Working with Desire - From Kinsey to Perel
A Difficult Word in the Therapy Room
Few words make trainees more uneasy than desire. Some clients will not mention it at all. Others will bring it with urgency, often wrapped in shame, conflict, or secrecy. For counsellors in training, the question is unavoidable: How do I work with desire when it enters the room?
Alfred Kinsey: Mapping Human Sexuality
Alfred Kinsey (1894 - 1956), often called the father of modern sexology, published Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (1948) and Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female (1953). His research demonstrated that human sexual behaviour was far more varied than society assumed. He challenged rigid categories, showing sexuality as fluid, complex, and shaped by more than social norms.
For the counsellor, Kinsey’s work is a reminder that clients will not always fit into neat categories. A person’s experience of desire may shift over time, and diversity is not abnormality.
Esther Perel: Desire Across Time
Esther Perel, writing from the early 2000s onwards, extended this conversation into the relational and therapeutic space. Her focus: how desire is sustained, or lost, within long-term relationships.
Perel argues that intimacy and desire are not the same. Intimacy seeks closeness, familiarity, and safety. Desire, however, often thrives on distance, novelty, and the unknown. In therapy, this paradox frequently appears when couples say: “We love each other, but the spark has gone.”
For trainees, Perel’s work shows that addressing desire means addressing tension: the need for both closeness and separateness.
Reflections for the Trainee Counsellor
Desire may not arrive in clear language. It may surface in avoidance, guilt, humour, or silence. It may come as a complaint about “problems in the bedroom,” or as loneliness, envy, or shame.
Ask yourself:
Am I comfortable hearing the client’s language of desire, whatever form it takes?
Do I risk reducing desire to biology, or can I hold it as relational, cultural, and psychological?
How do my own views about sex, intimacy, and relationships shape my presence in these moments?
Practical Considerations
Language Matters
Clients often need permission to speak plainly. Respond with clarity, not embarrassment.Hold Tension, Do Not Solve It
Sometimes the task is not to fix desire but to explore its contradictions.Respect Boundaries
If desire enters the therapy relationship itself (as transference), acknowledge it carefully, professionally, and ethically.Stay Grounded in Research
Remember Kinsey’s data on diversity and Perel’s work on relational patterns. These provide grounding when personal discomfort might intrude.
Closing Reflection
Desire in counselling is never just about sex. It is about vitality, longing, and the ways people relate to themselves and others. From Kinsey’s challenge to rigid categories to Perel’s exploration of desire in long-term bonds, the message is consistent: desire is part of the human condition, and therefore part of the therapeutic task.
For trainees, the invitation is not to master desire but to sit with it, to hear it without judgement, and to recognise it as one of the many forces that shape intimacy and connection.
