April 10, 2026 • 29 mins
Juliane Maxwald is a licensed psychoanalyst and AASECT certified sex therapist whose work focuses on the deeper psychological dynamics shaping sexuality, desire, and relationships. With over 15 years of experience, she integrates psychoanalytic theory with modern sex therapy to help individuals and couples understand how unconscious patterns, attachment, and past experiences influence their intimate lives.
In this conversation, Juliane and Dr. Joe Kort explore the idea that sex is more than behavior, it is a window into the unconscious. Juliane shares how desire, arousal, and even sexual struggles often reflect deeper emotional patterns, including unresolved trauma, relational dynamics, and internalized shame. She introduces the concept of desire discrepancy and explains how differences in libido are rarely random, but instead reveal important insights about connection, stress, and personal history.
They also discuss infidelity through a psychological lens, challenging the idea that it is simply about betrayal or attraction to another person. Instead, they explore what affairs can represent emotionally, how couples can repair and grow from them, and why major life transitions often trigger these experiences. The conversation also touches on shame, ethical non-monogamy, and how open communication plays a critical role in both monogamous and non-monogamous relationships.
Together, they introduce the concept of outercourse, expanding the definition of sex beyond intercourse and encouraging a more flexible, creative, and individualized approach to intimacy. They discuss how rigid sexual scripts can create pressure and disconnection, and why redefining sex can help people experience more freedom, connection, and authenticity.
Listen to this Smart Sex, Smart Love episode as Dr. Joe Kort talks with Juliane Maxwald about the unconscious meaning of sexuality, navigating desire and infidelity, and why rethinking sex can lead to deeper understanding and transformation.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
JOE KORT (00:04):
Hi everybody. Welcome to Smart sex, smart love, where
talking about sex goes beyondthe taboo and talking about love
goes beyond the honeymoon. Myguest today is Juliane Maxwald a
licensed psychoanalyst and asectcertified sex therapist based in
New York specializing insexuality trauma and relational
dynamics. She has over 15 yearsof experience working with
(00:27):
individuals and couples, and sheteaches and supervises
nationally across psychoanalyticand sex therapy settings.
Juliane is also the author ofpsychoanalytic sex therapy,
exploring the unconscious lifeof sexuality, where she bridges
depth psychology and modern sextherapy to help us understand
the many of the struggles weexperience around intimacy,
(00:49):
desire and relationships thatare not just problems to fix,
but expressions of deeperemotional patterns. Her work
focuses on helping peopleunderstand what's happening
beneath the surface, howsexuality, relationships and
emotional life are deeplyconnected, and how that
understanding can lead tomeaningful change. Today we're
going to be talking aboutrelationships, desire,
(01:10):
infidelity, and some of thedeeper psychological dynamics
that shape our intimate lives,and we may also explore the
concept of outer course, whichis part of the work she and I
have been developing together.
Welcome Juliane.
JULIANE MAXWALD (01:22):
It's so nice to be here. Thanks, Joe.
JOE KORT (01:24):
Yes, and so I'm so glad to have you. Psycho
analytic theory is what I wasoriginally trained in, you know,
which now we call psychodynamica little bit more too. But maybe
you could tell the audience whatyou mean when you say psycho
psychoanalysis with sex therapy.
JULIANE MAXWALD (01:40):
Yes, absolutely. So my training is
primarily in psychoanalysis.
That's kind of been my formaltraining. But along the way,
I've done lots of other kinds ofwork, which is more behavioral
couples therapy training, andthen, most recently, sex their
trauma therapy training, andmost recently, sex therapy
(02:01):
training. And so this is really,this book was really my way of
bringing those two worldstogether and just talking about
through cases, all of the waysthat are unconscious or the
things that we might not reallyknow about ourselves show up in
in sex and sexuality. Like, Ialways like to say that there's
(02:21):
so much more to the story thanthe behavior, the symptom that's
showing up in sex. And I thinkof sex as the stage where all of
our relational attachmentissues, surface, unresolved
trauma, surface, power dynamic.
Surface, like there's so muchunderneath the behavior and the
(02:45):
symptom of sex, it's the stage.
It's not the whole story.
JOE KORT (02:49):
That's so well said.
What kind of pushback? If Icould ask you, did you get from
other psychoanalysts, and didyou get any?
JULIANE MAXWALD (02:56):
I did, and maybe not so much pushback, but
misunderstanding, maybe a littlebit of judgment. I mean, the
psychoanalytic world is verythought based, and I love that
about psychoanalysis, but itdoesn't always focus so much on,
on, maybe, like a practicalapplication of, of of life or
(03:23):
behavior, and certainly theytend to avoid sex and sexuality.
And so when I was in mytraining, we talked about all
the other emotions, about love,about aggression, about
frustration, anxiety, for sure,but sex was always I felt left
off of the table, and so I had areal interest in pursuing that,
(03:44):
independent of the training thatI was getting there.
JOE KORT (03:48):
I think it's great.
I'm glad you did that, because Iknow psychoanalytic theory. I
love it. It doesn't always dealit talks about sex, and it can
help people understand whatsexual behaviors mean, but they
don't talk about the practicalsteps of sex therapy, do they?
JULIANE MAXWALD (04:02):
Right. That's right. And that's actually what
I really love about sex therapy,is that it dives into the nitty
gritty of sex. And there's a waythat sex therapists can
normalize sexual experience. Arenot intimidated to talk
specifically, directly aboutsexual acts, sexual you know,
problems or issues, and I thinkthat takes a real commitment to
(04:28):
a kind of training where younormalize that and you feel
comfortable talking about all ofthe many layers of sex.
JOE KORT (04:36):
Now, in your book psychoanalytic sex therapy, you
talk about sexuality as a windowinto the unconscious. Can you
tell us what that means?
