t/shouldn’t access sexual pleasure. I am not one of these people.
If you have a disability which impacts you physically you might find that the way you experience pleasure needs to be different to what we are lead to believe. Because of the shame you might be made to feel about wanting to pursue sexual pleasure you might not know how to start exploring pleasure. You might think that access to sex therapy is different.
Be assured that I welcome people with any sort of disability in my therapy, whether it is physical, neurological or both. I am aware of my limits – I cannot yet use sign language – but if you need me to communicate with you in a way that is more helpful for you (maybe you have ADHD? Autism?), I welcome it and do it well.
As a contemporary sex and relationship therapist, I know there are many ways that a person can experience pleasure and provide space for you to explore it. I also understand extra dimensions that can be brought into relationships, whether this is due to different ways of communicating, being/having a partner who is a carer, or experiencing a disability which is new to the relationship.
I don’t just say that I welcome people with disabilities/disabled people but I spend time in building my skills specifically to work with you and have a toolkit of exercises specifically geared towards you. Saying that you are welcome is not enough – I also put my money where my mouth is and actively add new skills to my practice to support it.
You are not alone! About 90% of my clients start their sessions with me embarrassed. In a first session with you I address the difficulty of taking about sex and how there aren’t many cultures in the world that raise us to feel comfortable about discussing sex and sexuality. In my first session I also ask a client at the beginning how their nerves are then ask again at the end – the nervousness has always dropped by the end, so rest assured that you will be put at ease by me!
Nothing you tell me will shock me or embarrass me.
The level of embarrassment you feel around talking about sex could stop you from wanting to get in touch, and I understand how it is a big move to do this. It might help you if you went to my YouTube channel to watch a couple of videos of me – it could help you get to know me a bit more and make it easier to get in touch.