There are many temptations to organize our life around the experience of earlier trauma. But that may short-change the future—which starts by our envisioning something better.
Intimacy is the ability to safely share your life with another, free of any fear of censure, judgment, or even punishment, especially when it comes to sex.
If a man has no friends or an intimate social support system, does that mean he doesn't need one? Nope. We're all members of a social species and friends are important.
There are two types of people in this world: those who want to be free and those who want to have control. With which do you intend to build a romance?
Failure to integrate our sexuality and spirituality creates disaster because our values are there to guide us and without their illumination, we are blinded.
In the last 30 years of my practice, those who have committed sex crimes have a 100 percent likelihood of three failures in their personal lives: career, friendship, and love.
Part 2: When I ask sex offenders the question, "What would you like to get out of therapy?" the most common response over decades is, "I'd like to know how this happened."
For the last 21 years, I've worked as a sex offender counselor helping people who have been accused or convicted of sex crimes. We could all learn a lot from their stories.
Most of us have experienced regret about getting into a committed relationship with someone who turned out, in hindsight, to have been so very wrong for us.