Sex Counseling and Education

Are you struggling with sexual concerns or seeking sexual enrichment? Do you have a health condition that has affected your sex life or limited your sexual options? Are you a therapist or health care provider seeking a sex counselor for your clients?

I (Dr. Heather Howard) can offer you the support and tools you need to overcome your challenges and meet your goals. I offer sex education, sex counseling, and workshops for individuals, couples, groups, therapists and health care professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area and in the global community.

I work with clients who have a wide variety of sexual concerns and specialize in sexual adjustment and rehabilitation for those who experience difficulties related to health conditions or sexual pain conditions, or pregnancy and parenthood.

As a clinical sexologist, I help individuals and couples address a wide range of sexual concerns, including the following:

* Finding satisfying sexual activities after surgery, a health crisis, ongoing health challenges or limited mobility
* Maintaining intimacy and satisfying sexual activities during pregnancy and parenthood
* Feeling abnormal (in terms of sexual behavior, fantasy, capability, physique, etc.)
* Feeling uninformed or misinformed about sex
* Feeling inexperienced
* Feeling unskilled
* Feeling ashamed of sexuality or sexual desires ("sexual shame")
* Feeling negative about one's body ("negative body image")
* Discrepant sexual desire between/ among partners
* Sexual orientation identity (straight, gay, bisexual, etc.)
* Sexual relationship structure (monogamous, polyamorous, polysexual, open, swinging, etc.)
* Infidelity
* Negotiating kinky relationships
* Gender identity
* Lack of or reduced desire or arousal
* Difficulty maintaining arousal
* Erectile difficulty
* Difficulty reaching orgasm
* Ejaculatory control difficulties
* Fear of or aversion to touch, intimacy, penetration or pain
* Unconsummated marriages or relationships
* Difficulty identifying satisfying activities for both partners
* Difficulty communicating sexual needs and desires
* Lack of intimacy
* Finding satisfying sexual activities after surgery, a health crisis, ongoing health challenges or limited mobility
* Sexual compulsion (often called "sexual addiction")
* Seeking resources (including finding like-minded people)

Because of my experience with managing my own pelvic pain condition as well as my research in pelvic pain, I am uniquely qualified to work with clients who have been diagnosed with the following pelvic and sexual pain conditions (please visit the About Pelvic Pain page for further details about these conditions and the relationship between sex and chronic pain):

* Chronic Pelvic Pain Syndrome
* Dyspareunia
* Anodyspareunia
* Endometriosis
* Female Sexual Dysfunction
* Hypertonic Pelvic Floor Dysfunction / High-tone Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
* Interstitial Cystitis / Painful Bladder Syndrome
* Pelvic Floor Dysfunction
* Pudendal Neuralgia
* Vaginismus
* Vulvar Vestibulitis / Vestibulodynia
* Vulvodynia

I also offer sex education and sexual enrichment programs for individuals and couples who would like to improve or enhance their sexual relationships. Some common goals include recapturing lost sensuality, adjusting sexually to life changes such as health challenges or childbirth, and becoming comfortable with one's own or a partner's sexuality.

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