Therapists for Sexuality

This page lists therapists who include narrative therapy among their approaches and who work with sexuality. Browse the profiles below to learn how narrative practices are described and to find therapists you may want to contact.

Understanding sexuality through narrative therapy

When you bring questions about sexuality into therapy, you are often carrying stories - about who you are, how desire should look, what relationships mean, or how others have judged you. Narrative therapy begins from the idea that people make sense of their lives through stories, and that some of those stories have been handed down by families, schools, workplaces or wider culture. Developed in Australia and New Zealand in the 1980s by Michael White and David Epston, narrative therapy pays attention to the shapes of those stories - to where they started, what they leave out, and how they influence what you consider possible.

In the context of sexuality, the familiar or dominant story might sound like statements such as I am defective, I am only one thing, I must perform to be loved, or I should match a particular script. These accounts can be thin and unkind - they reduce complex lived experience to a single problem. Narrative work aims to open up your experience, showing how the story took form and where it might be expanded. The aim is not to argue away feelings or to diagnose you, but to explore the stories that shape your experience so you can see alternatives and make room for a preferred story that better fits your values and commitments.

How narrative therapy works with sexuality

In practical terms, narrative therapy uses a set of conversational practices to separate the person from the problem and to surface alternative meanings. One of the first practices you will hear about is externalising - talking about the issue as something that acts upon you rather than as an intrinsic flaw. For example, instead of saying I am shameful, you might begin to talk about shame as an active presence that affects how you make choices. This shift gives you distance to describe, question and influence the way that presence operates in your life.

Therapists who work narratively often trace the origins of the familiar story - where did certain beliefs about sexuality come from, which relationships or cultural messages reinforced them, and what was left out by those messages. They also look for unique outcomes - moments when your life contradicted the dominant story. Those exceptions are important because they reveal values, skills and possibilities that the thin account overlooks. Over time the therapist and you will gather these unique outcomes and use them to re-author a richer, fuller story about your sexuality. Other narrative practices you might encounter include re-membering conversations, outsider witness conversations, thin and rich description, and definitional ceremony - all intended to make the preferred story more durable in everyday life.

What to expect in narrative sessions for sexuality

Sessions that emphasise narrative practice are conversational and exploratory. Early conversations often focus on naming and externalising the problem so you can describe its effects without being reduced to it. The therapist will ask questions that invite you to map the problem - when it appears, how it influences decisions, and what relationships or social messages feed it. You can expect questions that ask you to tell stories, to notice exceptions, and to reflect on what those exceptions reveal about your priorities.

As your work proceeds, conversations shift from mapping the problem to building a preferred story. This stage is slower and involves weaving together moments that contradict the dominant narrative, developing a language for your values, and rehearsing how the new story can be enacted in everyday situations. Narrative therapists often use techniques like re-authoring conversations and outsider witness practices to help make the new story more recognisable and sustainable. Bear in mind that most therapists who list narrative therapy among their approaches combine it with other methods, and the proportion of a session that is explicitly narrative can vary. It is common for a first few meetings to be used to see whether the style and priorities fit what you are looking for.

Is a narrative approach the right fit for sexuality?

There is no way to tell in advance whether any single approach will suit you. People who are often drawn to narrative work are those who want to be seen in the complexity of their lives rather than labelled by a diagnosis, and those who feel that a story handed to them by family or culture no longer fits. If you feel boxed in by a single explanation of your desires, anxieties or relationship patterns, narrative therapy can offer a way of attending to context, meaning and alternative possibilities.

Narrative therapy differs from approaches that concentrate primarily on thought content, skill-building, or inner drives. Compared with cognitive approaches that target thinking patterns, narrative work focuses on the wider story and the social origins of that story. Compared with approaches that prioritise skill rehearsal, narrative therapy foregrounds meaning and identity. Compared with psychodynamic work that emphasises insight into past conflicts, narrative therapy emphasises how stories are constructed and how you might re-author them in the present. Many therapists integrate complementary methods when appropriate - for example, drawing on skills training for anxiety management alongside narrative conversations about the meaning of those symptoms. The important point is that there is no universal fit - many people use an initial conversation to see how the approach lands for them.

How to choose a therapist who works narratively with sexuality

When you look at listings, notice which therapists list narrative therapy among their approaches and read how they describe their focus areas. A helpful first step is to ask directly, in a brief introductory conversation, how much of their work uses narrative practices and what a typical session looks like. You can ask how they describe the process of externalising, how they gather unique outcomes, and how they support re-authoring over time. Asking where they trained or how they came to work narratively can be useful, but a listing alone does not prove specific credentials in any modality.

Pay attention to how the therapist responds to your questions in that initial contact - whether they listen to the stories you bring and whether their answers resonate with your sense of what you need. Also consider practicalities that matter to you, such as language, professional registration or licensure where you live, and the therapist's experience working with sexuality-related issues you care about. Narrative work is largely conversational, so it adapts well to video sessions, but many people prefer to discuss the format with the therapist directly to make sure it fits their needs. Ultimately, a first conversation often provides the clearest information about fit - use it to explore both the therapist's approach and your own priorities for the work.

Final thoughts

Narrative therapy offers a particular way of addressing sexuality that centres stories - their origins, limits and possibilities - and that seeks to build a preferred story that aligns with your values. This page collects profiles of therapists who list narrative therapy among their approaches, so you can learn how different clinicians describe their practice and decide who you might want to contact. Remember that listings indicate approaches a clinician uses, not a guarantee of specific training or outcomes. If you are curious, reach out to a therapist to ask about how they work narratively and whether that style fits what you are looking for.