The Sexual Wellness Sessions

In this episode Jack Guinness describes how The Queer Bible is the book that the younger him needed and wished for. Growing up in Britain under Section 28 meant that generations of LGBTQI+ people grew up without seeing themselves or people like them in books, publications or media. This left so many feeling isolated in their feelings and experiences which Jack describes as a big part of his own li...

According to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists nearly 3/4 women will experience pain during intercourse at some point during their lives, and yet despite this many struggle to get answers to why they are experiencing this type of pain.   There are multiple reasons that someone may be experiencing pain in their genitals and pelvic area. It can occur at different points during...

Many of us lack confidence in our bodies, and have anxieties or worries about how our body might look, especially when comparing ourselves to others. These anxieties can extend to our genitals with many struggling to accept their body which can interfere with desire, arousal and sexual functioning as well as self-esteem and sexual self confidence. Lydia Reeves is a female body casting artist who w...

The transition to parenthood for a couple is one that consists of huge highs and plenty of challenges, as we navigate the shift of going from couple to family, and all that comes with that. Parenting can bring intense joy and love coupled with demands on our emotions, time, availability and energy as we nurture our children through different stages of their development, whilst trying to balance ou...

With the changes the world has seen as a result of the internet, and latterly the smartphone with the debut of the iPhone in 2007; there has never been more availability of information and content online at the click of a button. This has completely changed the way in which so many people access pornography and has reduced barriers to who can access it and when.   With this ever-growing online sex...

Adapting your life after an accident or illness is something that many individuals and couples have to go through, but many report sex and intimacy being the part of their lives that they feel least resourced to know how to manage with the big changes that have taken place for them. Knowing where to start, how to talk about it or even how to understand how sex might be affected post injury can fee...

Attachment theory is a commonly discussed psychological and relational theory that is rooted in how we develop attachments in early childhood, and continue them throughout our lives, adulthood and couple relationships. There are thousands of books written on the topic of how we can understand relationships, be better in relationships and choose the right partner - but Dr Stan Tatkin would argue th...

Sex, pleasure and orgasm are influenced by numerous parts of our lives - biological, social and psychological - but what happens in our brain when we fantasise, experience desire or orgasm? And how do experiences like stress and anxiety interrupt our sex lives on a brain and body level? Neuroscientist, author and researcher Dr Nan Wise unpacks what she has seen in her research using fMRI brain sca...

Research shows at least 1 in 3 women find some aspect of their birth traumatic. Someone's birthing experience can be influenced by an almost unlimited number of factors both contextual and personal, which can make all the difference to how someone feels about their childbirth experience.  Birth trauma can be considered to be a unique trauma experience for various reasons as Dr Rebecca Moore will e...

Most of us interact with some form of media on a daily basis, with it creating both positive and negative influence on various aspects of our health and wellbeing. The messages and information that we digest from mass media are now often translated across social media and our smartphones, meaning that it can be hard to constantly think about what we are reading and why, rather than just taking it...

Why is sexual communication one of the key ingredients of our sex lives, but yet is one of the hardest things for us to do? Very few of us feel well set up or equipped to talk about sex comfortably, and so in this episode Vanessa and Xander Marin New York Times Best Selling authors of  Sex Talks: The Five Conversations That Will Transform Your Love Life and hosts of   Pillow Talks podcast, unpack...

The practice of manifesting has gained a lot of attention over the last few years, and so for this final episode of series three I wanted to understand how manifesting can show up in our dating lives, relationships and sex lives. Defined as the practice of thinking aspirational thoughts with the purpose of making them real, I see a lot of cross over with my work as a therapist. Both practices are...

Despite being a condition which impacts one in five hundred women Vaginismus is a rarely discussed and often misunderstood sexual dysfunction. It’s characterised by the involuntary contraction of the muscles around the vagina which can make penetration painful, difficult and often impossible. There are unlimited reasons for why someone might be struggling with this condition, and equally many ways...

Love is a huge part of our humanity, and for many of us it plays a big part in how we engage with the world whether it's the love we have for a romantic or sexual partner, familial or friendship love, or the love that we have for ourselves. Our social context has changed so much across the centuries which has impacted how we love and how we think about love. So with all these changes to the world...

Anxiety can show up in every area of our lives, and sometimes with what feels like no logical explanation or reason. One of the hardest things can also be not knowing how to communicate or explain to a partner about how we are feeling, particularly if from the outside it looks like nothing has changed. Performance anxiety can show up for us in situations both old and new, and anxiety in other area...

Sexual experiences involve the participation of both our bodies and our minds; and so the relationship that we have with our bodies and how we think and feel about them can hugely influence our experience of sex. Body confidence is something that comes up a huge amount in the therapy room for both men and women. Whilst it may not be explicitly obvious that it’s why we are struggling with sex and i...

Break ups are one of the inevitable risks of starting a relationship, and something that most of us will go through in one shape or another during our lifetimes. Break ups are also regularly the theme of stories on our screens, stages, books and in our music and in many ways we are obsessed with love stories and their endings. There are also so many questions around break ups that we don't have th...

Whenever I discuss what I do as a job there is much curiosity about what happens behind the door of the therapy room. This is why I really wanted to host a conversation with someone who knows what that's like from the other perspective, as the client. This is because as much as I can talk about therapy from the position of the therapist, it will never give a full view of what the experience of psy...

The idea of 'the talk' is something that fills many parents and caregivers with anxiety. The worry about what to say, how to answer questions and getting it right can feel pretty daunting. Paired with the fact that many of us didn't have a perfect version of 'the birds and the bees' chat ourselves means that we don't feel set up to know how to talk to our kids about sex and relationships.    This...

Shame is a feeling that often comes paired with sex, and is an emotion that as a therapist I regularly hear people describe that sex makes them feel. This is why I really wanted to host a conversation around the relationship between sex and shame, where we think it comes from and what we think is maintaining it. Sex is so much more than just the act of what we are doing, and it holds meaning for u...

Our sex lives are subject to many gendered messages and narratives which shape how we think that our sex lives 'should' look. Engrained messages about masculinity, manhood and how men should act in sexual situations can influence sex lives both consciously and unconsciously, in what today's guest Cam Fraser describes as the idea of 'Man Box Culture'.   Cam and I unpack some of the myths of masculi...

Induced menopause refers to when menopause happens after surgical removal of the ovaries, radiation or chemotherapy damage to the ovaries, or from the use of other medications to intentionally induce menopause as part of the treatment of certain diseases. The main difference to the process of natural menopause is that there is a rapid onset of symptoms rather than the gradual onset that occurs wit...

Kicking off series three is a conversation with the absolutely brilliant Eleanor Tattersfield @marbyandelm who has been collecting the UK’s sex secrets. Anonymously sent to her on postcards this collection of cards are absolutely stunning, and they really do have a story to tell in terms of what’s going on in our sex lives and how we think and feel about sex.   I talk to Eleanor about how I think...

In this final episode of the second series of The Sexual Wellness Sessions hosted by Psychosexual & Relationship Therapist Kate Moyle, we're discussing the future of sex. My guest Bryony Cole and I talk about the biggest changes and trends that we have seen impacting our sex lives recently, and where we think the future of sex is heading.   Undoubtably there has been an enormous shift in our sex l...

In this episode of The Sexual Wellness Sessions hosted by Psychosexual & Relationship Therapist Kate Moyle, we're discussing the topic of sexual trauma and the impact that it can have on someone's life. My guest Silva Neves is a Psychotherapist specialising in Trauma, EMDR, and Psychosexual and Relationship Therapy; and he has an enormous amount of experience working with those who have been throu...