Kate Sutton (she/her)

I work with people who want to celebrate, integrate, and learn more about their sexual interests. I also work with people who are disturbed by their sexual interests. These may be legal or illegal interests and I work on how, if possible, to integrate them into their sexual selves, as well as dealing with any shame. I also work with many couples who have differing sexual interests on how to navigate their sexual relationships and intimacy.

I see couples for both sexual and non-sexual issues. My goal is to increase constructive communication, empathy and perspective taking, and general sense of trust and well-being in the relationship. I see couples for issues such as infidelity, navigating polyamory, sexual dysfunctions and desire discrepancies, communication problems, and enhancing and maximizing intimacy and sex.

I see both individuals and couples for sexual problems. This includes sexual dysfunction, such as pain, erectile problems, difficulty with orgasm, low desire, and hypersexuality. My Ph.D. was on pain during intercourse, and my post-doc focused on hypersexuality. I also see individuals who have sexual interests that they have trouble integrating into their lives, including those that are illegal. I specialize in working with disturbing sexual thoughts and managing shame around those thoughts.

I conduct sexual and general risk evaluations for those in trouble with the law around their sexual behavior. I am CASOMB certified and I am an internationally certified trainer/instructor for the STABLE-2007, a tool examining risk for re-offense.

I provide couples counseling from a sex-positive approach. I draw from Gottman and Emotion-Focused approaches in much of my work. I focus a lot on communication. While we are working through problems, I also work to enhance the positive aspects of your relationship(s), as the absence of conflict does not in and of itself equal a good relationship. Parts of therapy are hard and require members of the couple to take a hard look at themselves, but we try to have some fun along the way too!

Where applicable I integrate a CBT approach into my therapy sessions. The understanding that thoughts, feelings, body, and behavior are all intertwined and can impact each other in positive and negative ways can be an invaluable insight. How deep we go into the skills associated with this approach depends upon client needs.