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Solving painful penetrative sex

Whether you’re struggling to have penetrative sex with a partner or you’re too nervous to even try, you’ve come to the right place.

Painful penetrative sex affects 1 in 5 females, and many don’t realize that it’s treatable. Some of the common conditions that cause painful penetrative sex are vaginismus (the inability to penetrate due to contraction of the pelvic floor muscles around the vaginal opening) and dyspareunia (painful vaginal penetration in the absence of disease). With these conditions, you may feel like your partner’s penis hit a wall, or you don’t want to be touched, or you can only be in certain sexual position.

You might worry that treatment will be awkward, but I am an expert in making you feel comfortable and safe.

In one of my blogs, “How Compassionate Inquiry Has Enriched My Work and Life”, I talked about how my Compassionate Inquiry training has allowed me to bring safety, compassion, and insight into my client interactions, which allows for healing to occur. I will take the time to learn about your pain and determine whether it might be associated with an event such as childbirth, menopause, or trauma, or whether it might be due to a hyperactive pelvic floor from habitual tension holding. There is no such thing as TMI (too much information) when it comes to this work.

Your treatment plan will be personalized to your symptoms, circumstances, and goals and may include:

• Manual therapy to relieve pelvic floor pain or tension

• Establishing or regaining awareness of your pelvic floor

• Breathing and other tension-relieving techniques

• Vaginal dilators/trainers and exercises to stretch and release the pelvic floor muscles

• Compassionate Inquiry to process emotions that may be keeping the pelvic floor muscles in protection mode

I am a trauma-informed therapist, and you can expect compassion and unwavering support at every step of your journey.