Last Updated: April 11th, 2022 by
Working as a therapist is an excellent way to help other people improve their lives. By becoming a sex therapist, you’ll help people address issues affecting their sexual wellbeing in particular.
You’ll find everything you need to know about learning how to become a sex therapist in this guide.
Then, as you keep reading, you’ll discover what it takes to pursue this career path and the rewards you can expect for your efforts.
Job Description
Overall, your role as a sex therapist is to help people improve their sex lives. You’ll work with individual clients as we as couples that come together.
Some of your clients might only need your guidance to improve their intimacy. However, others will require your advice to address disorders affecting their sexual health and wellbeing.
Some sex therapists also treat sexual offenders. In this case, the objective is to prevent recidivism, which means reducing the risk of reoffending in the future.
Lastly, you will also prescribe physical exercises or medications to clients who need them.
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What Does an Average Day for a Sex Therapist Look Like?
A crucial part of learning how to become a sex therapist is understanding what goes on in a typical day on the job.
So, here’s what your average day as a sex therapist will look like:
Check The Day’s Appointments
Like most other kinds of therapists, your day will primarily consist of face-to-face meetings with clients. So, you’ll begin the day by confirming your appointments for the day.
In some cases, you might even follow up with clients and remind them of their upcoming appointment.
Even though this is one of the most straightforward tasks to do, it can set the tone for your entire workday.
For example, planning too many appointments will tire you quickly and affect your interactions with clients.
However, when you balance client appointments with enough time to perform other tasks, your workday will run more smoothly.
Collect and Review Client Records
Once you finish confirming your appointments, you’ll collect each client’s records and review them.
That way, you’ll understand each patient’s situation and can have a more productive session when they arrive.
These days, an increasing number of practices keep digitized client records. So, you’ll likely review and update client records using computer systems.
Consult With Clients
As you saw earlier, you’ll spend most of your day interacting with clients face to face. You’ll welcome patients to your office and talk to them.
Your consultation sessions typically take 30-60 minutes, depending on the client’s needs. Some might require more time to discuss their sexual health issues with you.
As a sex therapist, you’ll mostly have consultations with individuals. However, it’s also normal to have sessions that include your clients’ partners as well.
Prescribe Exercises or Medication
Besides providing clients with guidance and advice, you will also prescribe them physical exercises or medication.
Of course, this is on a needs basis. Some clients will need these prescriptions, and they’ll differ based on the patient’s conditions.
Miscellaneous Administrative Tasks
Many sex therapists are self-employed. If that’s the case for you as well, you’ll likely spend a portion of your day handling miscellaneous administrative tasks.
These can include anything from updating client records to billing, handling rent, and other types of administrative paperwork.
Process for Becoming a Sex Therapist
There’s one crucial thing you need to know before learning how to become a sex therapist. You have several education and career options as stepping stones that lead you to a sex therapist career.
So, here’s what the overall process will look like for you:
Start Early in High School
Suppose you’re still in high school right now. In that case, you can get a head start on your career as a sex therapist by taking a few specific courses.
Some useful courses include:
- AP Psychology – Therapists need a deep understanding of psychology, and high school is a perfect place to start.
- Biology – Learning biology early will help you in college. You will likely take related subjects to pursue your degree later.
- English – Your communication skills (both listening and speaking) are crucial when interacting with clients. Taking English will help you develop those skills early.
- Algebra and statistics – In college and when on the job, you’ll be performing research from time to time. Understanding algebra and statistics in high school will help you understand your research more effectively.
- Social sciences – Your future clients will come from various social backgrounds. Understanding the social sciences will help you see things from their perspectives.
Pursue a College Degree
In this part of your journey, you’ll have several options to choose from. You don’t have to take a specific degree to become a sex therapist.
However, many sex therapists typically have bachelor’s or master’s degrees in:
- Psychology
- Behavioral Health Counseling
- Clinical Psychology (with a specialization in Sex Therapy)
Any of those degrees will help you establish an academic foundation in providing therapy to clients.
