WEBVTT 00:02.073 --> 00:07.447 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Sexology, a podcast that untangles the science of sex and pleasure. 00:08.008 --> 00:15.407 [SPEAKER_00]: And now, with this week's episode, your host, Clinical Psychologist, Dr. Naseneen Moali. 00:17.024 --> 00:20.910 [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome back to another episode of The Sexology Podcast. 00:20.930 --> 00:23.513 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm your host, Dr. Nazanine Mowali. 00:23.754 --> 00:30.484 [SPEAKER_01]: And today we're going to challenge one of the most common assumptions people have about their sex life. 00:30.504 --> 00:32.947 [SPEAKER_01]: What if nothing is actually wrong with you? 00:33.408 --> 00:44.584 [SPEAKER_01]: What if the very things you've been trying to fix low desire, difficult reaching orgasms, even patterns you feel shame of are not these functions, but messages? 00:44.564 --> 00:57.682 [SPEAKER_01]: In this episode, we're exploring a completely different way of understanding sexual challenges, not as problems to eliminate, but as meaningful communications from your body and your unconscious. 00:58.063 --> 01:05.593 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm joined by Julian Maxwell, a licensed psycho analyst, couples therapist and ASAC certified sex therapist. 01:05.573 --> 01:17.035 [SPEAKER_01]: Her work blends a cycle analysis, trauma theory, and somatic awareness to help people move beyond symptom-focused thinking and toward deeper understanding of their patterns. 01:17.316 --> 01:21.945 [SPEAKER_01]: We talk about what your body might actually be saying when desire disappears. 01:21.925 --> 01:32.100 [SPEAKER_01]: how compulsive sexual behaviors can function as regulation strategies and why trying to fix the problem can sometimes misdeployed entirely. 01:32.501 --> 01:42.195 [SPEAKER_01]: If you ever felt stock frustrated or ashamed of your patterns, this episode will give you a much more compassionate and honestly more effective lens. 01:42.175 --> 01:45.119 [SPEAKER_01]: And before we dive in, I want to share something with you. 01:45.260 --> 01:52.411 [SPEAKER_01]: For the first time in a while, I've extended my practice hours and opened up a limited number of spots for sex coaching. 01:52.671 --> 01:58.981 [SPEAKER_01]: If you've been wanting more personalized support, you can begin to point me directly through a link in our show notes. 01:59.341 --> 02:00.623 [SPEAKER_01]: Alright, let's dive in. 02:04.298 --> 02:08.805 [SPEAKER_01]: Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Sexology podcast. 02:08.965 --> 02:13.533 [SPEAKER_01]: I am so excited to welcome Julian Maxwell to our show. 02:13.593 --> 02:14.755 [SPEAKER_01]: Julian, welcome to our show. 02:14.915 --> 02:15.556 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you. 02:15.696 --> 02:16.818 [SPEAKER_01]: It's so nice to be here. 02:16.858 --> 02:19.722 [SPEAKER_01]: It's lovely to have you with us. 02:20.263 --> 02:22.166 [SPEAKER_01]: I had a pleasure of reading your book. 02:22.667 --> 02:26.693 [SPEAKER_01]: And it was very interesting and informative. 02:26.733 --> 02:32.162 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so excited to talk about more in depth when someone is struggling. 02:32.142 --> 02:36.468 [SPEAKER_01]: actually what are some of the contributing factors, right? 02:36.508 --> 02:40.834 [SPEAKER_01]: We're living at a time and age that people are looking for quick fix, right? 02:40.854 --> 02:45.200 [SPEAKER_01]: Like five steps to reach orgasm, three steps for getting an erection. 02:45.641 --> 02:54.353 [SPEAKER_01]: But your book here talk about that when people have sexual problems, it's not dysfunction, but they're actually communications. 02:54.873 --> 02:56.095 [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us more about that? 02:56.416 --> 02:57.738 [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, absolutely. 02:57.799 --> 03:05.012 [SPEAKER_02]: So I'd like to say that sexual issues really is rarely just about sex in and of itself. 03:05.173 --> 03:10.884 [SPEAKER_02]: That their sex is one of the places where we're most emotionally exposed. 03:11.545 --> 03:15.733 [SPEAKER_02]: And so there's so much that goes into sex. 03:15.713 --> 03:24.282 [SPEAKER_02]: there's unresolved trauma, there's attachment issues, there's power struggles, there's identity issues. 