By Erinn Hoel, LCSW | Sex Coach & Sex Therapist
You've been trying to get your sex drive back for a while now.
Not just hoping and wishing, either. You've actually done things. Real things. Things that took courage and vulnerability and more than a few deep breaths before you said the words out loud.
And you still don't want sex. And you're starting to wonder if you ever will again.
If you're here trying to figure out or your next move, and whether that’s a sex therapist or a sex coach, I want to start by saying: the fact that you're asking this question means you haven't given up. You're still trying to find the answer. That’s important.
But I also want to be honest with you about something that might change this whole search.
You might not need more therapy. You might need something completely different.
Let's Talk About Everything You've Already Tried
Because I want you to see it laid out. I don't think you're giving yourself nearly enough credit for how hard you've been trying.
You finally talked to your gyno.
You'd been putting it off for months, maybe longer. It felt embarrassing. You weren't sure how to bring it up. But you finally did it: You sat in that paper gown under the fluorescent lights and said the words out loud. "I have, like, no interest in sex and I don't know why."
And she nodded and said something like "that's really common" and suggested you check your hormone levels. So you did. And everything came back normal.
Which felt like a slap in the face. Because normal means no answer. Normal means it's not hormones, there's no clear solution. Normal means you walked out of that appointment more lost than when you walked in and are starting to worry this is just how you life’s going to be now.
You tried couples therapy.
And it actually helped. That's the confusing part. Your therapist was great. You learned how to fight better. You started actually hearing each other instead of just waiting for your turn to talk. The resentment started to ease up a little.
You feel closer to your husband now. You communicate better. You can handle conflict without it turning into a four-day cold war.
And you still don't want sex. The communication got better but the desire didn't come back. Which makes you feel like the problem must be deeper than you thought. Or like this is somehow a “you problem” and you’re starting to worry it can’t be “fixed.”
You talked to your individual therapist about the sex piece specifically.
Maybe directly, maybe more hinting because this is hard to talk about. She helped you process some things like your relationship history, your patterns, what intimacy meant to you growing up. This is all good stuff.
But then the session ended. You drove home mulling the convo over. And that night you still tensed up when he tried to spoon you in bed and you thought: okay, I understand more about myself now. But I still don't know what to actually do things differently.
You've had the conversations with your husband.
Things finally come to a head so you two sit down at the kitchen table and have ‘the talk’ where you both acknowledge things need to change because you love each other and want this to work. And you come up with some ideas like having more date nights or making more time for each other.
And those things might help for a bit, but eventually you fall back into old patterns because they don’t actually change your interest in sex. So you’re feeling resentful that this feels like so much work, he feels rejected and shut out, the tension builds up again, and six months later, you’re back at the table having the same talk but you’re tired of having the same conversation over and over.
You are not failing at fixing this, even though you feel like you’ve tried everything and nothing’s worked. You're using the right energy on the wrong tools.
What's Actually Happening (& Why Talking About It Keeps You Stuck)
Everything you've tried has one thing in common.
It's all been about understanding the problem. Talking about it, processing it, identifying where it came from, discussing it with your husband, your gyno, your therapist. Getting more insight into why this is happening.
And understanding is great, it’s important. But understanding is not the same as changing. Right now you have a lot of the first and almost none of the second.
Think about it this way: Your body has a gas pedal and a brake. The gas is everything that kicks on desire and arousal: excitement, novelty, affection. The brake is everything that shuts it down: stress, pressure, the dread of knowing sex feels like a chore, the guilt when you say no, the fear about where this is all heading.
When the brake is stuck on, it doesn't matter how much gas you push. That car’s not going anywhere. And every ‘traditional’ approach to low desire like therapy, date nights, supplements, conversations, is pushing the gas. None of them touch the brake.
Couples therapy helped your relationship and didn't touch the brake. Your gyno looked for a hormonal explanation and found nothing because the brake isn't hormonal. The conversations helped you feel heard but didn’t take the pressure off the brake.
The reason nothing has worked for you isn’t because this is some inherent issue you’re stuck with. And it’s not for lack of effort. It’s because you’re coming at this backward and have been focusing on the gas instead of the brake.
So What's the Difference Between a Sex Therapist & a Sex Coach?
This is the question you came here with, so let’s get into it.
Sex therapy is a licensed clinical service. It's talk-based and process-oriented. It helps you understand what's happening and why, going deep into history, patterns, and the emotional roots of what you're experiencing. It's designed for women dealing with significant trauma, deep-rooted relationship dysfunction, or issues that require clinical diagnosis and treatment.
Sex therapy is great for the right situation. It's also slow by design, because understanding and healing takes time. And for a lot of women, it leaves a gap: they understand themselves better and their sex life looks exactly the same.
Sex coaching is completely different. It's not therapy. It's action-oriented, short-term, and built around giving you concrete tools and skills to actually change what's happening, not just understand it.
A sex coach doesn't spend sessions nodding while you process your feelings. I'm going to teach you exactly how your desire actually works, why your specific brake got stuck, and give you concrete tools to release it.
Things like: specific practices that help your nervous system actually learn to associate touch with safety instead of expectation. What type of sex drive you have and how to turn this on so it doesn’t feel like you’re forcing yourself to get in the mood anymore. Step-by-step tools you and your husband can use together so this stops feeling like it’s all on you, and he can finally help (because he wants to, he just doesn’t know how).
The women I work with are consistently surprised by how quickly things start to shift. Not because sex coaching is magic. Because when you finally go about this in the right order, your body responds faster and more easily.
The simplest way I can say it: Sex therapy helps you understand the brake. Sex coaching helps you release it.
Which one do you actually need?
If you're carrying significant unresolved trauma that's directly impacting your intimacy, or there are deep clinical issues that need a licensed professional to address, therapy is the right starting point.
But if you've already done therapy, learned a lot about yourself, and you're still sitting here not wanting sex? You don't need more therapy. You need a different tool.
You need something that starts where therapy stopped. That addresses the brake instead of the gas. That gives you actual skills to take action instead of more things to think about.
If you've been reading this and feel like “finally, somebody gets it, I just want to know what to DO about this,” that's not a coincidence. This is exactly the gap the Desire to Fire Method was built for: the space between understanding your low desire and actually doing something about it.
"But I'm Already in Therapy. Can I Still Do This?"
Absolutely. A lot of women work with me while they're also in individual or couples therapy, and the two work really well together.
Therapy processes and makes sense of what's happened. Sex coaching gives you tools to change what's happening now. They're working on different layers but complement each other.
If therapy has been helpful for your relationship and your communication and your self-understanding, that's real progress and it matters. Now you just need the piece therapy wasn't designed to give you.
"We were in couples therapy for two years and it helped, we communicate better now and that’s great but it didn’t change our sex life, which was frustrating. It got to a point where I was ‘talked-out’ and just wanted to know what to do about this.
I joined the Desire to Fire Method because I wanted a plan, so we could actually do things that were helpful, not just talk about them. We both loved it because it helped me lower the guard so he could finally touch me again, but he also learned how to actually help me with this. It finally feels like we’re on the same team again instead of just feeling like roommates."
— Leah
You've Done Enough Talking. It's Time to Do Something Different.
If you've been in therapy, talked to your doctor, had the conversations with your husband, and you're still sitting here with low desire, that's not a sign nothing will work. It's a sign you haven't tried the right thing yet.
The Desire to Fire Method is sex coaching built specifically for women who are done talking about the problem and ready to actually change it. Three phases, concrete tools, real results, starting with releasing the brake that's hijacked your desire so you actually start wanting, and enjoying, sex again.