But as you continue studying, you can also focus your education on subjects and topics that affect clients’ sexual health and wellbeing.
Gain Hands-On Therapy or Counseling Experience
Once you graduate from college, you’ll have to pursue at least 2 years of clinical experience. That experience is necessary so you can pursue certification as a sex therapist later in your career.
The clinical experience that you get will likely be under the supervision of a qualified, licensed, and certified clinical psychologist, social worker, or professional counselor. Which one you go with will depend on your academic background and qualifications.
Your clinical experience matters for 2 reasons. Firstly, this is how you start developing your skills and experience when interacting with clients or patients directly.
Secondly, the clinical experience allows you to observe your supervisor and learn directly from them. In other words, you’ll be benefiting from their mentorship as they supervise your work daily.
Get a State License
After graduating, you’ll have to obtain a license from the state you want to practice in.
Here’s something important to keep in mind: states do not provide licenses in sex therapy. Instead, you must get one of the following licenses from your state:
- Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
- Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC)
- Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor (LCPC)
- Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor of Mental Health (LPCC)
- Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor (LCMHC)
- Licensed Mental Health Practitioner (LMHP)
The specific requirements for licensing will differ from state to state. So, check with state authorities for more details.
Obtain Certification
Getting a state license (as described above) is also crucial so you can get certified as a sex therapist by the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists (AASECT).
Overall, the requirements you must fulfill to get certified are:
- A master’s degree with 2 years of clinical experience
- A doctoral degree with 1 year of clinical experience
After obtaining your certification, you’ll have to renew it every 3 years. The AASECT allows you to gain the credits to renew your certification using two methods: the straightforward method and the indirect method.
Once you renew your AASECT certification, it will stay valid for another 3 years before you have to repeat the recertification process again.
Are You Suited for a Sex Therapist Career? Skills, Credentials, Tools and Technology
Learning how to become a sex therapist will require you to combine hard and soft skills.
Here are some of the skills and proficiencies that will help you in your career as a sex therapist:
Personality and Skills
When it comes to personality traits and skills, you must have empathy and compassion, strong communication skills, and strong organizational skills.
Remember: you’re a therapist. That means your clients approach you when they’re facing challenges that they cannot solve independently.
As such, you must have empathy and compassion to see things from their perspective to help them.
When consulting with clients, your listening and speaking skills are your primary tools. Strong communication skills allow you to understand the precise needs of your clients. Just as important, they will enable you to provide clear and concise advice.
Credentials and Proficiencies
A sex therapist cannot succeed without a strong understanding of the sexual health issues faced by different social groups.
For example, transgender clients’ challenges will be vastly different from those faced by senior citizens.
As part of your therapy, you must also develop knowledge in physical exercises that you can prescribe to improve clients’ sexual health.
The same is also true regarding appropriate medications. Some sex therapists will need to prescribe medications to help clients overcome their sexual health challenges.
Read More: How to Become a Sports Physical Therapist. Learn everything you need to know about this career path.
How Does a Sex Therapist Find Work?
Once you finish learning how to become a sex therapist, the time will come for you to find a job in this industry.
Sex therapists like you can find work in several environments like:
Private Practice
Most sex therapists choose to work in practice. That means you’ll work in an office where you hold appointments with your clients.
Finding work this way means that you’ll be self-employed. So, you’ll also have to handle the administrative tasks to run your office and marketing efforts to attract new clients.
The Corporate Sector
Sex therapists can also find work in corporate settings. In these environments, you will also consult with clients to help them through issues surrounding their sexuality.
The only difference is those clients will be fellow employees of the same corporation.
Besides that, working in a corporate setting also means that you’ll also plan workshops and other forms of training.
Here, you’ll spread awareness about sexual harassment and other issues in the workplace.
Academic Institutions
Institutions like colleges and universities also tend to hire sex therapists. However, your clientele here will mainly consist of students.
So, your priorities are providing sex education services and helping students through the sexual issues they face.