03:24.883 --> 03:43.543 [SPEAKER_02]: And so when somebody comes in with a sexual issue, whatever that might be, whether it's low desire, or compulsive behavior, or correctile, or orgasm difficulties, what I like to say is that I don't look at it necessarily as a problem. 03:43.523 --> 03:58.618 [SPEAKER_02]: an opportunity to understand something more about what's going on, that sexual symptoms are often the message that there's something more going on that there's something deeper that needs to be understood. 03:58.659 --> 04:07.928 [SPEAKER_02]: And so I look at it less as a problem to fix and more as an opening to really understand what's going on underneath the hood. 04:07.908 --> 04:12.896 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, and we're living at a time, I feel like everything is over medicalized. 04:13.156 --> 04:20.848 [SPEAKER_01]: Of course, there are challenges that can impact their hormone nervous system, all of that, that contribute to someone's sexual health. 04:21.429 --> 04:24.875 [SPEAKER_01]: But many people, they don't even look beyond that, right? 04:24.895 --> 04:30.844 [SPEAKER_01]: Like, if they have a reaction issue, they go to their primary care and get a kind of 04:30.824 --> 04:40.275 [SPEAKER_01]: But when someone kind of says that I've lost my desire, I can't orgasm or can't get an erection, what might their body actually being saying? 04:40.415 --> 04:59.076 [SPEAKER_01]: Because first thing people think is something is wrong with me and that's just such a defeating place to be and it's just understandable but that doesn't create space for us to look for an understanding of maybe this is a message. 04:59.225 --> 05:00.146 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, sure. 05:00.186 --> 05:12.382 [SPEAKER_02]: This is, I'm actually thinking of a couple that I write about in my book, who came in because the female partner was having issues with desire and arousal. 05:13.283 --> 05:21.133 [SPEAKER_02]: And they came in both very eager to attack this problem and to get to the root cause of it and to figure out what's wrong. 05:21.693 --> 05:26.920 [SPEAKER_02]: And they brought in all of this curiosity and energy about, you know, 05:26.900 --> 05:39.139 [SPEAKER_02]: or he did more so than she, but both of them were sort of on board with this idea that they wanted homework, they wanted books to read, they really wanted to address this issue behaviorally. 05:39.360 --> 05:53.582 [SPEAKER_02]: And while I love behavioral interventions, it's certainly something I use all the time in my practice, I really wanted to slow things down a little bit and try to understand, okay, well, 05:53.562 --> 06:08.188 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, the male partner was very interested in solving this and helping the female partner and wanted to do anything that he could to help stimulate her desire on his part. 06:08.609 --> 06:10.392 [SPEAKER_02]: There was a lot of anxiety there. 06:10.453 --> 06:13.478 [SPEAKER_02]: He really wanted to help fix this problem. 06:13.458 --> 06:25.582 [SPEAKER_02]: And she was sort of anxiously agreeing that, yes, maybe they should watch porn or maybe they should, you know, schedule sex more regularly, but her body was telling a very different story. 06:25.642 --> 06:29.711 [SPEAKER_02]: She was very shut down, you know, very kind of closed off. 06:29.771 --> 06:34.420 [SPEAKER_02]: And so we just started to explore a little bit, you know, what was going on for her. 06:34.400 --> 06:39.065 [SPEAKER_02]: And she immediately started to cry and she said, you know, I just feel like such a failure. 06:39.125 --> 06:41.508 [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I'm disappointing my partner. 06:41.548 --> 06:42.969 [SPEAKER_02]: He's so great. 06:43.170 --> 06:44.531 [SPEAKER_02]: I love him so much. 06:44.571 --> 06:46.393 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's wrong with me. 06:46.433 --> 07:02.871 [SPEAKER_02]: And the more we started to just explore her history, her sexual history, her family of origin, we learned that she came from a family that really admired and rewarded performance. 07:02.851 --> 07:08.517 [SPEAKER_02]: her parents, you know, she was an athlete, her parents loved the fact that she was an athlete. 07:08.757 --> 07:15.424 [SPEAKER_02]: She was a great student, her parents, there was a certain amount of expectation that she would perform very well. 07:15.924 --> 07:21.369 [SPEAKER_02]: And so for her, she lived in this world where her performance meant validation and love. 07:22.010 --> 07:28.977 [SPEAKER_02]: And it never really occurred to her that this was playing out in her relational dynamic 07:28.957 --> 07:31.281 [SPEAKER_02]: And her body was just shutting down. 07:31.301 --> 07:33.985 [SPEAKER_02]: It was saying, I can't do this. 07:34.065 --> 07:35.628 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't want to do this anymore. 07:35.648 --> 07:46.645 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the work that we did, it was, well, so the work that we did was, I did give them a few homework assignments, a few behavioral things, 07:46.625 --> 07:51.471 [SPEAKER_02]: and none of them were really working, they just came back and everything was falling flat. 07:52.012 --> 07:59.742 [SPEAKER_02]: And so what I did instead is I even slowed it down a little bit more and I started to ask her, well, when do you feel most relaxed? 07:59.802 --> 08:01.764 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's just talk about relaxation. 08:01.824 --> 08:07.772 [SPEAKER_02]: Let's let's put pleasure and arousal kind of on the back burner and let's just talk about relaxation. 08:07.752 --> 08:13.219 [SPEAKER_02]: And what she revealed, what she talked about is how she'd love to walk on the beach. 08:13.440 --> 08:17.325 [SPEAKER_02]: Like walking on the beach was just her favorite thing to do. 08:17.345 --> 08:21.270 [SPEAKER_02]: She loved the way the wet sand felt on her feet. 08:21.370 --> 08:22.832 [SPEAKER_02]: She'd love the wind and her hair. 08:22.852 --> 08:26.217 [SPEAKER_02]: It was particularly at night that she enjoyed doing this. 08:26.978 --> 08:30.583 [SPEAKER_02]: And her whole body kind of came alive as she described this. 08:30.683 --> 08:36.190 [SPEAKER_02]: And you could really get the sense that this was almost like a sensual pleasure for her. 08:36.170 --> 08:39.694 [SPEAKER_02]: the sensations of walking on the beach at night. 08:39.934 --> 08:56.913 [SPEAKER_02]: And so the intervention that we then crafted for her was that several times a week, she would take what we ended up calling beach showers where her partner was sort of set up the bathroom almost like a spa. 08:57.453 --> 09:05.502 [SPEAKER_02]: They and he would put on 09:05.482 --> 09:08.666 [SPEAKER_02]: relaxing environment for her. 09:08.706 --> 09:11.870 [SPEAKER_02]: And so they did this and sex was not on the table. 09:11.890 --> 09:14.073 [SPEAKER_02]: This was really just about relaxation. 09:14.654 --> 09:18.158 [SPEAKER_02]: And they did this for a couple months and she loved it. 09:18.358 --> 09:19.720 [SPEAKER_02]: It was really wonderful. 09:19.760 --> 09:30.173 [SPEAKER_02]: She felt very guilty that they weren't working on a desire problem, but he was very happy and very patient and really wanted her to have this experience. 09:30.153 --> 09:46.879 [SPEAKER_02]: And eventually, over time after a couple of months, she started to talk about, you know, I'm actually starting to have fantasies when I'm in the shower and the fantasy is that her partner would sort of come in as almost like a intruder. 09:46.859 --> 09:54.872 [SPEAKER_02]: And, you know, he would just desire her so much and kind of, you know, her, her lust would sort of overtake herself. 09:55.273 --> 10:00.962 [SPEAKER_02]: And she was so thrilled that she was actually beginning to feel something inside of her body. 10:01.002 --> 10:05.349 [SPEAKER_02]: And so fast forward, you know, they played around with this fantasy. 10:05.410 --> 10:06.972 [SPEAKER_02]: We talked about it a lot. 10:07.533 --> 10:13.002 [SPEAKER_02]: And eventually, you know, her desire did come back when the pressure 10:12.982 --> 10:19.232 [SPEAKER_02]: to be sexual and to be turned on and to be aroused was taken off of her. 10:19.492 --> 10:20.153 [SPEAKER_01]: I love that. 10:20.253 --> 10:22.377 [SPEAKER_01]: That's such a beautiful intervention. 10:22.417 --> 10:29.688 [SPEAKER_01]: And I think pacing is also really important because people go to this place of in a way fight and fight. 10:29.708 --> 10:31.451 [SPEAKER_01]: So item and sex is not working. 10:31.551 --> 10:33.895 [SPEAKER_01]: They tend to get anxious and redoing things. 