All for Love Coaching

Imagine you live in a house. You’ve lived here your whole life. You’re very used to all the sights and sounds, all the furniture and decor. It’s home. Then something breaks. Maybe you can fix it yourself, a lightbulb blows and you replace it. Maybe… you can’t. You have to call a plumber, an electrician, a contractor.  That’s therapy. They’re trained professionals. Their job is to analyze the situation, how it happened, how it can be prevented, how it can be fixed. You have to let them in, pay them, and most likely even assist them in fixing up whatever broke. They can assess structural problems with the house and tell you how best to fix or tolerate them.  For example, I have depression and anxiety. My contractor (read: therapist) came in and told me that there was a structural issue, but with daily maintenance, the house was still perfectly livable. That’s why I take my meds. They come in periodically to inspect and assess and tweak my system, but the daily work is up to me. ...

  It’s a story I hear over and over.  “I went to a therapist and got told I have a mental illness because I’m a masochist!” “My therapist reported me for abuse because I have a consensual D/s relationship!” It’s 2024, people. Have we learned nothing about sex and sexuality and, first and foremost, consent? No, apparently not. In an ideal world, when a professional hears something that’s outside their scope of experience, they will go educate themselves on the topic. According to ethical guidelines, if it’s too far out of their experience, they will refer the client to a more appropriate care provider. In real life? Not so easy. Sometimes a therapist will try to educate themselves with the wrong resources and end up worse-informed than they started out. Sometimes they’ll prematurely terminate the therapeutic relationship. Sometimes they’ll just let their own instincts guide the conversation. Therapists are humans too. Humans raised in our weirdly puritanical sex-negative societ...