The Public Sector
Lastly, you can also work as a sex therapist interacting with the general public.
For example, you might hold seminars to spread sexual health awareness or work in medical settings to assist victims of sexual abuse.
What is the Average Salary of a Sex Therapist?
Precise salary information for sex therapists is not available because the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) combines the data for a wide range of therapists.
That data by the BLS suggests that sex therapists earn an average of $62,090 a year.
The same data also shows that:
- Therapists in the top 90th percentile earn $96,160 a year, and
- Therapists in the bottom 10th percentile earn $34,270 a year.
Where Do Sex Therapists Earn the Most?
The BLS also shows that these are the top 5 highest paying states for therapists:
- Kentucky: $93,290 a year
- Nevada: $80,770 a year
- District of Columbia: $78,310 a year
- Washington: $76,750 a year
- Rhode Island: $76,550 a year
How to Earn More as a Sex Therapist
The best way to increase your earning potential as a sex therapist is to develop one or more specializations.
As a sex therapist, you have many topic areas to choose from as specializations.
Some of them include treating sexual offenders, helping victims of sexual abuse, and helping couples with sexual intimacy issues.
When you pursue a specialization, you’ll take learning how to become a sex therapist to a much deeper level than other people in your field.
By investing that additional effort, you’ll make it much easier for yourself to stand out from among your peers and attract high-paying clients.
More importantly, your specializations enable you to better cater to clients and help them resolve issues surrounding their sexuality.
Sex Therapist Job Growth
The Occupational Information Network (O*NET) indicates that the field for therapists in general (including sex therapists) will grow by 105-15% between 2020 and 2030.
That’s excellent news for you and anyone else who might be interested in pursuing this career path.
Despite that strong growth projection, it’s always good to keep yourself competitive when entering the job market.
One way to do that is to specialize in one or more topic areas to set yourself apart from your peers.
Focusing on a niche will help you serve clients with more unique needs, which not all sex therapists can cater to.
Top 7 Sex Therapist Specializations
As a sex therapist, you can choose to specialize in one or more topic areas like:
LGBTQ+ Concerns Surrounding Sex
In this specialization, you’ll help support members of the LGBTQ+ community in dealing with challenges involving them and their sexual partners.
Gender-Based Sexual Concerns
This topic area focuses on sexual concerns that are unique to individual genders.
Being a specialist in this area will allow you to provide more targeted advice that might work for clients of one gender but not the other.
Treatment of Sexual Offenders
Your focus in this specialization is working with sexual offenders.
Your work aims to reduce the risk of recidivism in these individuals, which means to help them avoid reoffending once they re-enter society after serving their time.
Sexual Abuse Recovery
Clients with a history of experiencing sexual abuse will require specialized support from a sex therapist.
Unlike some other specializations, this one will require you to help clients process and work through their past trauma.
Lack of Sexual Desire
You can also choose to specialize in supporting clients suffering from a lack of sexual desire. These could be individuals or couples that are affected by the same issue.
Hormonal Issues
Next, you can also choose to focus on working with patients suffering from hormonal issues.
While other clients might suffer from sexual problems relating to their psychology or physical condition, others might instead be affected by hormonal imbalances or other disorders.
Sexual Compulsions
Some patients might suffer from compulsive sexual behaviors, such as sex addiction.
In this area, your focus is on helping your clients or patients move away from a problematic sex life to one that is normal and healthy.
Professional Associations
Learning how to become a sex therapist that successfully helps clients also involves networking and mentorship.
You can connect with other people in the same line of work through associations like:
American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT)
Society for Sex Therapy and Research (SSTAR)
American Association of Couples and Sex Therapists (AACAST)
American Board of Sexology (ABS)
Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS)
Read More: How to Become a Massage Therapist. Discover what it takes to become a massage therapists and how you can help people through the power of touch.
Top Colleges and Universities
You can take several paths in college to learn how to become a sex therapist. However, the most common choice is to take a degree in psychology.
Here are some of the top colleges and universities for that field of study:
