Therapy Corner- According to LaShonda

Sex therapy often gets a side-eye—misunderstood, misrepresented, and at times, entirely overlooked. Many people assume it’s only for couples in crisis or those experiencing extreme sexual dysfunction. In reality, sex therapy is a rich, nuanced field that goes far beyond performance and desire—it’s about connection, healing, communication, and self-discovery.

Understanding Sex Therapy: It’s More Than Just “Sex Talk”

At its core, sex therapy is a form of talk therapy designed to help individuals and couples address concerns around intimacy, sexual function, desire, and relational dynamics. But let’s be clear—it’s not about someone prescribing positions or handing out sexy tips (though education can be a part of it). It’s about helping people reconnect with their bodies, challenge limiting beliefs, and foster deeper intimacy—emotionally, mentally, and physically.

Sex therapy can explore:

• Body image and self-esteem issues
• Sexual trauma or shame
• Mismatched libidos or desire discrepancies
• Erectile difficulties, pain during sex, or other physiological concerns
• Communication breakdowns around sex and intimacy
• Cultural or religious beliefs around sexuality
• Relationship transitions like postpartum, menopause, or aging

The Nuances: Why It’s Not One-Size-Fits-All

One of the most powerful aspects of sex therapy is that it respects the uniqueness of every individual and relationship. There’s no universal formula, no single definition of “healthy” sex—just a commitment to helping people define what’s fulfilling and authentic for them.

Sex therapy is also intersectional. It often weaves in discussions around identity, race, gender, trauma, orientation, and neurodivergence. A good sex therapist doesn’t shy away from the complexity—they embrace it.

How Sex Therapy Can Improve Your Relationships

Let’s be honest—intimacy (or lack thereof) can create major stress in relationships. But when approached with openness and support, it can also be a pathway to transformation.

Here’s how sex therapy helps:

• Improves Communication: Talking openly about needs, fantasies, fears, and boundaries deepens trust.
• Builds Emotional Intimacy: Many couples find that tackling sexual issues opens the door to emotional closeness.
• Strengthens Connection: With better understanding of each other’s bodies, desires, and experiences, intimacy becomes less transactional and more relational.
• Reduces Shame: Therapy provides a safe, nonjudgmental space to explore sexual identity and release long-held guilt or fear.

How It Can Change Your Life

Even outside of a relationship, sex therapy can be a powerful personal journey:

• It can help you heal from past trauma.
• It can improve your relationship with your body.
• It can teach you to advocate for your pleasure and needs.
• It can empower you to redefine what intimacy means on your terms.

Whether you’re in a partnership or on your own, sex therapy offers a mirror to look inward and say, “What do I truly want, and how do I want to feel?”

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Ready to Explore a Healthier, More Fulfilling Intimate Life?

If any part of this post resonated with you, consider this your invitation to take the next step. Whether you’re looking to reconnect with your partner, heal from past experiences, or simply understand yourself better—sex therapy can help.

🌿 Book a consultation
📩 Have questions? Reach out—I’m here to support you.
📚 Follow this blog for ongoing insights about intimacy, emotional wellness, and sexual health

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About the Author

I am a Licensed Mental Health Counselor and Licensed Professional Counselor, currently practicing as a Sex Therapist under supervision. I’m also a Ph.D. candidate in Clinical Sexology, with a passion for helping individuals and couples navigate the complexities of intimacy, healing, and connection. My work centers on trauma-informed care, mood disorders, and intimacy-related challenges.

Your journey toward a deeper connection—with yourself and others—starts now. And you don’t have to walk it alone.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a highly effective, evidence-based therapy designed to help individuals process distressing memories and emotional wounds. Whether you’ve experienced trauma, struggle with anxiety, or face other emotional challenges, EMDR offers a structured and innovative approach to healing.

What is EMDR?

EMDR is a psychotherapy modality developed by Dr. Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s. Unlike traditional talk therapy, EMDR focuses on reprocessing traumatic or distressing memories by utilizing bilateral stimulation—typically guided eye movements, tapping, or auditory cues. This approach allows the brain to reprocess memories in a way that reduces their emotional intensity and helps individuals integrate them in a healthier manner.

How Does EMDR Work?