JULIANE MAXWALD (04:45):
Yes. So I think of the unconscious as a kind of
language of the psyche, and thatlanguage gets expressed most
easily through sex or certainlyshows up in sex, because sex is
a place where, where our ourit's hard to fake in sex. Our
(05:11):
desires sort of come to thesurface in sex. Our insecurities
show up in sex. We feel mostexposed, in many ways, most
vulnerable when it comes to sexand our sex lives, and so to me,
sex is a portal, really, intothe unconscious. It's just a
pipeline. In the same way thatdreams are, sex is is a way, if
(05:34):
you're willing to explore it andget curious and interested in
all of the ways that sex can beconfusing. Sex can be
contradictory. Sex can beoverwhelming. There's a there's
a window into understandingyourself on a deeper level.
JOE KORT (05:51):
I love it because you it's aligned so much of the way
I think of there's a non sexualnarrative that can help people
understand themselves by bytaking the non sexual narrative
from what you what your turn onsare, is that what you mean?
JULIANE MAXWALD (06:04):
Yes, absolutely. Like, if people
really get curious about, why isthis fantasy turned me on? Or
why do I have shame around thisparticular thing that I'm
interested in? Or, Why do I shutdown, you know, in sex, or when
certain sexual acts are being,you know are I'm being invited
(06:24):
into, there's such a window intoearly relational patterns, power
struggles, longings,insecurities, inhibitions, it's
all there. And I think what yourwork really does, well, I love
your work so much is you are notafraid to sort of turn the light
on subjects that would otherwisemake some people feel
(06:48):
uncomfortable, and you ask usall you know or not even ask us,
but just show us the ways thatsex does not fit into a neat
box.
JOE KORT (06:58):
Yes, right, It does not. It's so nuanced. We both
know this, right, and soconfusing to people, and so
complex, and people want to makeit like it's so simple and it is
not.
JULIANE MAXWALD (07:10):
Right, right, absolutely.
JOE KORT (07:12):
What are some of the common stories that you see the
psyche telling through someone'ssexuality that you see in your
office?
JULIANE MAXWALD (07:18):
One thing that I see a lot is desire
discrepancy, or the ways thatone person might might shut down
sexually. And there's so manyreasons for this, and I see it
across the board with women andmen or, you know, gay or
straight people, and there'susually a wider context for why
(07:42):
like desire usually doesn't shutdown for just a random reason.
There's usually there a biggerstory around that, and that
could be as simple as stress,you know, in their lives,
whether that's work or family orillness, you know, health
related concerns, or it could besomething a little more
complicated, and that you don'tfeel seen in your relationship,
(08:04):
or you or you're holding on toresentments from a long time
ago, or you have unresolvedissues from your childhood
around pleasure or aroundslowing down, or around
Connecting to your body oraround desire, and so that's one
of the very, very common issuesthat I see show up. And what I
(08:28):
find is that most of the time,couples and or individuals were
just never really given thelanguage to talk accurately
about sex. They weren't reallygiven the opportunity to
understand that sex is so muchmore than just what we do with
our bodies. It really taps intosome of our deepest longings,
(08:51):
our deepest fears, our deepestinsecurities, and so much of
that gets laid down in our earlyexperiences at home, in our
families and our communities.
You know, religiously,politically, socially, like sex
is a very, very layeredexperience, and it all shows up.
JOE KORT (09:12):
And this is a perfect time to ask you about to
describe desire discrepancy,which, by the way, a lot of
people don't know, most coupleshave where one has a higher
desire and one has a lowerdesire, and you talk about it as
a place where arousal andattachment collide. Can you
explain?
JULIANE MAXWALD (09:28):
Yes, well, it's so to sort of jump off what,
what you just described isdesire. Discrepancy can mean a
lot of different things. Desireand arousal show up differently
for certain people. Some peoplemight really under a lot of
stress. Some people might turntowards sex or intimacy or or
(09:53):
arousal as a way of notnecessarily coping, but as an
expression of pleasure as a wayto to deal in, I guess, in a
sense, with the stressful partsof life, where, for some other
people that might completelyshut them down, where they might
be somebody with more of aresponsive desire, where the
(10:13):
context of their of the sexualexperience matters. And so
there's all different kinds ofdiscrepancies that show up. I
mean, it could be where oneperson identifies more as kinky,
whereas another person, youknow, doesn't feel comfortable
exploring, you know, more kinkyor BDSM related activities, or
(10:37):
it could just be, you know,somebody's arousal pattern is
different, like they, you know,sex every couple weeks is
enough, whereas, for somepeople, sex a couple times a
week is, you know, is more of ofwhat feels right for them.
JOE KORT (10:58):
And you also talk about how couples can move from
frustration and pressure intocuriosity and connection when
talking about desire, can youtell us how you do that as a
therapist.
JULIANE MAXWALD (11:08):
Right, well, so that is really giving people the
opportunity to see desire assomething more than just
frequency of sex, and to reallyhelp people kind of slow down a
little bit and get reflective orget curious around. Well, what
does sex actually mean to you?
Is it a way to connect to yourpartner in a loving, safe way?
(11:28):
Is it a way to be rebellious anda little defiant? Is it a way to
be playful and exploratory? Youknow, sex means so many
different things to everybody,really, and so inviting couples
to just slow down a little bittalk about their relationship to
sex, what it means for them, andhow that gets negotiated between
(11:52):
you and your partner, likethere's so Many unspoken
expectations around sex thatjust giving people the
opportunity to talk about it ina thoughtful, reflective way
with somebody who has a lot ofexperience working with couples,
I find that, in and of itself,incredibly helpful, and and and
(12:13):
from there, Well, from there,you can open up lots of things.
I mean, you can open up, youknow, resentments from from
previous behaviors thathappened. You can you can open
up longings for certain kinds ofsexual experiences that maybe
(12:34):
they're afraid to ask for don'treally know how to express. And
so it's just to me, desirediscrepancy is the window into
really discovering anduncovering what's going on
between the couple or thepartners, or what's going on
between somebody and their ownrelationship to their self and
(12:55):
their body and their history.
