Adelaide Sex Therapy, Trauma Counselling & Psychotherapy

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good.”

"Theres no way to "fail" therapy - for men they've already won by coming through the door."

"We think by protecting ourselves from suffering we are being kind to ourselves, the truth is we only become more fearful, more hardened and more alienated."

“Healing is not the avoidance of pain. In a world full of counterfeit promises of easy healing and products that promise growth without discomfort, genuine healing asks us to face our pain rather than flee it.”

"Contemporary culture is overly focused on ‘healing’ trauma and restoring us to an imagined intactness. Saketopoulou urges us instead to look at what people do with their traumatic histories, especially in their erotic lives."

"Research shows telling people about pain isn’t helpful. But when we can sit, take time, listen and make sense together, when can really help people understand what’s going on, understand their pain, make useful and meaningful choices when it comes to treatment."

"Many of us tell ourselves that 'sex is not all that important to me', and then we immerse ourselves in substitutive activities. We plunge into all manner of heartless addictions or we become preoccupied with policing the sex lives of others. We even lose awareness of how disconnected we have become from our sensuality. We no longer recognise our own inhibition, nor do we see its roots in our unconscious shame and guilt."

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle,
known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.
These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and
an understanding of life that fills them with compassion,
gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

"Anxiety about erections makes it harder to keep erections. And most rapid ejaculation comes from anxiety, not from too much pleasure or stimulation."

"At times, our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us."

"We are taught to distance from sensations and the body, rather than living inside them. The distancing from lived experience, from feeling aliveness, also prepares us to be quick to objectify others and other types of life."

"With all loss, and especially with ambiguous loss, the goal is to live with grief rather than close the door. We live with the lack of finality."

"There is no way I'm ever telling people what I want because they will use it to hurt me - if this is your experience, there is healing to do to find and reveal what you authentically care about."

"Mindful touch and movement grounds people and allows them to discover tensions that they may have held for so long that they are no longer even aware of them."

"When healing from trauma, we must also heal from shame."

"As I like to say to people, "life sucks a good amount of time". We all have jobs and situations that are really unpleasant. But the moment that situation is over, its over. The problem with trauma is that when it’s over, your body continues to relive it."

"Nakedness can symbolise not only the truth of the matter but also the truth of self - psychological authenticity. The metaphor of stripping away implies an authentic self-clothed in cultural baggage or social roles."

“There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives."

"Once, when undergoing a medical check-up, the doctor put me on a treadmill. "What are you measuring?' I asked him. 'How fast I can go, or how long?'. 'Neither', he replied. 'What I want to measure is, when you get off the machine, how long it takes your pulse to return to normal.' I realised that health is not a matter of never being ill. It is the ability to recover."

"Compassion is not a relationship between the healer and wounded. Its a relationship between equals. Only when we know our own darkness well can we be present with darkness of others. Compassion becomes real when we recognise our shared humanity."

"You have the responsibility to show up to your life. You can't avoid it, in all its pain and beauty, by living in the past-personal histories and buried traumas matter, and they might inform the present."

“In order to see naturally, we must let go of our preconceptions as to what is ‘natural'."

"What doctors and therapists tell patients has a major influence on what patients believe and this influence can continue for many years and have an effect on recovery. The influence is powerfully negative."

"One day the sun admitted, I am just a shadow. I wish I could show you the Infinite Incandescence that has cast my brilliant image! I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing Light of your own Being."

"Empathy has no script. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It's simply listening, holding space, withholding judgement, emotionally connecting, and communicating that incredibly healing message of 'You're not alone."

"Our hearts are armoured against society. We cover our hearts to avoid suffering."

"History does matter, the past does affects the present. The privileged cannot understand the subjugated 'out of context'."

"Your most personal experience is mirrored back to you, and you realise all at once that someone else had had the same thought. Suddenly and certainly, if only for that moment, you are a little less alone."

"Men are often pressured to open-up and talk about their feelings and criticised for being emotionally walled-off; but if they get too real, the are met with revulsion."

"Pursuing social justice in the structure of cathexis means ending the stigma of sexual difference and the imposition of compulsory heterosexuality, and reconstructing heterosexuality on the basis of reciprocity not hierarchy. As a condition for this, it means overcoming the socially produced ignorance that makes sexuality an arena of fear and vector of disease."

"Dissociation provides the illusion that everything is okay."

Too many people think that if your penis or vulva does tricks when and how you want, you "function" right, and that if not, you have a "dysfunction". Most people stuck on this model don't seem to appreciate the role of emotion in facilitating or blocking sexual "function".