You Don’t Need to Know the Why to Choose Differently
In therapy, one of the most common questions I hear is, “Why do I do this?”
Why do I disconnect during intimacy?
Why do I keep picking the same kind of partner?
Why do I betray my boundaries to feel loved?
The search for why is natural. It can offer clarity, even relief. But as an existential sex therapist, I often remind clients that insight is only one part of the work. Knowing why you do something doesn’t change it. Real transformation begins when you recognize the pattern and choose differently.
Understanding Isn’t the Same as Change
In existential sex therapy, we certainly explore origin stories—family dynamics, trauma, early conditioning—but we don’t mistake understanding for freedom. As Irvin Yalom writes, “Insight is not sufficient. If you understand yourself but do not act on that understanding, you have not changed.” You can trace every thread of your behavior back to its source and still remain stuck in it.
Rollo May, another foundational voice in existential psychology, emphasized the role of will in healing. He wrote that “freedom is the capacity to pause in the face of stimulus and choose a different response.” That pause is where your power lives—not in why you’re triggered, but in what you choose to do next.
The Pattern Is Not the Problem—Your Relationship to It Is
Existential Sex Therapy
What matters more than asking why you do something is noticing that you’re doing it. Catching the pattern as it arises—without judgment—is where choice becomes possible. Existential sex therapy focuses on that moment: the one where you're awake to your behavior, grounded in your responsibility and willing to move forward with intention.
You don’t need to fully heal your past to begin relating to yourself differently now.
You Are Not a Passive Product of Your Past
Both Yalom and May believed in the radical responsibility each person holds for shaping their own existence. That doesn't mean you caused everything that’s happened to you. It means you are the only one who can decide what meaning you give it—and what you’ll do next.
As an existential sex therapist, I help clients sit with the discomfort of that freedom. Not to fix them, but to support them in claiming agency over their choices, even when the past is loud or the future is unclear.
Change doesn’t come from dissecting every wound. It comes from committing to show up differently, even while those wounds are still healing.
Existential sex therapy invites you to stop waiting for perfect insight and start practicing conscious choice. It's not about solving the past—it's about reclaiming your ability to choose in the present.