10:33.915 --> 10:35.898 [SPEAKER_01]: That's continued not to work. 10:36.419 --> 10:40.305 [SPEAKER_01]: And I love that kind of looking at it differently 10:40.285 --> 10:53.884 [SPEAKER_01]: a relaxation, it seems like it's very powerful, and they know in the book you are talking about how like some of our sexual symptoms are coming from our unconscious, and it's very powerful. 10:54.004 --> 11:02.175 [SPEAKER_01]: So what are some of the most common messages you see, for example, for that particular person, what might have been the message of their unconscious? 11:02.493 --> 11:02.974 [SPEAKER_02]: Right. 11:03.294 --> 11:12.069 [SPEAKER_02]: For her, particularly, the message was, well, the unconscious message was, in order to be loved, I need to perform well. 11:12.750 --> 11:15.013 [SPEAKER_02]: And that message wasn't working for her anymore. 11:15.073 --> 11:19.200 [SPEAKER_02]: Her body certainly wasn't responding to it in the way that it was supposed to. 11:19.220 --> 11:28.315 [SPEAKER_02]: And so some of the other very, very common messages that that I see are, I don't feel safe. 11:28.295 --> 11:29.697 [SPEAKER_02]: I don't feel seen. 11:29.738 --> 11:32.402 [SPEAKER_02]: I'm holding resentment. 11:32.422 --> 11:35.528 [SPEAKER_02]: There's a longing that I have that can't be expressed. 11:36.229 --> 11:40.977 [SPEAKER_02]: There's trauma in my family of origin that I don't want to look at. 11:41.017 --> 11:47.569 [SPEAKER_02]: You know, they're all of these these messages really that live in our body. 11:47.549 --> 11:58.424 [SPEAKER_02]: that come out through sex because again, sex is a place where we are so emotionally exposed and it's very hard to hide in the sexual realm. 11:58.745 --> 12:05.895 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, you know what's interesting for me is like people coming in the therapy they feel I'm just something wrong with I'm defective. 12:05.875 --> 12:25.082 [SPEAKER_01]: But when we see their experiences, like their challenges they have, or could then go to acting out be, or they have in the context of their unconscious and history, that completely makes sense, I work with lots of trauma survivors, women who, 12:25.062 --> 12:32.895 [SPEAKER_01]: go out of the relationship and they just find this they feel drawn to a person who is similar to the perpetrator. 12:32.935 --> 12:42.670 [SPEAKER_01]: This high desire that shows up and I know you talk about it in your book which I also shared my client this concept of repetition compulsion. 12:43.011 --> 12:44.373 [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us more about that? 12:44.393 --> 12:47.959 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just such a powerful concept when I talk to people. 12:47.999 --> 12:51.745 [SPEAKER_01]: It's just it's very resonating with lots of people. 12:51.725 --> 13:17.547 [SPEAKER_02]: right exactly the repetition compulsion is that part of our unconscious that's trying to work through trauma and so the way that it does it is to repeat and you know oftentimes a kind of morphed way but not always certain unresolved trauma pattern and so it shows up in ways that can feel 13:17.527 --> 13:43.483 [SPEAKER_02]: There's often a tremendous amount of shame that's attached to it and being able to help people sort of slow down a little bit and really kind of unpack or peel back, you know, all of the layers of what that might be meaning is a way of really helping them heal and works through trauma or attachment injuries. 13:43.463 --> 14:08.003 [SPEAKER_02]: And again, it can be, you know, I'm sure you know people often come in with a crisis and it just feels like their whole life has been, you know, ripped out from underneath them and oftentimes in those crisis is such an opportunity to heal something that has that needs to be healed or that's gone unresolved for a very long time. 14:07.983 --> 14:13.513 [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I'm biased to therapy versus like AI, right? 14:13.553 --> 14:17.120 [SPEAKER_01]: Like I think AI can be great tool for education. 14:17.360 --> 14:22.149 [SPEAKER_01]: But like I see many of the couple with these dynamics they coming in. 14:22.670 --> 14:25.676 [SPEAKER_01]: And there's this dynamic of the partner who was betrayed. 14:25.736 --> 14:27.319 [SPEAKER_01]: They get stuck in this. 14:27.419 --> 14:28.962 [SPEAKER_01]: What did I not provide? 14:28.942 --> 14:44.217 [SPEAKER_01]: like this kind of like feeling of attack on their self confidence, which is understandable, but this focus on that versus in reality, the driver of the experience was something else and understanding it can be very powerful. 