JOE KORT (12:59):
I love everything you just said, because I think that
also speaks to infidelity. Andyou talk about that in your
book, too. And before I ask yousome questions about that, you
know, I've been doing a lot ofonline, you know, social media,
content, whatever. And then, youknow, my clients that come in
here, and people are all overthe map about what they think
infidelity is, and what onepartner thinks it is another
(13:20):
partner doesn't think it is. AndI think about the quote in the
field that couples fight overcontracts they've never made. Do
you know, do you see that inyour office, where they're
fighting over an infidelity, butone didn't even see it as one,
and one did.
JULIANE MAXWALD (13:34):
Right, absolutely. And that, I think,
ties into exactly what I wassaying before about these
unspoken expectations, and halfof the time we don't even
realize that we have them. Wejust assume that our kind of
psychological operating systemis the same one that our
partners are are are livingunder. And until you really
(13:57):
start talking about it andunderstanding like what feels
like a rejection, what feelslike a boundary violation, you
don't really know.
JOE KORT (14:07):
You really don't know.
And so you talk about though thethird person that it's that it's
rarely about the third personthat was involved in the
infidelity, but it's aboutwhat's happening underneath. Can
you unpack that?
JULIANE MAXWALD (14:17):
Yes. I mean, typically, when you know this
idea that if you're steppingoutside of your relationship and
you're involved with somebodyelse, it's not so much about
that person, but it's about theexperience or what that person
is representing and and then thebigger question might be, why?
(14:42):
Why can't you talk about that inyour primary relationship? Or
what are you learning aboutyourself that maybe you didn't
know? You know, if there's, ifthere's a kind of compulsive
quality to it, you know, whatare you kind of acting out or,
what are you what is it aboutthis experience that you that
you're learning about yourself,or what is it about what's
(15:03):
happening in the relationshipthat this can't be kind of
openly talked about?
JOE KORT (15:08):
A lot of people say you can't recover and come back
from infidelity. What do yousay?
JULIANE MAXWALD (15:15):
I don't think that's true at all. I mean, I
find that the majority ofcouples or people that come into
my office are successful atrecovering from infidelity,
which is not to say that itisn't brutal, gnarly, painful,
uncomfortable work, because itis, and there's a lot that
(15:37):
oftentimes has to go into it,and so I'm very open and very
upfront with people when I startworking with them, but I also
tell them, you know, thecountless, countless, countless
of couples and individuals thatI work with who very
successfully move through aninfidelity experience.
JOE KORT (15:56):
Do you have, like, one example that people listening
might want to hear of howsomebody how that happens, or
just like in general, how do youget past it?
JULIANE MAXWALD (16:05):
Well, again, it's it's focusing on the
behavior in the beginning. Isimportant in so far, is that the
person who was betrayed in therelationship. There needs to be
a repair that has to happen. Imean, there has to be an
(16:26):
acknowledgement that how painfulof an experience, how much of a
betrayal this felt to theperson, that it actually really
was. And then after you movethrough that initial kind of
crisis phase, and this isassuming that the person has
ended the affair, ended theacting out behavior, and is
(16:50):
committed, fully committed torepairing the relationship, then
the work really becomes around.
Okay. Why did this happen? Whatyou know, why did it show up?
Did it you know? Why is itshowing up now in our
relationship, and what can welearn about ourselves, each
person involved and or ourrelationship, and what needs to
(17:13):
happen in order to grow, heal,move forward from you know, one
thing that I see so often in mypractice, and this always really
surprises people, and it'sincredibly hurtful, but
oftentimes around a big lifemilestone, whether that's
getting engaged, moving In witha partner, having a child,
(17:37):
losing a parent. It's often atthese big milestone moments
where you'll see an infidelityhappening, because it's almost
like an existential crisis, soto speak. And so that can be
incredibly painful because itfeels like an even deeper cut in
(17:59):
terms of the of the betrayal,but that's a really good example
of how, if we go a little bitdeeper, after we do some of the
healing, if we go a little bitdeeper and we start to really
think about or look at orquestion, Okay, what was
happening at this time? Why wasthis happening? How were you
(18:22):
responding to this big lifemoment, this big identity
transition, for example.
JOE KORT (18:31):
We know that a lot of people have shame, right? The
LGBT community has shame becausewe were shamed as children,
religious shame, cultural shame.
You carry your parents shame andtheir parents shame. How do you
help clients move from shame andavoidance toward understanding
and openness?
JULIANE MAXWALD (18:48):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, and I
think that shame really goes tothe heart of so much of the work
that we do as sex therapists.
What's tricky about shame that Ifind is it takes a while. For
some people, it takes a while toreally understand how deep that
shame runs. I think, oftentimes,especially with acting out
(19:10):
behavior or compulsive behavior,people might not even realize
how deep the shame runs untilthey stop a certain behavior,
and shame can show up in so manyways, like, again, in ways that
we might not even be consciousof. It can show up in headaches.
(19:31):
It can show up in other bodilysymptoms. And so the first thing
is really being able to identifywhere the shame is, and then
really just unpacking it, like,where did that shame come from?
You know? Where did you absorbit? Did you absorb it from your
parents? What did you notice intheir relationship dynamic? What
(19:51):
did you learn about sex growingup? What didn't you learn about
sex growing up? You know? What?
What maladaptive messages aroundmasculinity or gender or
femininity, you know, were youexposed to? Whether that was in
your family, in your communityand your religion, there's so
(20:14):
many layers of shame, and sobeing able to just unpack that
and identify it, and recognizethat so much of that has nothing
to do with you, but everythingto do with the negative,
maladaptive messages that youabsorbed and are carrying with
(20:34):
you.
JOE KORT (20:36):
And you also talk about ethical non monogamy,
which everybody online andeverybody in general has so many
different opinions about and Ialways talk about how gay male
relationships have been havingopen relationships, successful
open relationships, since thebeginning of gay time, right?
