When couples need specialized help
Couples often wait too long before getting support for sexual disconnection. By the time they reach out, they may already be trapped in a painful loop: one partner pursues, the other withdraws, both feel misunderstood, and the bedroom becomes loaded with pressure, resentment, or quiet grief.
General couples therapy can be helpful, but intimacy issues often need a clinician with real depth in sexuality, desire, arousal, attachment, shame, and the body. Diana works with couples who want more than surface communication tools. She helps uncover the emotional and relational logic behind the pattern.
Common reasons couples come in
- Mismatched desire or libido discrepancy
- Avoidance, shutdown, or recurring sexual rejection
- Loss of spark in a long-term relationship
- Resentment, conflict, or pressure around sex
- Difficulty reconnecting after betrayal or affair recovery
- Sexual pain, performance anxiety, or orgasm concerns affecting the relationship
- Changes after children, illness, menopause, or major stress
The goal is not to pick a winner
When one partner wants more sex and the other wants less, couples can get polarized fast. One person feels unwanted. The other feels pressured. Both start defending themselves. Real progress starts when the problem is no longer framed as one person being wrong.
Diana's work helps couples understand the pattern as a living system. That includes attachment wounds, power dynamics, fear of disappointment, body-based shutdown, and the stories both people have learned to tell about themselves and each other.
What couples therapy with Diana feels like
Diana is direct, warm, and attuned. Sessions are designed to create enough safety for honesty without falling into endless circular discussion. Couples often need help naming what has been too tender, too embarrassing, or too conflict-laden to say at home.
Her approach integrates sex therapy, relationship therapy, and body-aware work. Depending on your situation, therapy may involve understanding desire styles, working with sexual shame, rebuilding trust, identifying relational triggers, and practicing new ways of staying connected under stress.
Why San Francisco couples seek this work
Many high-functioning couples in San Francisco are outwardly successful but privately exhausted. They are managing careers, children, transitions, and intense schedules while carrying unmet needs that never quite get spoken clearly. The issue is not a lack of love. It is often a lack of space, skill, and safety to address intimacy directly.
Diana works from her Noe Valley office and also offers support for couples throughout California via telehealth.
Related next steps
Frequently asked questions
Do both partners need to attend every session?
Usually couples attend together, but individual sessions can sometimes be useful depending on the issue and the treatment plan.
Can therapy help if sex has stopped completely?
Yes. A complete shutdown does not mean the relationship is hopeless. It usually means the current pattern has become too painful or defended to change without support.
What if my partner is skeptical?
That is common. Skepticism does not automatically block progress. What matters more is whether each person is willing to be curious and honest enough to explore what has been happening.