Why couples & sex therapy?
I get all sorts of questions from people wondering why on earth I would choose this profession where I sit with folks in their questions, pain, and experiences. The barest truth is that the profession chose me. As I participated in the Education for Ministry program at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Atlanta, we completed an exercise mapping our moments of deep joy in hopes of finding the threads of truth in our lives. At the time, I had just trotted into my thirties and had my second child. As I grappled with the mapping exercise, three truths emerged– I loved being with people and hearing their stories, wrestling with the intersection of religion and sex, and my experience in couples therapy.
“I want to be a part of the kind of work that cultivates the expansiveness of love.”
-Mihee Kim-Kort
Through the exercise, I recognized that joy always bubbled to the surface (starting as a child in St. Paul, VA) when I was with people one-on-one or in small groups, hearing about their fears, wounds, and hopes for what could be. Being with people and listening to their stories breathes life into me! As I became a young adult and went to UVA (religious studies major in the house!), I experienced my first gynecology appointment. The magnitude of the open space created for me by the nurse practitioner has stuck to my bones.
As a brand new adult, I felt free to say and share in the off-white, clinical room with this near stranger, who made me feel safe. Afterward, I sporadically thought I should (or could) become a doctor or a midwife. The longing to build the expansive space for others began to permeate my being.
After college, I had a career in nonprofits, got married, had a baby, and then, as the story goes, my marriage hit a monumental crisis. Through a dear friend’s recommendation, my husband and I decided to try the uncharted waters of couples therapy. And my gosh, to my shock – after hours of arduous work, we found our stable ground again. It is not hyperbole to write that our couples therapist saved our relationship by inviting us into a space where we could each become softer and more empathetic toward one another. Through gritted teeth, bruised hearts, and wonky egos, we gained skills to help us when things got tough again, and we have since celebrated 10+ years of marriage.
“I want to feel both the beauty and the pain of the age we are living in. I want to survive my life without becoming numb. I want to speak and comprehend words of wounding without having these words become the landscape where I dwell. I want to possess a light touch that can elevate darkness to the realm of the stars.”
-Terry Tempest Williams
Often, in our cracks and crevices of society, we quell frank discussion of what it is to be human – sex, religion, why we are the way we are, and I can’t keep away from those messy, murky topics that fill our thoughts though we are told to not speak of them.
The joy mapping exercise excavated the threads of truth woven throughout my life. I’ve braided the strands together, and what emerged was therapy – serving couples and individuals. I love being in the nitty gritty. I’m energized by working alongside clients to think creatively, to find their truths, and to write and re-write their stories as individuals and as couples. It is my gift to the world and the world’s gift to me.
“Where the needs of the world and your talents cross, therein lies your vocation.”
-Aristotle