Sex and Shame

An interview with Eliza Boquin, LMFT on what therapists miss when they don’t talk about sex with their clients. Curt and Katie talk with Eliza about how judgment, shame, and discomfort can come into the therapy room and create barriers for patients talking about their sexual health.

It’s time to reimagine therapy and what it means to be a therapist. We are human beings who can now present ourselves as whole people, with authenticity, purpose, and connection. Especially now, when therapists must develop a personal brand to market their practices.

To support you as a whole person and a therapist, your hosts, Curt Widhalm and Katie Vernoy talk about how to approach the role of therapist in the modern age.

Interview with Eliza Boquin, LMFT

As a Licensed Psychotherapist, Relationship & Sexuality Expert, Eliza Boquin works with couples & individuals to overcome past traumas, emotional pain, and destructive relationship patterns so they can begin to enjoy more healthy, satisfying, and pleasure-filled lives. 

You can find her working with clients at her private practice in Houston, TX, hosting workshops, and at public speaking events helping people gain the skills to reach their life & relationship goals.

She is also an active mental health advocate & co-founder of Melanin & Mental Health, LLC which promotes mental health awareness in the Black & Latinx communities. She & her business partner, Eboni Harris, are changing the face of therapy with their website, national therapist directory, Between Sessions podcast and "Therapy is Dope" merchandise.

She has also been featured in Cosmopolitan, Men's Health, Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, Fatherly, Bustle, ThriveWorks, Good Therapy, Stylecaster, Business Insider, Houstonia Magazine, and on Houston's Amazing 102.5 FM, and KBXX 97.9 FM - The Box.E

In this episode we talk about:

• Eliza’s story and how she got into sex therapy
• How trauma, shame, misinformation can impact sexual health
• The importance of removing shame and judgment from conversations about sex
• How to address the absence of sex in relationship therapy
• Opening conversations that are safe and non-shaming about sex, in the assessment
• What therapists miss when they don’t bring sex up with their clients
• The problem with pathologizing sexual concerns
• Typical therapist training around sex
• The importance of education and normalization
• The types of life events that can impact sex life
• Additional training for therapists to understand all kinds of sex
• The types of phone calls a sex therapist might get
• The amount of misinformation, sexpectations
• The faulty expectation that partners should know what to do
• The challenge of not knowing what turns you on, being disconnected from one’s body
• Societal expectations that impact the sexual experience
• The shame about bodies entering the sexual relationship
• Exploring sexual education stories, cultural impacts, messages about sex
• How people respond to sex therapists
• What therapists get wrong about sex
• The impact of bias and the medical model
• Sex positivity, inclusion