14:44.197 --> 14:53.817 [SPEAKER_01]: Another type of challenges that I find people often looking at the wrong place is compulsive sexual behaviors, right? 14:53.877 --> 15:03.657 [SPEAKER_01]: We know how we hear a lot of treatment for a quote and co-sectional addiction kind of like there's like very manualize, like step-by-step thing that you have to do, 15:03.637 --> 15:14.372 [SPEAKER_01]: And it's one of those very, can be rich, clinical experiences, because people feel stop, they want to stop things, but it's just not working for them. 15:14.793 --> 15:23.265 [SPEAKER_01]: Can you tell us more about how do you, what's the lens you use when you're working with someone that's struggling with out of control sexual behaviors? 15:23.245 --> 15:24.587 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely. 15:24.627 --> 15:45.220 [SPEAKER_02]: Out of control sexual behaviors of what we would, you know, what might, what might be typically looked at as like sex addiction is another great example of focusing on the behavior and trying to control the behavior and look for, you know, for people who are in real compulsive, you know, acting out plays to highly destructive. 15:45.200 --> 16:12.237 [SPEAKER_02]: Stopping the behaviors important, like I'm not saying that there isn't something incredibly useful and beneficial about all the behavioral techniques, but if you just say there, you end up with not really understanding the root issue and like for example, another example in the book that I use is a client who comes in with issues around foreign use. 16:12.217 --> 16:17.604 [SPEAKER_02]: And it could have easily been looked at as a porn addiction. 16:17.644 --> 16:31.821 [SPEAKER_02]: And we did put some behavioral parameters around his porn use, but what we really found out when we did a little bit of investigating and deeper work is that there was a particular being to the pornography that he was watching. 16:31.901 --> 16:38.089 [SPEAKER_02]: And this particular theme had to do with an older woman's 16:38.069 --> 17:00.128 [SPEAKER_02]: And the more we actually got into the theme of what his porn use was, I got very interested in just hearing about all these different scenarios that, you know, that he was seeking out during his form use, there was really a consistent theme and the theme was that the male partner didn't have to perform. 17:00.108 --> 17:01.692 [SPEAKER_02]: in the scene. 17:01.732 --> 17:08.449 [SPEAKER_02]: It was typically like an older woman who was producing a younger man or, you know, a younger man. 17:08.509 --> 17:17.712 [SPEAKER_02]: And she was so overcome with lust that he had no choice but to, you know, submit or succumb to her desire. 17:17.692 --> 17:28.762 [SPEAKER_02]: This was a very different emotional picture than the one in his real relationship and his current relationship where he was feeling really inadequate. 17:29.404 --> 17:32.713 [SPEAKER_02]: His girlfriend made a lot more money than him. 17:32.693 --> 17:41.365 [SPEAKER_02]: he was wanting to propose to her, but he wasn't sure if she was interested in marriage in the same way that he was. 17:41.886 --> 17:45.031 [SPEAKER_02]: He felt undervalued and underpaid at work. 17:45.071 --> 17:50.459 [SPEAKER_02]: And so there was all this insecurity around where he was in his life stage. 17:51.140 --> 17:59.832 [SPEAKER_02]: And he was also starting to have issues with orgasm in part because whenever they would go to whenever he would go to initiate sex, 17:59.812 --> 18:06.825 [SPEAKER_02]: all of this noise was sort of in his mind and anxiety around, I need to perform well. 18:06.885 --> 18:11.253 [SPEAKER_02]: This is the only area that I feel like I can bring value to my relationship. 18:11.994 --> 18:18.546 [SPEAKER_02]: And so once we started to just unpack all of that and really look at all of these dimensions, 18:18.526 --> 18:31.366 [SPEAKER_02]: We worked with him asking for a raise at work, which he was successful in getting, which helped him feel like he was bringing more value at least financial value to the relationship. 18:32.148 --> 18:39.319 [SPEAKER_02]: I encouraged him to really have an open conversation with his girlfriend about their future and what she was interested in. 18:39.299 --> 18:52.483 [SPEAKER_02]: and she was very eager to talk about marriage and have that discussion, which also then helped him feel more safe and more connected in his relationship. 