Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandy Rose
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
Whenever I meet someone new and they ask me what I do, I’m aways so excited to tell them. Then, after I do, they inevitably ask, “What made you decide become a sex therapist?” I candidly tell them about the many jobs I’ve had in my life (see below!) and then about the romantic relationships and dalliances I’ve been in over the past 8 years living in L.A. that have opened my eyes to various sexual and relational struggles that we all seem to deal with (at least in this town): codependency, jealousy, personality disorders, misinformation and fear tactics about sexual safety, shame and stigma surrounding sexual preferences, physical or mental barriers to intimate connection, ghosting, etc. I’m passionate about openly discussing sex, relationships, and emotions because these topics were not comfortably discussed in my home growing up, and this is a commonality I see among clients, friends, and the general public. So, when I started grad school to become a therapist, I already knew that I wanted to specialize in sex and relationships. A couple months before I graduated in 2023, I reached out to interview a sex therapist I had heard of who owns a private practice, and I expressed my interest in joining her practice after graduation. That became my first associateship out of school, and I still work there today. It was an immediate fit for me between the other therapists there as well as the culture that my supervisor cultivates within the practice. I feel very aligned with this career because I followed my heart and soul to it!
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It’s been a winding one! This is my fifth career (so far), and the challenges I’ve faced have mostly been related to the amount of time/effort it’s taken me to find a career that works for me. I originally went to college to be a teacher – a goal I pursued only because I had no other idea what I could even do with my life at that time and I knew that I was “good at school.” Once I started teaching, I discovered that it was a bad fit for multiple reasons. Luckily, I had started learning long-form improv at a small but wonderful theater in Houston. ~Cue identity crisis~ I developed this grand dream to move to L.A. and write screenplays. So I did just that, and worked at Paramount for a couple years (starting from the bottom in the infamous page program). ~Enter plot twist~ Then I got fired from the studio I worked at after Paramount. That career was also a bad fit. So I decided to start a random company from scratch: I created a 3-hour scavenger hunt event for gifted middle schoolers. It was awesome. I hired escape room designers to write the puzzles and plan the flow of the event, and spent months of my life creating props and learning the ins and outs of running a business, until eventually the pandemic led me to dissolve the company. ~Cut to: yet another existential dilemma~ Out of necessity, I decided to start a business as a personal trainer, something I had explored a decade prior. I started by coaching my friends for free and gradually adding paying clients to the mix. While I enjoyed this, it was around this time when I was working with private clients that I decided to take the plunge and actually “become a therapist,” which is an idea I’d been rolling around in the back of my mind for a few years at that point due to my aforementioned relationship experiences and various self-discoveries, so I went back to grad school. Since graduating in 2023, the biggest struggle has been dealing with the bureaucracy surrounding the process of getting licensed and how tough it is to survive as an associate, making less than full pay while slowly gaining hours and continuing to hone my skills so that I can one day open my own private practice. I think it’ll all be worth it! And by the time that all happens, knowing me, I’ll probably be ready for my sixth career.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
At this moment, I am still in the process of gaining my 3000 hours to become a fully licensed therapist in California. I’m an associate marriage and family therapist, specializing in sex and relationship therapy, so I see individuals and couples who are seeking help with sexual, relational, or mental concerns. I see clients both remotely and in person. It’s such a cool job in my opinion. Where else is it considered a “professional” conversation to talk about sex at work? Maybe a few other places, I guess. 🙂 My niche specialty areas are working with vulva owners who experience chronic pain with sex or sexual hesitance (fear, shyness, avoidance), and also working with couples who have intimacy issues, different levels of desire, or communication difficulties. Being a therapist who specializes in sex is certainly something that sets me apart from many general practice therapists because the amount of education you receive in sexuality and intimacy is strongly lacking in many higher education programs. This means that many therapists will “refer out” their clients for sex-related problems because many therapists are unsure how to treat specific issues or even how to speak about sex in the therapy room. I am a huge advocate for increasing people’s sexual literacy and comfort levels when talking about sexual issues. It’s something that everyone wants to talk about, but it’s so stigmatized that people get stuck in their shame and fear, and pretend that they don’t have any issues, when they really do.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
While this shouldn’t be surprising, it’s worth mentioning: Therapists are not perfect humans who never make mistakes. Just because I help individuals and couples with their sex lives and relationships doesn’t mean that I don’t have sexual hangups, relationship problems, or mental health concerns of my own (shout out to my personal therapist who knows all about this). I never look at a therapy session as a space for me to “give advice.” I’m often learning right alongside my clients, facing similar issues as they are, and just asking them questions that will elicit their own personal exploration. The difference between helping them vs. struggling with own stuff is that I can see their situation through theoretical models instead of through a cloud of my own bias. I love this career, and it’s a huge honor to be able to sit with clients and hear their vulnerable stories, but I sometimes feel like my job title casts a false expectation of who I’m supposed to be outside of my professional role. Despite this one downside, I have developed skills, tools, and insights in my time as a therapist that have helped me immensely in the world of sex and relationships, and for that personal growth I am deeply grateful.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sandyrosetherapy.com
- Instagram: @sexytherapystuff
