Episode 17: Age Play and Finding a Therapist

Join Andrea, Kacie, Liz, Mae, and your hosts spacey and mako as we talk about our experience with therapy, talking to therapists about age play, and so much more.

• Show Notes

  • Regression in Service of the Ego: any act that you do purely for enjoyment and that is restorative to your psyche. (as defined by our show guest)

  • “Women have no emotional feelings during orgasm, say neuroscientists” (Mega Neuroscience article)

  • “The Orgasmic Mind: The Neurological Roots of Sexual Pleasure” (Original article in Scientific American, May 2008 – subscription required to view full article)

  • National Coalition for Sexual Freedom: an advocacy and educational organization that is dedicated to advancing the rights and freedoms of adults to engage in any kind of consenting sexual behavior, including BDSM, swinging, and polyamory

  • Kink Aware Professionals: An NCSF-maintained directory featuring listings for therapists, doctors, lawyers and other professionals that are kink-aware or -knowledgeable

  • Patrick Califia – an author, MFT (Marriage and Family Therapist), and transman

  • DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders): Contains information, statistics and classification of/about mental disorders. One of NCSF’s projects is to improve how fetishes and paraphilias are recognized in the DSM.

  • The Survivor’s Guide to Sex: How to Have an Empowered Sex Life After Child Sexual Abuse by Staci Haines

  • Scarleteen – Sex Education for the Real World – sex- and body-positive, responsible information and education about sex & relationships. The site is geared toward adolescents but has wonderful info and plenty to learn for folks of all ages.

  • Emotional management (psychology term)

  And the Therapist Name/Resource Throwdown!

  • in Atlanta GA, Dr. Scott Conkright, http://www.atlantatherapy.com/

  • in Bethesda MD, Dr. Joe James, http://www.drjoejames.com/

  • in Washington DC, the DC Rape Crisis Center, http://www.dcrcc.org/ and Whitman-Walker Health, http://www.whitman-walker.org/

• Listener Comments

  PsychologyNerd:

  In this episode you erroneously stated that the DSM-IV classifies infantilism as a disorder. There is only a single sentence in the entire section on paraphillias–under masochism–that even mentions a person’s sexual preference for being “forced to wear a diaper”. The word infantilism is not used in this context throughout the DSM-IV. Currently, the National Association of Mental Health does not recognize “paraphilic infantilism” as a disorder… although this term that has become the preferred nomenclature of sexual psychologists and the ABDL community as a whole.

  And my response:

  Thanks for the correction!

  Yet more reason why, as long as we live lives of balance, people shouldn’t worry overmuch about their paraphilia. Different doesn’t mean ill or bad.

  ———

  GlennDL:

  Darn I missed this!

  Guys and gals, my wife (my mommy) is a licensed psychotherapist in NJ with her own practice. Here she is:

  Hi! This is ‘Lucy Van Pelt’ (glenn’s SO). Advice: 5 cents!

  I would like to mention that the DSM does not give any recommendations for any type of treatment of any disorder listed in it. It is merely a compilation of suggestions for how to classify any treatable disorders. My belief is that many of the issues that age players undergo are similar to issues related to other actual disorders (ie; shame, confusion, fear of others finding out about your secret).

  I wonder if it maybe a better idea to work out the issues in the brackets above than to push for listing ‘Infantilism’ in the DSM. My fear would be a possible backlash or stigma of age play being labeled as an illness, which is is not Age play appears to be more of a way to cope with overwhelming feelings rather than an illness.

  The only difference between age players and those who don’t age play is how they manage their thoughts and feelings about themselves in regard to the outside world. This is the issue for age players to work on, not whether their use of age play is an illness.

  One must come to terms and accept ones own way of dealing with stress. Age players choose to regress as one a way to manage their possible stress. If this feels good and reduces stress they are likely to engage in age play again and begin to use it as a tool to cope with their frustration.

  “Five cents please!”

  Lucy Van Pelt

First aired: June 12, 2011