18:53.004 --> 19:00.497 [SPEAKER_02]: And eventually I encouraged him to talk to his girlfriend about this fantasy that he had that he, you know, 19:00.477 --> 19:02.000 [SPEAKER_02]: that really turned him on. 19:02.020 --> 19:05.728 [SPEAKER_02]: And much to his surprise, she actually loved this idea. 19:05.828 --> 19:18.174 [SPEAKER_02]: She loved she wanted to play out this fantasy where she was this, you know, this strong woman connected to her desire who just wanted what she wanted and sort of took what she wanted. 19:18.214 --> 19:21.321 [SPEAKER_02]: And so they had this really wonderful 19:21.301 --> 19:31.819 [SPEAKER_02]: fantasy that they could now tap into in the healthy kind of non-compulsive way that actually you know, brought a lot of erotic energy to their relationship. 19:32.280 --> 19:44.220 [SPEAKER_02]: And so if I would have just seen him as, okay, this is a porn addiction, you know, let me send you to like, you know, sex addicts anonymous or let's just focus on the behavioral piece. 19:44.200 --> 19:46.025 [SPEAKER_02]: I would have missed everything. 19:46.045 --> 19:47.689 [SPEAKER_02]: I would have missed the whole thing. 19:47.749 --> 19:59.982 [SPEAKER_02]: And what I find so often with people who have addictive behavior, and this is well researched is that, you know, the substitute addiction is a very, very common thing. 19:59.962 --> 20:25.210 [SPEAKER_02]: you might stop drinking but you might over eat or you know you might stop your gambling but you might you know start using marijuana or drugs and so unless you get to the really core issues what's sort of happening underneath the addictive behavior you're not you're still at risk then of just you know developing other kinds of substituted 20:25.190 --> 20:29.054 [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely, I love that you support this person. 20:29.074 --> 20:37.202 [SPEAKER_01]: We kind of understanding the complexity of their experience in a way honoring their erotic being. 20:37.663 --> 20:48.174 [SPEAKER_01]: I was initially trained with in a model of sex addiction, just purely because I was seeing a lot of people with compulsivity and the training was more available. 20:48.234 --> 20:50.556 [SPEAKER_01]: I went there for a was a graduate program. 20:50.536 --> 20:53.520 [SPEAKER_01]: And what I discovered with that model, right? 20:53.540 --> 20:56.463 [SPEAKER_01]: People are initially, it can be grounding. 20:56.664 --> 21:02.931 [SPEAKER_01]: You're stopping the behaviors, but longer term, because you're kind of shame of your sexuality. 21:03.051 --> 21:08.799 [SPEAKER_01]: You are disconnected, and you're not able to show up as you're erotic being in a relationship. 21:08.819 --> 21:10.921 [SPEAKER_01]: You're just like scared of that part of you. 21:11.422 --> 21:18.130 [SPEAKER_01]: But when we're looking at people's challenges through out of control sexual behavior, with a complexity that you mentioned, 21:18.110 --> 21:23.920 [SPEAKER_01]: It gives people opportunity to even go deeper to erotic mind. 21:23.940 --> 21:31.973 [SPEAKER_01]: They get curious about it and I can be very healing because there is a different between illicit substance, right? 21:31.993 --> 21:38.344 [SPEAKER_01]: Like we can stop it from our life, but erotic energy is such a core energy for us. 21:38.484 --> 21:43.813 [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm glad that you were able to support the person to step into that. 21:43.793 --> 21:53.886 [SPEAKER_01]: that part of themselves aren't sharing it with the partner because many times people have shame about their erotic mind when they're sharing it with their partner. 21:53.926 --> 21:54.787 [SPEAKER_01]: It might be open. 21:55.128 --> 22:04.620 [SPEAKER_01]: So I think it's interesting that it's just sometimes we think about it as a as this horrible thing because of the judgment we have from society. 