Meet Megan Torrey-Payne

Today we’d like to introduce you to Megan Torrey-Payne.

Megan, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
Talking about sex in our culture is challenging. It makes people uncomfortable, feel like they are breaking the rules. As a result, we don’t do it. We avoid the difficult conversations. I have always been comfortable breaking the rules and have pushed boundaries by talking about those things that make people uncomfortable, whether it was writing papers on the AIDS crisis when I was in high school in the early 90’s, examining legislation around sex work in graduate school, or working with pregnant and parenting teenagers after graduation.

I’ve always known that I wanted to help people by being a therapist, though the specialty in sex was a later development. I didn’t even know that was an option! When I started my own therapy practice in 2005, I was a generalist and focused on whatever clients needed.

Then I began to see a theme – clients needed a safe place to talk about the role of sex within their intimate relationships. Two years later, I began taking classes toward building my knowledge base. In 2012, after completing more than 150 hours of continuing education in human sexuality and sex therapy and meeting a variety of other requirements, I became a Certified Sex Therapist through the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT). My therapy practice has since evolved to focus primarily on working with individuals and couples on improving the relationships in their lives, with an emphasis on the sexual relationship.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Any career where sex and sexuality are the focus has its challenges. There is stigma involved.

Every time I tell someone what I do, I get raised eyebrows and often requests for “the craziest story” – which obviously is not a line of discussion that I like to engage in, first because of privacy, and mostly because when it comes to sex and sexuality, every story is completely unique at the same time that it is completely normal. The job comes with a lot of educating on what I do, even to other therapists – how it is different than “regular” talk therapy at the same time that it is exactly the same. I have to be careful on my website to be specific that it is talk therapy so that people don’t make wild assumptions about my services. In addition, advertising can be tricky when my ads or articles shared on Facebook are flagged as being “inappropriate.”

However, in many ways, the journey has been very smooth. There is such a huge need for people to be able to talk about these most intimate and private parts of their lives and most therapists do not have the knowledge or comfort levels required. There has been a great demand and being available to meet this need has been immensely rewarding.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
I specialize in Sex Therapy. I work with individuals and couples around exploring and repairing their sexual selves. That may mean helping people figure out who they are or what they want in their sexual lives, find new ways to communicate about sex with their partners, or recover from shame or abuse.

We live in a world that is uncomfortable with healthy and open conversation around pleasure, desires, fantasy, and sexual fears. I love that I can be someone that people can turn to for help sorting through their conflicting thoughts and feelings around sex and sexuality. I can help people figure out what is not working and find ways to greater pleasure and satisfaction in their most intimate relationships.

Because the lack of good sex education is so problematic in our country, in addition to my therapy practice, I have also begun branching out in that direction. I hold regular classes teaching parents how to have on-going sex-positive conversations with their kids about sex and sexuality, as well as teaching classes on a variety of sex-specific topics to community groups. In addition, I teach and consult with other professionals around issues relating to couples and sex therapy.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moments of my career are when a client who has been struggling communicating and connecting around sex comes to me and tells me that they had a success. Whether it is a pleasurable interaction alone or with their partner, a hoped-for pregnancy, or that the pieces that I had been having them to practice came together in a wonderful way, it is such an amazing experience to be a part of their journey.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.MeganTorreyPayne.com
• Email: therapy@torreypayne.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/megantorreypaynelcsw/

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