EMDR therapy is typically structured into eight phases:

1. History and Treatment Planning – Your therapist gathers information about your past experiences, current challenges, and therapy goals.
2. Preparation – You’ll learn coping strategies to manage distress and ensure emotional safety throughout the process.
3. Assessment – The therapist helps you identify specific target memories, along with negative beliefs, emotions, and physical sensations associated with them.
4. Desensitization – Bilateral stimulation (such as eye movements) is used while you focus on the distressing memory, allowing the brain to reprocess the experience.
5. Installation – Positive beliefs and adaptive thoughts are reinforced to replace negative associations.
6. Body Scan – The therapist helps you assess any lingering physical tension related to the memory to ensure full emotional processing.
7. Closure – The session is closed with grounding techniques to restore a sense of calm and stability.
8. Reevaluation – Progress is reviewed in subsequent sessions to determine if additional processing is needed.

Who Can Benefit from EMDR?

EMDR is widely used to treat a variety of psychological conditions, including:

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
• Anxiety and panic disorders
• Depression
• Phobias
• Grief and loss
• Chronic pain
• Self-esteem and performance-related issues

The Science Behind EMDR

Research suggests that EMDR helps the brain process traumatic memories by mimicking the natural healing that occurs during REM sleep. When traumatic memories are stuck in the brain’s fight-or-flight response, EMDR allows you to be integrated properly, reducing emotional distress and allowing for adaptive resolution.

What to Expect in an EMDR Session

During an EMDR session, you’ll work with me to target distressing memories while engaging in bilateral stimulation. You won’t be required to talk extensively about your trauma, as EMDR focuses more on reprocessing rather than verbal recounting. Many clients report feeling a significant reduction in emotional distress and an increased sense of resilience after a series of sessions with me.

Is EMDR Right for You?

If you’re struggling with trauma, anxiety, or emotional distress, EMDR may be a powerful tool for your healing journey. As a licensed EMDR therapist, I can assess your needs and determine whether this approach is suitable for you.

Final Thoughts

EMDR has transformed the lives of many individuals, Including ME, providing lasting relief from emotional wounds that may have seemed impossible to heal. If you or someone you know is considering therapy, exploring EMDR as an option could be the first step toward greater emotional well-being.

If you’re interested in learning more about EMDR or seeking therapy, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me.

 

Happy New Year!

I am so happy to see another year and have another opportunity to live my best life by being intentional, practicing self love, and taking better care of my health, which includes, my mental health.

Its ironic that I stated that I have another opportunity to “live my best life.”

Let me start there. 

Everyone is out here living their best life, huh?  Trust me, as cliche as it sounds, I love the concept , heck, I’m jamming to Lil Duval’s Smile, now.

Lets talk about our best life.  Are we really out here living our best life? Do we really even know what that means?  Most probably don’t and truthfully, to each his/her own, because it’s their life, free from judgement, right?

Lets look at the lyrics of Smile, by Lil Duval featuring Snoop Dog and Ball Greezy. I’m going to have one question for each “bar,” how important is this to your mental health?

“I’m living my best life, Ain’t going back and forth with you (explicit).”  When I first heard this song, I was wowed!  I thought “isn’t this the truth.”  I refuse to go back and forth with people about things that won’t even matter, one year or even better,  ten days from now.  I use to allow these conversations to go on forever trying to prove my point. Or what I call, thinning and proving something, that in the big scheme of things, doesn’t even matter. But it affected me so much it raised my blood pressure. Now, how important is this to your mental health? We know that healthy debate is good for the soul and relationship development. However, when the healthy debate goes wrong, no one is listening, and yea, basically we’re just going back and forth with each other. Temper flares, heart rates increase, harsh words are exchanged, and nothing is accomplished. Leaving the conversation feeling drained and worn out, makes me just want to go home and isolate myself.  I’m questioning my communication skills and the argument plays in my head over and over again. So yes, in order for me to live my best life, I had to learn to let some stuff go.  I can’t control everything and that’s okay.  I rather maintain my sanity than win a conversation about nothingness with increased anxiety.

Now, “if you breathing, you achieving.”  Hmmm, in a sense, I can dig that.  I was blessed to see another day.  A lot of folks didn’t wake up this morning, so i’m doing one better than a lot of people in this situation .   I have much to be grateful for, right?  But is it really achieving?   Now, how important is this to your mental health? Some people who suffer from depression, wake up daily fighting to get themselves motivated enough to take  a shower and open the windows to let in sunlight. They don’t see breathing as an achievement.  They look at breathing as one more thing that they are struggling to get right in their lives.  Achievement is equated to positive movements in life and being depressed, can contributes to lack of motivation to do things that most people enjoy or do the necessary things we need to do, like breathe.  So yes, its sounds good to say “If you breathing, you achieving,”  but on the other hand, when you are suffering from depression, breathing is more complicated and undesirable, to some.