22:04.600 --> 22:30.253 [SPEAKER_01]: other thing you talk about is it's very interesting that is these kind of like out of control sexual behaviors could be regulation as strategy is right and we see it at work also in the field of eating treatments of eating disorders and I don't find it useful when people talk about food addiction versus kind of thinking about okay what purpose this behavior serves for me and I feel like 22:30.233 --> 22:31.535 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely. 22:31.575 --> 22:51.045 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this to me ties so much into shame, because when we have this idea that there are certain foods that are good or bad, right, or that there are certain sexual behaviors or ideas that are good or bad, what happens is there's a lot of shame that goes with that. 22:51.646 --> 22:55.532 [SPEAKER_02]: And the shame can come from all kinds of places, whether that's, you know, 22:55.512 --> 23:18.465 [SPEAKER_02]: Messages from society at large or your particular culture or religion or your family of origin like there's so many Places where shame sort of infiltrates, but the problem is that Sexuality is not a neat Clean them full organized Experience that often is filled with contradictions and 23:18.445 --> 23:31.018 [SPEAKER_02]: And it's filled with, you know, fantasies that we, you know, that might otherwise be, that might not line up neatly with how we perceive ourselves in our conscious minds. 23:31.438 --> 23:47.575 [SPEAKER_02]: And so if we start shaming that, if we start trying to close the door on the queerness of sexuality or the complexity of sexuality, you get into trouble, because then you're just trying to control behavior. 23:47.555 --> 23:57.156 [SPEAKER_02]: You can control behavior to a certain degree, but this whole idea of like white knuckling your sexuality or white knuckling your recovery program. 23:57.176 --> 24:03.910 [SPEAKER_02]: It only lasts for so long without then creating, you know, a lot of uncomfortable situations. 24:03.890 --> 24:16.793 [SPEAKER_02]: So to get back to the question about like trying to understand what an addictive behavior is regulating, what's odd, what I find is often there is shame is the biggest one. 24:16.833 --> 24:24.987 [SPEAKER_02]: There's so much shame there, but oftentimes it's trying to regulate overwhelming, you know, a sense of overwhelm feeling overwhelmed. 24:24.967 --> 24:30.714 [SPEAKER_02]: it might be trying to regulate loneliness or anxiety or fear. 24:31.354 --> 24:37.422 [SPEAKER_02]: The thing about addictive behaviors is that any kind of addictive behavior changes the way we feel. 24:37.442 --> 24:46.452 [SPEAKER_02]: And so trying to understand well what is it about that particular feeling that is threatening or creating problems 24:46.432 --> 24:50.859 [SPEAKER_02]: allows us to understand, you know, what's going on beneath the surface. 24:50.939 --> 25:03.377 [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, my work is so much about what's going on beneath the surface because that's that's really getting to the root of whatever the symptom is is sort of highlighting or pointing to. 25:03.593 --> 25:22.783 [SPEAKER_01]: absolutely and I know like shame can be as you said is something that maybe it's like a ball in the pool we can push it down but it pushed back up and I see it all the time with my conservative clients that they grew up very conservative contact so they kind of like pushed down all of the desires and leave and 25:22.763 --> 25:28.309 [SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, on the queerness, the kinkiness part of sex, it's more alive for them. 25:28.669 --> 25:32.954 [SPEAKER_01]: Shout this earlier about the ink, but I think that's something the more that you lean into it. 25:33.254 --> 25:36.538 [SPEAKER_01]: You can have a better relationship with your erotic self. 25:36.958 --> 25:45.868 [SPEAKER_01]: For our listeners, that they feel stuck in pattern and patterns that they feel ashamed of, what would you want them to understand about their behavior? 25:46.152 --> 25:55.086 [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I think the first thing I would want them to understand is that shame is really not an emotion that helps anybody. 25:55.727 --> 26:01.997 [SPEAKER_02]: But it's a very powerful emotion because it points to it points to something that wants to be looked at. 26:02.618 --> 26:04.701 [SPEAKER_02]: And so finding. 26:04.681 --> 26:30.705 [SPEAKER_02]: a person, you know, a place where you can begin to talk about that even if that just begins with journaling, you know, it trying to get curious about shame instead of trying to avoid it or ignore it. 26:30.685 --> 26:33.369 [SPEAKER_02]: It is destructive or problematic. 26:33.910 --> 26:42.162 [SPEAKER_02]: But I think the first thing I would want people to know is that your shame is trying to point to something that needs to be healed or better understood. 