We are therapists who actually talk about sex.
You deserve a satisfying erotic life, so you need a therapist that’s clinically-trained to help you access that. We offer sex-positive sex therapy for adults who want to be their best selves.
Sex is not frivolous, indulgent, or an afterthought. For many of us, it’s a core feature of relational life. Sex therapy helps us understand what is inhibiting desire, and what conditions actually allow desire, pleasure, and erotic curiosity to emerge and stay for each of you.
Traditional therapy training leaves sex out of the conversation. But Sex Therapy at Sapient is a direct, pleasure-positive, and shame-free place to talk about your sex life. We speak about desire, arousal, orgasm, erections, pain, avoidance, sexual differences, fantasies, STIs, identity, trauma, communication, and the sex life you’re currently having—including those who choose not to have a sex life at all.
Schedule a Discovery CallSex problems can become relationship problems
Maybe your body doesn’t respond the way it used to. Maybe one of you wants sex far more often than the other. Maybe there’s something you want sexually that you’ve never figured out how to say out loud.
Or maybe sex happens, but it feels obligatory, a box checked rather than a deep connection. Maybe pain, menopause, medication, aging, illness, anxiety, trauma, body image, or performance worries have changed what sex feels like in your body.
Or maybe you’re stuck in a pattern: you initiate, they say no, you stop initiating, they wonder why you don’t want them anymore. Now nobody knows how to begin without risking rejection.
Eventually, couples can stop talking about sex because the talking itself has become painful. And maybe you already know, but that silence has consequences.
Sex therapy gives you somewhere to begin again. We know that the couples having the best sex are the ones talking about it.
Sex therapy is about creating better sexual literacy. This includes honest communication, greater understanding of your own erotic self. It means working through shame, stigma, and trauma. It helps you understand your own body, your agency, and the power of pleasure and connection.
People come to sex therapy for many reasons
- Desire discrepancy or low desire
- Sexless or low-sex relationships
- Erectile difficulties, sex and aging
- Delayed or rapid ejaculation
- Perimenopause and menopause
- Fertility and post-partum
- Difficulty with orgasm
- Painful sex (vulvodynia, vestibulodynia, etc.)
- Arousal difficulties
- Performance anxiety
- Sexual avoidance
- Sex after infidelity
- Sexual shame and sexual trauma history
- Sex after illness or medical treatment
- Pornography concerns
- Differences in sexual interests or fantasies
- Exploration into kink and BDSM
- Sexual orientation or identity questions
- Opening a relationship, consensual non-monogamy and polyamory
- Difficulty talking about sex
Or simply: “Our sex life isn’t working anymore, and we don’t know what to do.”
Each sexual relationship is co-created, and each relationship is different
There is no “normal” when it comes to sex. We work to find out what works and feels normal for you.
You aren’t required to want sex a particular number of times per week. And desire doesn’t necessarily behave the way popular culture promised you it would.
Our questions are less general, and ultra-specific to you: is the sexual relationship working for the people inside it? Can you talk honestly about what you want? Can you tolerate hearing what your partner wants? Can you negotiate differences without coercion, shame, or retreat? Is pleasure possible? Does your sexual relationship still feel alive, awake, yours?
Eroticism lives inside a dynamic ecosystem of your body, your mind, your nervous system, your relationship, and all the contextual “brakes and accelerators” in your life.
Who leads this work
Couples(+) therapy is led by Christopher Frier Brown, LCSW-S, CST, an AASECT-Certified Sex Therapist with more than 20 years of clinical experience. His approach is warm and direct; he’s curious but not passive. He asks the hard questions that get to the core of the issue.
His work focuses particularly on the places where individual psychology meets intimate relationships: attachment, sex, betrayal, desire, trauma, relationship structure, rupture, repair, and the major transitions of adult life.
His work integrates relationship therapy, sex therapy, attachment-informed treatment, Gottman-informed approaches, and direct, unflinching conversations about the realities of adult relationships. Therapy is available in person in the East Bay and by telehealth for clients located in California, Colorado, and Texas.
Our work together may look at relational patterns, anxiety, attachment, trauma, shame, or other psychological concerns alongside the sexual challenges. When medical evaluation would be useful, sex therapy can also work alongside your physician, pelvic-floor physical therapist, urologist, gynecologist, or other healthcare providers.
Schedule a Discovery Call
Location and getting started
Where
In person in the East Bay, or by telehealth for clients in California, Colorado, and Texas.
Not sure it’s a fit?
Sapient also offers non-clinical Sex Coaching through Andrea Devon Bertoli when coaching, rather than psychotherapy, is the better fit. You don’t have to figure that distinction out before contacting us, we’ll help you land in the right place.
Ready to talk about sex?
A discovery call gives us a chance to hear what’s happening, answer your questions, and determine whether Sapient is the right place to help.
Schedule a Discovery Call