I’m going to wrap it up here with “you got a lot to be smiling for, so what the (explicit) you be wylin for?'”  If you can translate that sentence, you are doing better than most of us already but hey, I interpret it as saying, you have a lot of good things going on in your life, so why are you tripping off the minor stuff.  I may be off with my interpretation but it is called According to LaShonda.  Every day we are told to be grateful for what we have because there are a  lot of people that are less fortunate than we are but its doesn’t make our issues, less important.  Now, how important is this to your mental health?  Society tries to dictate how a person should feel, think, or behave based off the responsibilities, responses, or actions of others.  We all have the same 24 hours right? We all put on our pants the same way ( one leg at a time), right?  So why can’t we just appreciate and work with the cards that we were dealt?  The answer is simple, because we don’t have to! Yes, we share the same 24 hours but every second is different.  And there is more than one way to put on your pants, especially if you have no legs to stand on, literally and figuratively.   Basically, the point I’m trying to make is this, people are entitled to feel and think as they choose.  Negating their feelings by comparing it to others, who lives appear to be less fortunate, doesn’t take away the value of what a person is feeling at a particular point in their life.

If I am to live my best life,  I must learn how to live without the opinions and constraints of this world.  I must learn to set boundaries and execute the plans for my life.  I must learn to not let the opinions of others drive me to my next decision, good or bad.  I must grab the horns of life and ride it like no one is watching.  I must command the peace I need in my life, and live my life authentically, according to ME!

What are some of your thoughts about living your best life?  Is it a realistic outlook? What are you doing to ensure that you can live the best life possible?

I’ve provided a link to an article published by Chopra Center on 10 tips on how to live your best life. Check it out.  https://chopra.com/articles/how-to-live-your-best-life

-According to LaShonda

 

With the recent passing of Chanel, my 9-year-old Shih Tzu,  year 3 approaching of our Mother’s transition to heaven and with Mother’s Day approaching, I wanted to have a discussion about GRIEF.

 

So that we are clear, grief is not just associated with the death of someone from the physical realm. Grief is also associated with any loss that you deem is significant in your life. It could be the loss of a job or a relationship and yes, a pet.

 

People typically have an idea of what grief should look like and how people should deal with grief. In all honesty, even people who have experienced grief in their lives, can’t tell you how or what you should feel. Their relationship with that person, place, or thing they are grieving,  doesn’t look or feel the same as the  person they are grieving, because relationships that we expect to be the same  across the board, never really is case.

Every relationship has a value. Every relationship looks different and feels different to everyone, including myself. So, don’t assumed that you know what I’m going through because you loss your mother or a pet as well.  It’s just not the same.

Now that I got that out, I want to talk briefly about 3 concepts. They are Bereavement, Grief, and Mourning.

Bereavement is what happens to you. It’s the actual loss. The losing of a love one or a thing of value to you.

Grief is what you feel. It’s the emotional, physical, behavioral, cognitive and social response.  It’s like the crying, sadness, the isolation, the acting out, and the decision making. Even the preoccupation with a specific thing, can be considered as grief.

The Mourning is what you do. The showing of great sorrow and sadness and regret for the loss of someone. Also in an outward act that is recognized around the world, in wearing of black.

 

In textbook terms, what does the cycle look like look?

 

What I’m about to say or describe doesn’t happen for everyone or in this particular order or at particular time, but some experience it at some interval in this life process.

Shock & numbness occurs immediately following the death. There may be denial. I can remember this phase clearly. And I sometimes find myself back in denial, because I don’t want to accept my current reality. Sometimes I’m numb to death around me.

Protest stage is where the shock becomes heightened, you feel angry, you yearn for the person who died and you are preoccupied with thoughts of them. This stage I experienced the longest amount of time after the death of my mom.

Disorganization, where there is a loss of interest in normal daily activities, depression, apathy, lethargy, restlessness, aimlessness, confusion, withdrawal. Sleep disturbances, crying, irritability is also seen.

Eventually there is reorganization, where things start to come together again. You start to look forward to doing some of the activities you used to enjoy. You start to try new things and find meaning in the death. You may experience guilt in here too. I personally felt like I shouldn’t be enjoying my life because my mother isn’t here to share in those moments. My guilt was horrible. I even have guilt with the loss of dog.

Then you move into recovery, where a new “normal” comes about.  I call it my new normal. Life, to me, will never be same as I had to recreate a new life. A new way of doing things.