Like we've just always been ableto do it. I'm not saying
everybody does thissuccessfully, but it's talked
(20:56):
about and it's negotiated. Howdo you work with couples who are
open or trying to become open.
JULIANE MAXWALD (21:02):
Well, one thing I'll say to, especially to my
heterosexual couples, is thatheterosexual people can learn so
much from gay sex because thereis a openness, there's a
frankness, there's acreativeness, there's a
playfulness that can happenwith, you know, gay and lesbian
(21:22):
people, there's a way thatthere's a uncoupling of sex and
love, which is not to say it's asplit, because they can
certainly be together, but youcan yours, your the way that you
love somebody and the interestthat You have in sex do not have
to line up neatly, and that'sokay. There's absolutely nothing
(21:45):
wrong with that. It's when wetry to collapse them and we
assume that that, you know,there is, there can't be any
kind of discrepancy in there.
There can't be any kind ofvariety or or, you know,
queerness, so to speak, and sexthat that I think straight
people in particular getthemselves into trouble.
(22:10):
I agree, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, goahead.
Well, no, I forgot your originalquestion.
JOE KORT (22:15):
Oh, no, that was it.
It's helpful. And I think a lotof times people say, Why are gay
and lesbian so much better? Orfind it easier dealing with
sexual shame or getting through,you know, open relationships,
and I say that, it's becausewe've been forced to examine our
own sexuality just to come out,and straight people don't
necessarily have to do that.
JULIANE MAXWALD (22:35):
Right, absolutely. I also think open
relationships are non monogamy,and the ways that people are
experimenting with them now arealso forcing people to just
communicate about sex in a waythat they never had to, which I
think is wonderful that youhaving a successful open
(22:57):
relationship again, depending onwhat your parameters are,
typically requires a lot ofcommunication and a lot of self
awareness and and a commitmentto be really honest about what
might be coming up for you interms of feelings and boundaries
and fears and insecurities, anda willingness to really talk
openly with Your partner orpartners about what's what's
(23:21):
coming up.
JOE KORT (23:23):
I love every word you just said, and I always say
this, monogamous couples need todo exactly the same thing, but
they feel like they don't.
Always ask my couples, have younegotiated your monogamy? If
they tell me they're monogamous,they're like, What do you mean?
Negotiate? Have they done eachone of those things that you
just said? Right and and moreoften than not, not enough. Oh,
so let's talk about outercourse, because you and I are
(23:45):
working together andcollaborating on this topic.
We're trying to, we're, we'regoing to try to write a book and
get it published. And I startedthe conversation for gay men. I
call it sides where gay mendon't top, which means they
don't insert. They don't haveintercourse by inserting, and
they don't have intercourse bybottoming, by receiving. And we
know that this isn't just gaymen. There's people in the rest
(24:09):
of the LGBT community, instraight people, in all people
that don't want to haveintercourse. And it's called the
clinical word, is outer course.
Can you talk about that a littlebit?
JULIANE MAXWALD (24:20):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that outer
course touches on so manyrelevant topics in sex and
sexuality today. You know fromwhat you're describing, in terms
of sides, but also in terms ofof permission to have sex in a
(24:40):
way that feels good for you. Youknow, plenty of women struggle
with pain related to sex. Men,you know, struggle with erectile
predictability orunpredictability. There's so
much focus on this prescribedway of having sex, that sex
(25:02):
somehow means penetrativeintercourse, regardless of if
that's, you know, anal orvaginal or oral even. And it,
and that's such a narrowdefinition of what a sexual
experience can be like. And sothe idea of bringing outer
(25:23):
course, kind of center stage andtalking about, what about all of
these different ways that peoplecan engage in a sexual
experience, whether that'sthrough fantasy, whether that's
through touch, whether that'sthrough role playing, it just
allows for so much creativity,and I think it gives people
(25:43):
permission to really tap intoand be honest about, and for
many, many people learn aboutwhat's possible in terms of
their bodies, their minds anderotic encounter with somebody.
It just opens things up in a waythat I think is so needed and
and so relevant right now.
JOE KORT (26:02):
I really think we're going to be a great team on
this, because I'm going to beable to speak to the LGBT
community experience and themale experience, and you're
going to be able to talk aboutthe female straight perspective.
Not that we don't haveinformation about these things
each other, but I think it'll bemore compelling for people to
(26:23):
hear us talk like this.
JULIANE MAXWALD (26:25):
Right, exactly.
I think that we both bringsomething unique but very
similar kind of to the table.
And I'm sure you see this inyour practice, and I see this
all the time too. I find peopleare so hungry for permission to
think about sex in a differentway.
JOE KORT (26:42):
Yes.
JULIANE MAXWALD (26:43):
There's so many ways that a narrow script around
sex creates so much shame, somuch humiliation, so much
worthlessness, you know, feelinglike you're not getting it
right, feeling the pressure todo sex in one particular way.
There's, I find this that thatpeople are just, you know,
(27:07):
really eager to hear more aboutouter course, and are very open
to to learning about it,engaging in it, understanding
that intercourse is not the goldstandard of sex, right?
JOE KORT (27:19):
What are some key things you want people to take
away from your book, from yourwork, and some final thoughts
from you?
JULIANE MAXWALD (27:27):
I would like people to mostly to take away
from my work, the idea that sexis a personal experience, that
it's a creative experience, thatit can be a very profound
experience, you know that, butthat it's an individual
experience, and that it and togive people permission, or to
(27:51):
provide examples of the many,many, many ways that people
experience sex, and also themany ways that people experience
problems related to theirsexuality. And if you're willing
to sort of look beneath thesurface to really understand
that there's so much healing, somuch growth, so much
transformation that can happenthrough sex and sexuality.
JOE KORT (28:16):
I love it. Where can people find you? Juliane?
JULIANE MAXWALD (28:19):
I am online on Instagram @JulianeMaxwald, and
my website iswww.julianemaxwald.co and I'm on
LinkedIn and and those are themain ways.