26:42.222 --> 26:53.318 [SPEAKER_02]: And so finding a place where you can talk about that was somebody who will help you understand it and normalize whatever, you know, you're concerned about. 26:53.298 --> 27:00.647 [SPEAKER_02]: is the first step in helping, you know, get to the bottom or understanding what the shame is trying to tell you. 27:00.668 --> 27:12.162 [SPEAKER_01]: So for our listeners that they want to get your book and and now you have your practice, if they want to learn more from you, where are some of the places they can access the information? 27:12.763 --> 27:13.945 [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, absolutely. 27:13.965 --> 27:21.955 [SPEAKER_02]: I am on Instagram at Julien Maxwell, where I share 27:22.238 --> 27:25.804 [SPEAKER_02]: stuff about the unconscious and sexuality and relationships. 27:26.525 --> 27:45.057 [SPEAKER_02]: My website is www.juleanmaxwall.co.co and I'm based in New York City but have been doing a lot of workshops and presentation all over the 27:45.037 --> 27:51.029 [SPEAKER_02]: with people who are interested in learning more about the unconscious and how that shows up in sexuality. 27:51.049 --> 28:01.510 [SPEAKER_02]: And I love working with people who have a desire to understand themselves and their sexuality in a more complex, contextualized way. 28:01.490 --> 28:02.051 [SPEAKER_01]: beautiful. 28:02.151 --> 28:05.093 [SPEAKER_01]: So to resources and do mention, they will be in our show. 28:05.153 --> 28:07.756 [SPEAKER_01]: No, thank you so much for coming on this show. 28:08.216 --> 28:10.698 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing your expertise with us. 28:11.119 --> 28:12.600 [SPEAKER_01]: And I love your book. 28:12.680 --> 28:21.588 [SPEAKER_01]: I highly recommend it to most most people who are curious about sexual energy and sexual mine and more, especially for clinicians. 28:21.668 --> 28:23.630 [SPEAKER_01]: I think such a wonderful resources. 28:24.271 --> 28:25.472 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for your time. 28:25.812 --> 28:28.334 [SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully we'll have you in our show in future. 28:28.755 --> 28:29.315 [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you. 28:29.355 --> 28:31.277 [SPEAKER_01]: It's been so nice to be here. 28:35.425 --> 28:38.368 [SPEAKER_01]: As you wrap up, I want to leave you with this. 28:38.728 --> 28:42.913 [SPEAKER_01]: Changing patterns isn't about woke power, it's about understanding. 28:43.413 --> 28:49.199 [SPEAKER_01]: So many people come into a therapy thinking, I just need to try harder, or I need more discipline. 28:49.399 --> 28:57.788 [SPEAKER_01]: But when it comes to sexuality, our patterns are often rooted in deeper emotional, relational, and even unconscious dynamics. 28:58.168 --> 29:04.234 [SPEAKER_01]: And until those are understood, the same cycles tend to repeat, no matter how motivated you are. 29:04.214 --> 29:09.523 [SPEAKER_01]: The shift happens when you stop fighting the pattern and start getting curious about it. 29:09.903 --> 29:11.306 [SPEAKER_01]: What is this doing for me? 29:11.766 --> 29:13.870 [SPEAKER_01]: What is my body trying to communicate? 29:14.150 --> 29:16.955 [SPEAKER_01]: That's where therapy can be incredibly powerful. 29:17.576 --> 29:23.646 [SPEAKER_01]: It gives you space to explore those patterns without shame and actually create change that last. 29:23.666 --> 29:26.070 [SPEAKER_01]: Rather than quick fix a sad don't stick. 29:26.050 --> 29:34.860 [SPEAKER_01]: And if you're feeling ready for that kind of support, I've recently extended my practice hours and opened a limited number of sessions. 29:35.141 --> 29:38.685 [SPEAKER_01]: We can directly book through our link in the show notes. 29:39.105 --> 29:43.591 [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for being here for stilling open and for doing this deeper work. 29:44.151 --> 29:47.215 [SPEAKER_01]: I'll see you in the next episode of The Sexology Podcast. 29:47.785 --> 29:51.330 [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for listening to Sixology Podcasts. 29:51.770 --> 29:58.619 [SPEAKER_01]: For more great content, visit www.sixologypodcast.com. 29:59.280 --> 30:08.612 [SPEAKER_01]: Please be advised that information presented on this podcast is not a substitute for seeking help from a licensed mental health provider.