In this groundbreaking book, Dr. David Schnarch, one of the foremost experts on sexuality and relationships, explains why normal healthy couples in long-term relationships have sexual desire problems, regardless of how much they love each other or how well they communicate. In-depth examples of couples he has counselled reveal his unique understanding of common-but-difficult sexual desire problems that affect couples of all ages. Combining compassion and clinical wisdom, Dr. Schnarch explains how to use his revolutionary Four Points of Balance approach to resolve low desire, mismatched desire, sexual boredom, and the emotional gridlock that accompanies these problems. Intimacy and Desire provides a roadmap for how couples can transform common sexual desire problems into self-exploration and personal development that leads to psychological and spiritual growth, stronger relationships, and more powerful and meaningful desire for each other. It provides time-proven comprehensive solutions that help couples reconnect with each other sexually, and take their intimacy and passion to new, previously unexplored heights.

This integrative book is like having a wise supervisor in the room with you. Stop "fixing" your clients--engage them in their own healing through the Four-Dimensional Wheel of Sexual Experience. Gina Ogden guides you in helping your clients explore the full range of their sexual issues and challenges—including couple communication, erectile dysfunction, vaginismus, low desire, affairs, trauma, religious proscriptions, pornography use, and more. Part I offers strategies that correspond to the core knowledge areas required for certification as a sexuality professional, while Part II puts these innovative approaches into action through following five case examples from seasoned practitioners. The numerous user-friendly elements, such as quizzes, worksheets, and "hot tips," will help you see the larger picture of an issue, become fluent with a diversity of sexual identities and behaviors, and expand your ability to offer safe, ethical, evidence-based therapy.

Winner of the 2009 Smart Marriages® Impact Award Think all sex should be earth shattering? The quality of most couple sex doesn’t measure up to the much distorted image of the perfect romantic love/passionate sex encounter portrayed in popular culture. In Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style: Sharing Desire, Pleasure, and Satisfaction, renowned marital and sex therapist Barry McCarthy and his wife Emily McCarthy urge couples to ignore what they see on TV, in books, or online, and discover their own unique sexual style. The McCarthys offer three guidelines for sexual satisfaction: develop positive, realistic sexual expectations; explore sensual and sexual options; and communicate sexual desires. With this foundation, couples can take a straightforward survey to determine which of four couple sexual styles best fits their relationship. Based on three years of research and treating more than 4,000 individuals and couples, Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style provides information, guidelines, exercises, and case studies that will help readers find their own sexual voice and develop a mutually satisfying sexual style.

One of the world’s most respected voices on erotic intelligence, Esther Perel offers a bold, provocative new take on intimacy and sex. Mating in Captivity invites us to explore the paradoxical union of domesticity and sexual desire, and explains what it takes to bring lust home. Drawing on more than twenty years of experience as a couples therapist, Perel examines the complexities of sustaining desire. Through case studies and lively discussion, Perel demonstrates how more exciting, playful, and even poetic sex is possible in long-term relationships. Wise, witty, and as revelatory as it is straightforward, Mating in Captivity is a sensational book that will transform the way you live and love.

Offering simple mindfulness and reflective exercises, Robins helps readers learn to integrate ideas from both Eastern and Western approaches into everyday practice that is intended to both open and protect our mental, physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Sensate Focus in Sex Therapy: The Illustrated Manual is an illustrated manual that provides health professionals with specific information on the use of the structured touching opportunities used regularly by Sexologists to address their clients’ sexual difficulties (Sensate Focus 1) and enhance intimate relationships (Sensate Focus 2). This book is the only one to: vividly describe and illustrate the specific steps of, activities involved in, and positions associated with Sensate Focus; emphasize the purpose of Sensate Focus as a mindfulness-based practice; and distinguish between the purposes of Sensate Focus 1 and Sensate Focus 2. Through the use of artful drawings and descriptive text, this manual engages mental health and medical professionals and their clients by appealing to both the visual and the analytical. It discusses how modifications to Sensate Focus can be applied to diverse populations, such as LGBTQ clients, the elderly, the disabled, trauma survivors, and those with challenges such as Autism Spectrum, anxiety, and depression. The book also offers suggestions for dealing with common client difficulties such as avoidance, confusion, and goal directed attitudes. This comprehensive approach to Sensate Focus will remind readers of the beauty and power of touch while offering suggestions for moving from avoidance to sensory transcendence.

For over a decade Rekindling Desire has helped to restore and restructure sexuality in thousands of lives. This expanded edition continues the exploration of inhibited sexual desire and no-sex relationships by the author, who brings decades of knowledge and the expertise that comes from having treated almost 3,000 couples for sexual problems. Contained within are suggested strategies and exercises that help develop communication and sexual skills, as well as interesting case studies that open the doors to couples’ sexual frustrations. The shame, embarrassment, and hesitancy that individuals feel with themselves, and the resentment and blame they can feel towards their sexual partners, are explored and put into context. Whether you are married, cohabitating, or dating, or if you are 25, 45, or 75, reading this book will help renew your sexual desire and put you on the path towards healthy, pleasure-oriented sexuality.