JOE KORT (28:37):
All right, and they can pick up your book,
psychoanalytic sex therapy,exploring the unconscious life
of sexuality. You must be soproud of that. And I haven't
read the whole thing yet, butI've scanned through it, and I
you know, it just resonates somuch for me.
JULIANE MAXWALD (28:51):
Thank you.
JOE KORT (28:52):
Yes. Was a really pleasure having you on the show.
And for those of you that wouldlike to hear more about my work
and the things I do, you canfind me on
www.smartsexsmartlove.com,that's where the podcast lives,
(29:13):
as well as Apple Spotify and allthe other places you can find
podcasts. But you can also findme on Twitter, Tiktok,
Instagram, Facebook, all@DrJoeKort D, R, J, O, E, K, O,
R, T. I hope you enjoyedlistening, and hope you come
(29:35):
back next time and stay healthyand stay happy.
Hi everybody. Welcome to Smart sex, smart love, where
talking about sex goes beyondthe taboo and talking about love
goes beyond the honeymoon. Myguest today is Juliane Maxwald a
licensed psychoanalyst and asectcertified sex therapist based in
New York specializing insexuality trauma and relational
dynamics. She has over 15 yearsof experience working with
(00:27):
individuals and couples, and sheteaches and supervises
nationally across psychoanalyticand sex therapy settings.
Juliane is also the author ofpsychoanalytic sex therapy,
exploring the unconscious lifeof sexuality, where she bridges
depth psychology and modern sextherapy to help us understand
the many of the struggles weexperience around intimacy,
(00:49):
desire and relationships thatare not just problems to fix,
but expressions of deeperemotional patterns. Her work
focuses on helping peopleunderstand what's happening
beneath the surface, howsexuality, relationships and
emotional life are deeplyconnected, and how that
understanding can lead tomeaningful change. Today we're
going to be talking aboutrelationships, desire,
(01:10):
infidelity, and some of thedeeper psychological dynamics
that shape our intimate lives,and we may also explore the
concept of outer course, whichis part of the work she and I
have been developing together.
Welcome Juliane.
JULIANE MAXWALD (01:22):
It's so nice to be here. Thanks, Joe.
JOE KORT (01:24):
Yes, and so I'm so glad to have you. Psycho
analytic theory is what I wasoriginally trained in, you know,
which now we call psychodynamica little bit more too. But maybe
you could tell the audience whatyou mean when you say psycho
psychoanalysis with sex therapy.
JULIANE MAXWALD (01:40):
Yes, absolutely. So my training is
primarily in psychoanalysis.
That's kind of been my formaltraining. But along the way,
I've done lots of other kinds ofwork, which is more behavioral
couples therapy training, andthen, most recently, sex their
trauma therapy training, andmost recently, sex therapy
(02:01):
training. And so this is really,this book was really my way of
bringing those two worldstogether and just talking about
through cases, all of the waysthat are unconscious or the
things that we might not reallyknow about ourselves show up in
in sex and sexuality. Like, Ialways like to say that there's
(02:21):
so much more to the story thanthe behavior, the symptom that's
showing up in sex. And I thinkof sex as the stage where all of
our relational attachmentissues, surface, unresolved
trauma, surface, power dynamic.
Surface, like there's so muchunderneath the behavior and the
(02:45):
symptom of sex, it's the stage.
It's not the whole story.
JOE KORT (02:49):
That's so well said.
What kind of pushback? If Icould ask you, did you get from
other psychoanalysts, and didyou get any?
JULIANE MAXWALD (02:56):
I did, and maybe not so much pushback, but
misunderstanding, maybe a littlebit of judgment. I mean, the
psychoanalytic world is verythought based, and I love that
about psychoanalysis, but itdoesn't always focus so much on,
on, maybe, like a practicalapplication of, of of life or
(03:23):
behavior, and certainly theytend to avoid sex and sexuality.
And so when I was in mytraining, we talked about all
the other emotions, about love,about aggression, about
frustration, anxiety, for sure,but sex was always I felt left
off of the table, and so I had areal interest in pursuing that,
(03:44):
independent of the training thatI was getting there.
JOE KORT (03:48):
I think it's great.
I'm glad you did that, because Iknow psychoanalytic theory. I
love it. It doesn't always dealit talks about sex, and it can
help people understand whatsexual behaviors mean, but they
don't talk about the practicalsteps of sex therapy, do they?
JULIANE MAXWALD (04:02):
Right. That's right. And that's actually what
I really love about sex therapy,is that it dives into the nitty
gritty of sex. And there's a waythat sex therapists can
normalize sexual experience. Arenot intimidated to talk
specifically, directly aboutsexual acts, sexual you know,
problems or issues, and I thinkthat takes a real commitment to
(04:28):
a kind of training where younormalize that and you feel
comfortable talking about all ofthe many layers of sex.
JOE KORT (04:36):
Now, in your book psychoanalytic sex therapy, you
talk about sexuality as a windowinto the unconscious. Can you
tell us what that means?
JULIANE MAXWALD (04:45):
Yes. So I think of the unconscious as a kind of
language of the psyche, and thatlanguage gets expressed most
easily through sex or certainlyshows up in sex, because sex is
a place where, where our ourit's hard to fake in sex. Our
(05:11):
desires sort of come to thesurface in sex. Our insecurities
show up in sex. We feel mostexposed, in many ways, most
vulnerable when it comes to sexand our sex lives, and so to me,
sex is a portal, really, intothe unconscious. It's just a
pipeline. In the same way thatdreams are, sex is is a way, if
(05:34):
you're willing to explore it andget curious and interested in
all of the ways that sex can beconfusing. Sex can be
contradictory. Sex can beoverwhelming. There's a there's
a window into understandingyourself on a deeper level.
JOE KORT (05:51):
I love it because you it's aligned so much of the way
I think of there's a non sexualnarrative that can help people
understand themselves by bytaking the non sexual narrative
from what you what your turn onsare, is that what you mean?
JULIANE MAXWALD (06:04):
Yes, absolutely. Like, if people
really get curious about, why isthis fantasy turned me on? Or
why do I have shame around thisparticular thing that I'm
interested in? Or, Why do I shutdown, you know, in sex, or when
certain sexual acts are being,you know are I'm being invited
(06:24):
into, there's such a window intoearly relational patterns, power
struggles, longings,insecurities, inhibitions, it's
all there. And I think what yourwork really does, well, I love
your work so much is you are notafraid to sort of turn the light
on subjects that would otherwisemake some people feel
(06:48):
uncomfortable, and you ask usall you know or not even ask us,
but just show us the ways thatsex does not fit into a neat
box.
JOE KORT (06:58):
Yes, right, It does not. It's so nuanced. We both
know this, right, and soconfusing to people, and so
complex, and people want to makeit like it's so simple and it is
not.
JULIANE MAXWALD (07:10):
Right, right, absolutely.
JOE KORT (07:12):
What are some of the common stories that you see the
psyche telling through someone'ssexuality that you see in your
office?
JULIANE MAXWALD (07:18):
One thing that I see a lot is desire
discrepancy, or the ways thatone person might might shut down
sexually. And there's so manyreasons for this, and I see it
across the board with women andmen or, you know, gay or
straight people, and there'susually a wider context for why
(07:42):
like desire usually doesn't shutdown for just a random reason.
There's usually there a biggerstory around that, and that
could be as simple as stress,you know, in their lives,
whether that's work or family orillness, you know, health
related concerns, or it could besomething a little more
complicated, and that you don'tfeel seen in your relationship,
(08:04):
or you or you're holding on toresentments from a long time
ago, or you have unresolvedissues from your childhood
around pleasure or aroundslowing down, or around
Connecting to your body oraround desire, and so that's one
of the very, very common issuesthat I see show up. And what I
(08:28):
find is that most of the time,couples and or individuals were
just never really given thelanguage to talk accurately
about sex. They weren't reallygiven the opportunity to
understand that sex is so muchmore than just what we do with
our bodies. It really taps intosome of our deepest longings,
(08:51):
our deepest fears, our deepestinsecurities, and so much of
that gets laid down in our earlyexperiences at home, in our
families and our communities.
You know, religiously,politically, socially, like sex
is a very, very layeredexperience, and it all shows up.
JOE KORT (09:12):
And this is a perfect time to ask you about to
describe desire discrepancy,which, by the way, a lot of
people don't know, most coupleshave where one has a higher
desire and one has a lowerdesire, and you talk about it as
a place where arousal andattachment collide. Can you
explain?
JULIANE MAXWALD (09:28):
Yes, well, it's so to sort of jump off what,
what you just described isdesire. Discrepancy can mean a
lot of different things. Desireand arousal show up differently
for certain people. Some peoplemight really under a lot of
stress. Some people might turntowards sex or intimacy or or
(09:53):
arousal as a way of notnecessarily coping, but as an
expression of pleasure as a wayto to deal in, I guess, in a
sense, with the stressful partsof life, where, for some other
people that might completelyshut them down, where they might
be somebody with more of aresponsive desire, where the
(10:13):
context of their of the sexualexperience matters. And so
there's all different kinds ofdiscrepancies that show up. I
mean, it could be where oneperson identifies more as kinky,
whereas another person, youknow, doesn't feel comfortable
exploring, you know, more kinkyor BDSM related activities, or
(10:37):
it could just be, you know,somebody's arousal pattern is
different, like they, you know,sex every couple weeks is
enough, whereas, for somepeople, sex a couple times a
week is, you know, is more of ofwhat feels right for them.
JOE KORT (10:58):
And you also talk about how couples can move from
frustration and pressure intocuriosity and connection when
talking about desire, can youtell us how you do that as a
therapist.
JULIANE MAXWALD (11:08):
Right, well, so that is really giving people the
opportunity to see desire assomething more than just
frequency of sex, and to reallyhelp people kind of slow down a
little bit and get reflective orget curious around. Well, what
does sex actually mean to you?
Is it a way to connect to yourpartner in a loving, safe way?
(11:28):
Is it a way to be rebellious anda little defiant? Is it a way to
be playful and exploratory? Youknow, sex means so many
different things to everybody,really, and so inviting couples
to just slow down a little bittalk about their relationship to
sex, what it means for them, andhow that gets negotiated between
(11:52):
you and your partner, likethere's so Many unspoken
expectations around sex thatjust giving people the
opportunity to talk about it ina thoughtful, reflective way
with somebody who has a lot ofexperience working with couples,
I find that, in and of itself,incredibly helpful, and and and
(12:13):
from there, Well, from there,you can open up lots of things.
I mean, you can open up, youknow, resentments from from
previous behaviors thathappened. You can you can open
up longings for certain kinds ofsexual experiences that maybe
(12:34):
they're afraid to ask for don'treally know how to express. And
so it's just to me, desirediscrepancy is the window into
really discovering anduncovering what's going on
between the couple or thepartners, or what's going on
between somebody and their ownrelationship to their self and
(12:55):
their body and their history.
JOE KORT (12:59):
I love everything you just said, because I think that
also speaks to infidelity. Andyou talk about that in your
book, too. And before I ask yousome questions about that, you
know, I've been doing a lot ofonline, you know, social media,
content, whatever. And then, youknow, my clients that come in
here, and people are all overthe map about what they think
infidelity is, and what onepartner thinks it is another
(13:20):
partner doesn't think it is. AndI think about the quote in the
field that couples fight overcontracts they've never made. Do
you know, do you see that inyour office, where they're
fighting over an infidelity, butone didn't even see it as one,
and one did.
JULIANE MAXWALD (13:34):
Right, absolutely. And that, I think,
ties into exactly what I wassaying before about these
unspoken expectations, and halfof the time we don't even
realize that we have them. Wejust assume that our kind of
psychological operating systemis the same one that our
partners are are are livingunder. And until you really
(13:57):
start talking about it andunderstanding like what feels
like a rejection, what feelslike a boundary violation, you
don't really know.
JOE KORT (14:07):
You really don't know.
And so you talk about though thethird person that it's that it's
rarely about the third personthat was involved in the
infidelity, but it's aboutwhat's happening underneath. Can
you unpack that?
JULIANE MAXWALD (14:17):
Yes. I mean, typically, when you know this
idea that if you're steppingoutside of your relationship and
you're involved with somebodyelse, it's not so much about
that person, but it's about theexperience or what that person
is representing and and then thebigger question might be, why?
(14:42):
Why can't you talk about that inyour primary relationship? Or
what are you learning aboutyourself that maybe you didn't
know? You know, if there's, ifthere's a kind of compulsive
quality to it, you know, whatare you kind of acting out or,
what are you what is it aboutthis experience that you that
you're learning about yourself,or what is it about what's
(15:03):
happening in the relationshipthat this can't be kind of
openly talked about?
JOE KORT (15:08):
A lot of people say you can't recover and come back
from infidelity. What do yousay?
JULIANE MAXWALD (15:15):
I don't think that's true at all. I mean, I
find that the majority ofcouples or people that come into
my office are successful atrecovering from infidelity,
which is not to say that itisn't brutal, gnarly, painful,
uncomfortable work, because itis, and there's a lot that
(15:37):
oftentimes has to go into it,and so I'm very open and very
upfront with people when I startworking with them, but I also
tell them, you know, thecountless, countless, countless
of couples and individuals thatI work with who very
successfully move through aninfidelity experience.
JOE KORT (15:56):
Do you have, like, one example that people listening
might want to hear of howsomebody how that happens, or
just like in general, how do youget past it?
JULIANE MAXWALD (16:05):
Well, again, it's it's focusing on the
behavior in the beginning. Isimportant in so far, is that the
person who was betrayed in therelationship. There needs to be
a repair that has to happen. Imean, there has to be an
(16:26):
acknowledgement that how painfulof an experience, how much of a
betrayal this felt to theperson, that it actually really
was. And then after you movethrough that initial kind of
crisis phase, and this isassuming that the person has
ended the affair, ended theacting out behavior, and is
(16:50):
committed, fully committed torepairing the relationship, then
the work really becomes around.
Okay. Why did this happen? Whatyou know, why did it show up?
Did it you know? Why is itshowing up now in our
relationship, and what can welearn about ourselves, each
person involved and or ourrelationship, and what needs to
(17:13):
happen in order to grow, heal,move forward from you know, one
thing that I see so often in mypractice, and this always really
surprises people, and it'sincredibly hurtful, but
oftentimes around a big lifemilestone, whether that's
getting engaged, moving In witha partner, having a child,
(17:37):
losing a parent. It's often atthese big milestone moments
where you'll see an infidelityhappening, because it's almost
like an existential crisis, soto speak. And so that can be
incredibly painful because itfeels like an even deeper cut in
(17:59):
terms of the of the betrayal,but that's a really good example
of how, if we go a little bitdeeper, after we do some of the
healing, if we go a little bitdeeper and we start to really
think about or look at orquestion, Okay, what was
happening at this time? Why wasthis happening? How were you
(18:22):
responding to this big lifemoment, this big identity
transition, for example.
JOE KORT (18:31):
We know that a lot of people have shame, right? The
LGBT community has shame becausewe were shamed as children,
religious shame, cultural shame.
You carry your parents shame andtheir parents shame. How do you
help clients move from shame andavoidance toward understanding
and openness?
JULIANE MAXWALD (18:48):
Yeah, I mean, that's a great question, and I
think that shame really goes tothe heart of so much of the work
that we do as sex therapists.
What's tricky about shame that Ifind is it takes a while. For
some people, it takes a while toreally understand how deep that
shame runs. I think, oftentimes,especially with acting out
(19:10):
behavior or compulsive behavior,people might not even realize
how deep the shame runs untilthey stop a certain behavior,
and shame can show up in so manyways, like, again, in ways that
we might not even be consciousof. It can show up in headaches.
(19:31):
It can show up in other bodilysymptoms. And so the first thing
is really being able to identifywhere the shame is, and then
really just unpacking it, like,where did that shame come from?
You know? Where did you absorbit? Did you absorb it from your
parents? What did you notice intheir relationship dynamic? What
(19:51):
did you learn about sex growingup? What didn't you learn about
sex growing up? You know? What?
What maladaptive messages aroundmasculinity or gender or
femininity, you know, were youexposed to? Whether that was in
your family, in your communityand your religion, there's so
(20:14):
many layers of shame, and sobeing able to just unpack that
and identify it, and recognizethat so much of that has nothing
to do with you, but everythingto do with the negative,
maladaptive messages that youabsorbed and are carrying with
(20:34):
you.
JOE KORT (20:36):
And you also talk about ethical non monogamy,
which everybody online andeverybody in general has so many
different opinions about and Ialways talk about how gay male
relationships have been havingopen relationships, successful
open relationships, since thebeginning of gay time, right?
Like we've just always been ableto do it. I'm not saying
everybody does thissuccessfully, but it's talked
(20:56):
about and it's negotiated. Howdo you work with couples who are
open or trying to become open.
JULIANE MAXWALD (21:02):
Well, one thing I'll say to, especially to my
heterosexual couples, is thatheterosexual people can learn so
much from gay sex because thereis a openness, there's a
frankness, there's acreativeness, there's a
playfulness that can happenwith, you know, gay and lesbian
(21:22):
people, there's a way thatthere's a uncoupling of sex and
love, which is not to say it's asplit, because they can
certainly be together, but youcan yours, your the way that you
love somebody and the interestthat You have in sex do not have
to line up neatly, and that'sokay. There's absolutely nothing
(21:45):
wrong with that. It's when wetry to collapse them and we
assume that that, you know,there is, there can't be any
kind of discrepancy in there.
