Yes. Yes I do.
I get this question really often. So often, it seemed to be worth a blog post. I am a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. While I love my work, I don’t love the name of my license because there are many kinds of relationships that aren’t covered under the categories of marriage or family. I consider myself to be a relationally centered therapist. My training is in doing therapy relationally-having more than one person in the room and hearing all their perspectives, thinking about therapy issues as they affect everyone involved. I think of it as working with the “betweens”: communication, conflict, love, boundaries, and sex all happen “between” people.
Some people I work with don’t have many sexual concerns and would rather concentrate on other issues: conflicts, anxiety, rebuilding trust, depression, etc.
“If you are a relational therapist do you work with individuals?” Absolutely. My work generally splits about 50/50 between individuals and couples/groups. When individuals want to work with me they are often working on something relational-sorting out their relationship with family members, trying to grow their friend group, looking into struggles in romantic relationships. Or sometimes they are working on identity issues, but even these often include other people-who do you love? Who do you want to be with? How do you want other people to know you?
I am a therapist who has a lot of training and experience working with sexual issues, but therapy should focus on the issues that are most important to you.