At any one of these stages we could move into deterioration. We may be going along fine, and something will trigger us and we end up “going backward”. I’m numb some days. I cried a lot, criticized myself, felt guilty, and still experience sleep disturbances. But then I regulate my emotions by not being preoccupied with the death (how it occurred) but the with Life of the love one that is no longer present with me in the physical realm.

 

In essence, grief is a lifelong process. I’ve been grieving pretty much since I was 12 years old, when my oldest brother was murdered. I cry often when I think of him. Or relationships I had with others, that miss.

It’s not a bad thing to experience grief. It’s a natural and can be a very healthy process.

 

If your symptoms are too much for you handle, please immediately consider grief counseling.

Let me know how you feel about the stages of grief or even if you would like to share your experiences with handling grief.

-According to LaShonda

Early on in my career as very young Child Protective Investigator Supervisor, I saw a trend of adolescent females who were very impulsive.  I could never really understand their behaviors for the most part but I later was able to connect those behaviors to the abuse and neglect they had experienced.  I thought then that I would do whatever I could to make a difference in these young ladies’ life.

I felt that my purpose was to help young ladies see past the abuse and encourage them to live the best life possible because they are more than what happened to them.  And guess what? I was thrown right into my purpose, when I was hired as a Program Director at a high risk girls program.  These young ladies had serious criminal charges as well intensive mental health concerns. Some were very symptomatic and had daily thoughts of suicide and/or self-injurious behaviors.

Self-injurious behaviors became the norm and even the young ladies who never coped in this manner started cutting. The common denominator was the pain they experienced as victims of abuse.  Their identified coping skills  were to abuse drugs or others, to numb their pain. We now have to manage criminal behaviors, untreated trauma, substance abuse and  self- injurious behaviors.

I later accepted a position at an adolescent psychiatric hospital here in Florida as a Therapist. Not surprised at all, I was assigned to the unit that housed girls that were in the custody of  juvenile justice  and children and families department .  You guessed it, they had all experienced some form of trauma and were very emotionally overwhelmed.  Thanks to being employed at this hospital, I was able to get extensive training on a modality called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).

Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a cognitive behavioral treatment that was originally created to treat chronically suicidal individuals diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was developed in the late 1980s by Psychologist Marsha M. Linehan.  It has been shown that it is also effective in treating a wide range of other disorders such as substance dependence, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eating disorders.

Dialectical means an integration of opposites. The primary dialectic within DBT is between opposite strategies of acceptance and change. For example, a parent of a child that’s deep in their addiction, accepts their child as they are, while also acknowledging that they need to change in order to reach their goal of sobriety. This by no means, excuses the behaviors of others, it’s just called  radical acceptance of who the person is and at the same time encouraging them to change. In addition, all of the skills and strategies taught in DBT are balanced in terms of acceptance and change.

While working with a family whose child was diagnosed with Bipolar, Substance Misuse and borderline features, I explained DBT in layman’s terms.  The parent’s initial response was “so I’m supposed to act like this never existed?” My response is of course not but in order for change to occur and for the mother to not stress herself, she has to understand radical acceptance.  This is your daughter. She is impulsive. She abuses drugs. She has an addictive personality.  So what can you do to change any of that? Nothing but accept her for who she is as a human being and encourage her to take necessary steps to change. That’s a hard pill to swallow, I know, but it’s radical acceptance.

The skills that I teach my clients are easily understood and I’m the queen of homework so I always give worksheets particularly the DBT Diary.

DBT includes four sets of behavioral skills that will help individuals maintain better control over their emotions.

First skill is Mindfulness (Acceptance): the practice of being fully aware and present in this one moment and less thoughts on past painful experiences. It will also give you tools to overcome habitual, negative judgments about yourself and others.

Second skill is Distress Tolerance (Acceptance): helps you to tolerate pain in difficult situations. Builds resiliency and helps you come up with new ways to cope with difficult situation.

Third skill is Interpersonal Effectiveness (Change): helps you to ask for what you want, set limits, ad negotiate solution to problems, while maintaining self-respect and relationships with others

Fourth skill is Emotion Regulation (Change): how to change emotions that you want to change.

There is increasing evidence that DBT skills training alone is a promising intervention for a wide variety of both clinical and nonclinical populations and across settings.

While I haven’t described everything that is involved in DBT, I gave a quick description… According to LaShonda.

 

 

If you wan to learn more about Dialectical Behavioral Therapy please visit:

https://psychcentral.com/lib/an-overview-of-dialectical-behavior-therapy/