Training & Background

As a trauma and sex therapist, my work in this field is highly influenced by my education, training, and research in attachment and psychodynamic theories, sexual health, trauma therapy, mindfulness, and somatic psychotherapies and programs such as Family Constellations and Core Energetics. I am licensed as an LCPC in Maryland, an LMHC in New York, and a registered Telehealth provider in Florida, Delaware, and Vermont. I am AASECT certified, and my approach to working with sexuality is focused on sexual health. Additionally, I’m an award-winning professor of psychology and women’s studies at Montgomery College and the author of “The Feminist Handbook.” Lastly, I am an expert on adoption and mental health in personal injury cases, and I perform immigration psychological evaluations, working directly with attorneys. I have been in practice for over 25 years and am the founder of Joanne Bagshaw & Associates.

Sex therapy is therapy for life.

My clients are sometimes surprised to learn that a healthy sex life is more about a healthy relationship with yourself and your partner than it is about physical technique. Techniques only graze the surface of what’s possible. If you want deeper satisfaction—both in life and in bed—you have to go beyond physical touch. We will explore all the factors of your life that are impacting your sexuality.

I can tell you with confidence that humans are gloriously complex. It’s something you don’t fully appreciate until you start untangling the knots that make us who we are. Outside influences, internal struggles, cut ties, and frayed ends—our true power comes from knowing the difference between what binds us, what keeps us together, and how we choose to be free.

Clinical Practice

My personal clinical practice is focused primarily on working with adults: Adoptees who need to be heard and seen and navigate reunions, couples where one (or both!) have experienced complicated and challenging families of origin, especially when a family member or ex-partner has a high conflict style or are antagonistic (e.g., narcissistic or borderline), adults recovering from narcissistic abuse, high achieving women with a history of sexual assault, or any combination of such experiences and the intersection with sexuality and relationships. I have personal experience with delayed diagnosis of endometriosis and adenomyosis, and am experienced at helping couples and individuals stay connected and navigate the medical field with these challenging diagnoses. I also love working with other therapists in consultation for their practice or as therapy clients working on any of the issues described above.

Feminism

Feminism and equality are natural extensions of all of my work; once you acknowledge how you’ve been conditioned to think and feel that there is something wrong with you, you will better understand the influence that social inequity has on our behavior, our decisions, our mental health, and our relationships. Once you see and understand it, you can work to dismantle and reconfigure the effect social hierarchies and power have on your life and the world around you. It’s one of the reasons I became a sex and relationship therapist and why I was so excited to write The Feminist Handbook, which is not just a witness of feminism today; it’s a workshop. And we all have work to do.

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*Image credit: Images of Joanne by In Her Image Photography and Cruising Altitude Photography