Shaking up the Sexual Gridlock

All couples deal with the painful process of initiation and mismatched desire in the course of their relationship. Listen as Dr. David Schnarch, author of Intimacy and Desire: Awaken the Passion in Your Relationship and The Passionate Marriage offers time tested wisdom to make your relationship the people growing mechanism that it is. Through insightful case studies and helpful exercises, Dr. Schnarch unravels the gridlock that common sexual issues of boredom and low libido create.

Dr. Schnarch is a licensed clinical psychologist, internationally recognized expert on relationships and sexuality, and the founder of Crucible® Therapy, an integrated treatment for sex, intimacy, and relationship problems, an approach which is studied by clinicians around the world.

Crucible® Therapy differs from conventional couple’s therapy by emphasizing personal growth (“differentiation”) rather than communication skills, empathic listening, or compromise and negotiation. Differentiation-based Crucible Therapy teaches couples to tolerate the anxiety of communicating difficult things, while soothing one’s own emotional state which results in the ability for each partner to grow individually and becoming more skilled at growing a relationship.

Developing deep and meaningful intimacy with your partner starts with growing yourself. Don’t miss this enlightening and helpful discussion on learning the basics of loving.

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Read more: Ask the Loveologist, Guidance, Love, Relationships, Sex, Spirit

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

Sarah H.

3:40AM PDT on Apr 20, 2012

The talk show host loves to talk about herself! I wish she could allow her guests to speak.

send a green star

Eternal G.

7:31PM PDT on Aug 20, 2011

...?!

Lupe G.

10:14AM PDT on Jul 25, 2011

I was in awe! No matter what I did to nurture his growth & ours, it went sour. I was the only one trying. I even reduced myself to playing into the sexist things like letting him think he's right especially in front of other people even if we all knew he was way off) because whenever I had a different opinion, he would snap & call me condescending. It was sad really, the break up left a lot of saddened family (on his side, mine was glad I left), & we are still fixing the legal issues so we have to tolerate seeing each other. I think this stuff only works on couples WILLING to work on it. I wish they emphazised that.

10:07AM PDT on Jul 25, 2011

Okay, so I'm no doctor, but although I know it's true that all couples experience a dry spell or a difference of interest in several things in life (including sex), I find it common sense to say that if you have done all the couple's therapy stuff (communication skills, empathic listening, or compromise and negotiation) & still it seems one-sided, then perhaps it's time to let it go. I understand the concept that each person should be able to grow not just as a couple but as an individual as well (it is what successful pairs made of), but again, that should happen with all the couple's therapy type behavior if they are working as a couple, if it remains one-sided where one wants to grow individually but not use it to help both heal as one, then it is not worth saving. I have a prefect example; 2 years ago, my ex & I went to a couples party where we played board games & such. It was fun until we played a game designed to see how well you knew your partner. We were all shocked to see how little my ex & I agreed on or that we knew each other at all. I knew a whole lot but he seemed to be clueless as to who I was. When we broke up he said he was just not sure who he was or wanted to be & that he was finding himself attracted to tons of women that weren't me, yet all the women had similarities (so everyone kept pointing out to me). Whatever the case is, he told me he would stay with me (imagine that; he'd do me the honors lol), if I would change! I was

Teresa W.

6:17AM PDT on Jul 25, 2011

very disgusting

Parvez Z.

3:39AM PDT on Jul 25, 2011

Thanks for the article

sandra m.

9:48AM PDT on Jul 24, 2011

You brought up good points Giovanna! Agree.

Giovanna M.

9:37AM PDT on Jul 24, 2011

If I'm not mistaken, this is the second article I come across involving Dr. Schnarch this week.
I was already flabbergasted by the other one, I thought I had missed something, but I see I did not.
I really feel sorry for Dr. Schnarch if he really thinks communication "upsets" individual growth, and that it doesn't help in sex issues.
I listened to the audio with no trouble and, although I don't doubt his techniques may be helful for many, they're definitively not for me.
"Normal Marital Sadism", "sexual relationships consist of leftovers", "if someone suggests something new in bed the other will feel uncomfortable". I guess I've been very lucky, I've never had any of this issues even though my partner and I had disadvantages to beging with (age difference, health issues, cultural issues...).
Dr. Schnarch seems to forget for communication to exist, there must be a message transmitted (which implies correct "arrival" to the receptor). If one talks and the other does not listen or understand, that's not comunication, it's background noise. Maybe that's why communication doesn't work for him to begin with, although ironically he gives importance to negotiating. How can he negotiate without communication?
And why would a novelty suggestion make the other uncomfortable and defensive? I'd say because there are other issues behind that?
I found the whole speech very sad.

Allelyah A.

8:45PM PDT on Jul 23, 2011

To use yourself as the life of a crucible you are a vessel of a very refractory material going around melting and calcining other life through high degree of heat. You are a place where concentrated forces interact and integrate (merge, transfer) to cause or influence change by rupturing, breaking (entropy, differentiation). Using yourself wtihin the crucible understanding you are using yourself with high concentrations of what is called "nervous system information" or "negative energy". This is the same energy life as lightening when there is something included (circumstances) with it that is deemed useful to understand something about (light) and it is the same energy that decays when everything useful has been removed (darkness). Nervous system information absent circumstances (the portion of an experience that can be continued and is appreciated) is used to break, scrape, separate, and move life in ways that are not appreciated having a communication (impact, influence) that can not be included in the united knowledge that God is understanding to life in unity. Life existing as nervous system information only is responsible for generating a doing something different experience that is non preferred to areas of life that can participate in unity if they move to attach to what can be continued for them understood from God directly to them.

7:19PM PDT on Jul 23, 2011

Human beings experiencing the emotional capacity for love are using themselves understandng in unity. Differentiation is a process that understands one into many and moves simple into complex. The only way to move one into many and to complicate something is to break it apart and place a lot of names to something that exists with only one when understood correctly. The problem with the interest in breaking things down in order to understand something is that there is no human who is capable of repositioning broken pieces. Differentiation is an unusual approach to place together with love or with how life is to use itself together understanding something. Life goes up to experience and understand something that God provides and with this there is perfect unity. Life is not to understand an attention span to areas of life that are being broken down because the information attached there understands itself to you causing confusion and discomfort. There is something God understands to life in unity about love. There are continuous appreciated experiences able to be had. In unity attention and drive is the same and life can use itself together in simplicity doing what it loves when the interest is caused. Every interest caused to life is an experience by which to understand something toward perpetual united understanding of God.