Resources & Recommended Readings
Rekindling Desire by Barry McCarthy and Emily McCarthy. For over thirty years Barry McCarthy has been helping couples work through their sexual problems. Rekindling desire brings together the experience and knowledge gained through helping thousands of couples. There are strategies and exercised for both sexual skills and communication to help couples work through miss matched sexual desires, shame and resentments with their sexual partners. In any relationship, whether younger or older, this book has tools and support to help you and your partner renew your relationship. This is the third edition of this book.
Rekindling desire: a step by step program for low sex and no sex marriages
Rekindling desire: a step by step program to help low sex and no sex marriages. This book also by Barry McCarthy and Emily McCarthy is a ten step program to rebuild your relationship. This can be a tool used with your partner or you can use it with the support of a sex therapist.
What Your Mother Never Told You About Sex
What Your Mother Never Told You About Sex by Hilda Hutchinson, M.D. Dr. Hutchinson is the Co-Director of the New York Center for Women’s Sexual Health at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. This book is written for women, frank talk about your body. This book will assist women in learning about your body, aphrodisiacs, exercises to assist sexuality, working with sexual problems and how to achieve satisfying sex for your lifetime. Worth the read!
Ethical Porn for Dicks: A Man’s guide for Responsible Viewing Pleasure
Ethical Porn for Dicks; a Man’s Guide for Responsible Viewing Pleasure by David Ley is written for men who use porn or are thinking of viewing porn and are in a relationship. It discusses the issues of telling or keeping the secret and how to maintain a healthy relationship both with porn and with your partner in relation to your porn use.
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love
Hold Me Tight: Seven Conversations for a Lifetime of Love written by Dr. Sue Johnson. In this book Dr. Johnson shows that the way to save marriages is through a strong emotional bond or attachment. Dr. Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy has been proven through numerous studies as an effective way to bridge the gap in many marriages and has one of the highest effectiveness ratings for marriage therapy. I utilize Emotionally Focused therapy when working with couples and families in my practice. This book is wonderful alone or as an adjunct with an emotionally focused therapist in couples therapy.
An Emotionally Focused Workbook for Couples; the two of us
An Emotionally Focused Workbook for Couples; The Two of Us is an adjunct to emotionally focused couples therapy. This workbook takes you on a journey with your partner step by step at creating new connections with each other in your relationship as you work to recreate the close bond with your partner.
Coping with Premature Ejaculation
Coping with premature ejaculation by Metz and McCarthy blasts open the myths about male sexuality and provides information on the different types of premature ejaculation. Then provides a step by step guide to help couples work through premature ejaculation together and prevent relapse.
Coping with Erectile Dysfunction
Coping with Erectile Dysfunction by Metz and McCarthy addresses the issues that couples share when one suffers from erectile dysfunction. After the introduction of Viagra people thought this was the be all end all. But there are so many more factors that affect erectile function in couples. Metz and McCarthy biological, physical and psychological issues that affect sexual function and provide a program to work help couples increase function, intimacy and satisfaction in relationship.
Men’s Sexual Health addresses expectations of sex for a lifetime. Addressing how to pursue sexual satisfaction for couples and letting go of the self defeating traditional expectations of male sexuality. This book is great for couples to explore together.
Male Sexual Awareness
Male Sexual Awareness emphases pleasure versus performance and addresses issues for both single men or men is relationship. It covers multiple issues such as birth control, fertility, aging, specific sexual behaviors, std’s and homosexuality.
Female Sexual Awareness
Female Sexual Awareness is a resource for women to learn more about their bodies, unpack the myths they have been told. Women are given permission for women to learn more about themselves, their sexual bodies and enjoy their sexual selves.
Love Sense
Love Sense by Dr. Sue Johnson is a fabulous book for singles or those in relationship trying to find out why we are so alone. The book works through how we attach and connect in relationship. How can we build safety in those connections. What do healthy relationships look like. Full of activities to make you think through the connections step by step to build the relationship of your life.
Books for you with your kids:
The invisible string
This is a great children’s book about how we are connected to the people that we love. The invisible string is a story about two children that are frightened from the thunderstorm outside. Mom talks to them about the invisible strings that connects them together… even when they are not in the same room. It reminds us that we are all connected.
My Body, My Self for boys
This book is all about growing up! It is full of quizzes, games, checklists, FAQ’s with real answers. This is great to start in the preteen years. If you haven’t been talking about sex and bodies up until now, this can be a good place to start. If you have been talking all along about bodies and how they grow, this can be a great addition.
My Body, My Self for Girls
This book is similar to the boys book but it is for girls! Great for the pre-teen and teen girl. It is full of quizzes, FAQ’s, games and journal pages.
Who Has What?
This is a book for young children. They ask a lot of questions as they grow. This is a great start to helping your young child understand the ways our bodies are different as well as the ways they are the same. Helping children understand that whether they have a girls body or a boys body, their body is just as it should be.
Boys, Girls & Body Science, a first book about facts of life
This is a great book for kids that goes over our bodies as well as our sexual organs and where babies come from. This would be a good one to read together.
Educate to empower
This website has information by age for talking and teaching sex ed. As a parent, you may want to see what is appropriate by age group? Maybe you want some tools for your talk. Maybe you are looking for a way to speak with your kids about gender? This is a website that has activities and downloads of worksheets for each age.
It’s Perfectly Normal, changing bodies, growing up, sex, and sexual health
This book is a great resource for parents struggling with how to approach sex education with their kids. It is an inclusive book with a lot of information for both boys and girls, puberty and what to expect. It talks about feelings, families, babies and sex in an inclusive way.