There can't be any kind ofvariety or or, you know,
queerness, so to speak, and sexthat that I think straight
people in particular getthemselves into trouble.
(22:10):
I agree, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, goahead.
Well, no, I forgot your originalquestion.
JOE KORT (22:15):
Oh, no, that was it.
It's helpful. And I think a lotof times people say, Why are gay
and lesbian so much better? Orfind it easier dealing with
sexual shame or getting through,you know, open relationships,
and I say that, it's becausewe've been forced to examine our
own sexuality just to come out,and straight people don't
necessarily have to do that.
JULIANE MAXWALD (22:35):
Right, absolutely. I also think open
relationships are non monogamy,and the ways that people are
experimenting with them now arealso forcing people to just
communicate about sex in a waythat they never had to, which I
think is wonderful that youhaving a successful open
(22:57):
relationship again, depending onwhat your parameters are,
typically requires a lot ofcommunication and a lot of self
awareness and and a commitmentto be really honest about what
might be coming up for you interms of feelings and boundaries
and fears and insecurities, anda willingness to really talk
openly with Your partner orpartners about what's what's
(23:21):
coming up.
JOE KORT (23:23):
I love every word you just said, and I always say
this, monogamous couples need todo exactly the same thing, but
they feel like they don't.
Always ask my couples, have younegotiated your monogamy? If
they tell me they're monogamous,they're like, What do you mean?
Negotiate? Have they done eachone of those things that you
just said? Right and and moreoften than not, not enough. Oh,
so let's talk about outercourse, because you and I are
(23:45):
working together andcollaborating on this topic.
We're trying to, we're, we'regoing to try to write a book and
get it published. And I startedthe conversation for gay men. I
call it sides where gay mendon't top, which means they
don't insert. They don't haveintercourse by inserting, and
they don't have intercourse bybottoming, by receiving. And we
know that this isn't just gaymen. There's people in the rest
(24:09):
of the LGBT community, instraight people, in all people
that don't want to haveintercourse. And it's called the
clinical word, is outer course.
Can you talk about that a littlebit?
JULIANE MAXWALD (24:20):
Yeah, absolutely. I think that outer
course touches on so manyrelevant topics in sex and
sexuality today. You know fromwhat you're describing, in terms
of sides, but also in terms ofof permission to have sex in a
(24:40):
way that feels good for you. Youknow, plenty of women struggle
with pain related to sex. Men,you know, struggle with erectile
predictability orunpredictability. There's so
much focus on this prescribedway of having sex, that sex
(25:02):
somehow means penetrativeintercourse, regardless of if
that's, you know, anal orvaginal or oral even. And it,
and that's such a narrowdefinition of what a sexual
experience can be like. And sothe idea of bringing outer
(25:23):
course, kind of center stage andtalking about, what about all of
these different ways that peoplecan engage in a sexual
experience, whether that'sthrough fantasy, whether that's
through touch, whether that'sthrough role playing, it just
allows for so much creativity,and I think it gives people
(25:43):
permission to really tap intoand be honest about, and for
many, many people learn aboutwhat's possible in terms of
their bodies, their minds anderotic encounter with somebody.
It just opens things up in a waythat I think is so needed and
and so relevant right now.
JOE KORT (26:02):
I really think we're going to be a great team on
this, because I'm going to beable to speak to the LGBT
community experience and themale experience, and you're
going to be able to talk aboutthe female straight perspective.
Not that we don't haveinformation about these things
each other, but I think it'll bemore compelling for people to
(26:23):
hear us talk like this.
JULIANE MAXWALD (26:25):
Right, exactly.
I think that we both bringsomething unique but very
similar kind of to the table.
And I'm sure you see this inyour practice, and I see this
all the time too. I find peopleare so hungry for permission to
think about sex in a differentway.
JOE KORT (26:42):
Yes.
JULIANE MAXWALD (26:43):
There's so many ways that a narrow script around
sex creates so much shame, somuch humiliation, so much
worthlessness, you know, feelinglike you're not getting it
right, feeling the pressure todo sex in one particular way.
There's, I find this that thatpeople are just, you know,
(27:07):
really eager to hear more aboutouter course, and are very open
to to learning about it,engaging in it, understanding
that intercourse is not the goldstandard of sex, right?
JOE KORT (27:19):
What are some key things you want people to take
away from your book, from yourwork, and some final thoughts
from you?
JULIANE MAXWALD (27:27):
I would like people to mostly to take away
from my work, the idea that sexis a personal experience, that
it's a creative experience, thatit can be a very profound
experience, you know that, butthat it's an individual
experience, and that it and togive people permission, or to
(27:51):
provide examples of the many,many, many ways that people
experience sex, and also themany ways that people experience
problems related to theirsexuality. And if you're willing
to sort of look beneath thesurface to really understand
that there's so much healing, somuch growth, so much
transformation that can happenthrough sex and sexuality.
JOE KORT (28:16):
I love it. Where can people find you? Juliane?
JULIANE MAXWALD (28:19):
I am online on Instagram @JulianeMaxwald, and
my website iswww.julianemaxwald.co and I'm on
LinkedIn and and those are themain ways.
JOE KORT (28:37):
All right, and they can pick up your book,
psychoanalytic sex therapy,exploring the unconscious life
of sexuality. You must be soproud of that. And I haven't
read the whole thing yet, butI've scanned through it, and I
you know, it just resonates somuch for me.
JULIANE MAXWALD (28:51):
Thank you.
JOE KORT (28:52):
Yes. Was a really pleasure having you on the show.
And for those of you that wouldlike to hear more about my work
and the things I do, you canfind me on
www.smartsexsmartlove.com,that's where the podcast lives,
(29:13):
as well as Apple Spotify and allthe other places you can find
podcasts. But you can also findme on Twitter, Tiktok,
Instagram, Facebook, all@DrJoeKort D, R, J, O, E, K, O,
R, T. I hope you enjoyedlistening, and hope you come
(29:35):
back next time and stay healthyand stay happy.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.