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About My Guest
Dr. Heather Clinkenbeard (she/her) is a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in helping people navigate the messy realities of compulsive sexual behavior, infidelity, professional impairment, and relational wounding. With advanced training from one of the nation’s leading treatment centers for sex addiction, she brings both expertise and a refreshingly honest and compassionate voice to the work of healing.
You can find her on Psychology Today.
In This Episode
Dr. Clinkenbeard and I discuss how sex can be used as a way to avoid difficult or uncomfortable emotions. We look at how compulsive sexual behavior is similar and also different from other addictive behaviors. Dr. Clinkenbeard compassionately walks us through how early life experiences including trauma, shame-based discipline, and mixed messages around sexuality and sexual behavior can all inform one's relationship to sex.
We later explore how infidelity in relationships ruptures not only the partner's trust in the individual, but also the individual's trust in themselves. Rebuilding trust and finding a path to repair is a long and difficult journey and Dr. Clinkenbeard explores when it might be the right journey for a couple and when it may be time to step away from the relationship. She compassionately identifies ways that it is painful, and even burdensome, for the partner who did not engage in infidelity and what the benefits and challenges are of engaging that process toward repair.
A highlight from the episode is Dr. Clinkenbeard's discussion of "ingredients for growth," including: self-compassion, a willingness to get messy, hope, and honesty. Dr. Clinkenbeard is well-versed in walking through the mess with individuals and couples and toward the light of hope, repair, and healing--a process that looks different for everyone.
Finally, Dr. Clinkenbeard shares a vulnerable and compelling personal story about how she came to work with this specialty.
