Desire Discrepancy in Couples: A Relational Approach to Assessment & Treatment

Title of Event: Desire Discrepancy in Couples: A Relational Approach to Assessment & Treatment

Description of Event:

This 3-hour workshop equips clinicians with a framework for assessing and treating desire discrepancy in couples, one of the most common presenting concerns in sex therapy practice, affecting an estimated 80% of couples who seek treatment. Participants will move beyond a pathology-based view of “mismatched libido” toward a relational model that distinguishes desire discrepancy, a statistically normative variation between partners, from individual diagnostic presentations such as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder. Drawing on Basson’s responsive desire model, Bancroft and Janssen’s Dual Control Model, and McCarthy’s Good Enough Sex framework, the workshop provides a structured approach to differential assessment, including how to identify pursuer–distancer dynamics, sexual shame, attachment-driven conflict, and the relational meaning each partner assigns to the desire gap.

The second half of the workshop translates this assessment into intervention, equipping participants with concrete tools for reframing discrepancy with couples, interrupting pursuit–withdrawal cycles, structuring negotiated initiation and scheduling practices that respect both partners’ autonomy, and incorporating somatic interventions including breath-based co-regulation, non-goal-oriented touch sequencing, and interoceptive awareness practices to rebuild relational safety and reduce performance-driven inhibition. Through didactic teaching, case material, and small-group case consultation, participants will leave with a clinical roadmap they can apply immediately in their work with desire-discrepant couples.

Learning Objectives:

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Differentiate desire discrepancy as a relational/systemic presentation from individual-level Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD).
• Conduct a biopsychosocial-relational assessment that identifies pursuer–distancer dynamics, sexual shame, and the relational meaning each partner assigns to the desire gap.
• Select and sequence interventions including the Good Enough Sex Model, negotiated scheduling, and somatic interventions matched to a couple’s assessment profile.

Date of Event: 9/25/26

Time of Event: 10am - 1pm EST

Location: Online Synchronous

Presenter/Speaker: Candice Cooper-Lovett, PhD, LMFT-S, CST-SIT

Contact Name: Alisa Zarrin

Contact Telephone Number: (929) 612-3962

Contact Email: azarrin@ackerman.org

Event Website: https://www.ackerman.org/events/desire-discrepancy-in-couples/?

AASECT Approved CEs:3