Infinite Intimacy Brings Couples Back Together With Holistic Counseling

The Short Version: Few things do more for our life satisfaction and overall health than maintaining strong, healthy relationships. That doesn’t make it easy, though. Rachel Smith, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist, helps couples develop the tools and skills that let them grow in intimacy. Rachel described holistic sex therapy as she practices it at Infinite Intimacy, explained why sexual education matters so much to her, and shared where couples tend to struggle with sex and intimacy.

Everyone knows that relationship quality is among the strongest predictors of how satisfied we are with life. Secure, healthy relationships are what make life rich and wonderful. That doesn’t mean relationships come easily, though, and it certainly doesn’t mean they’re always fun.

Keeping a meaningful relationship going is also the hardest, most painful, and most complicated thing a person will ever do. People and the bonds we form are messy, and although every type of relationship has its rough patches, true intimacy comes from facing those challenges and working through them.

A fulfilling, healthy relationship isn’t one that never hits a snag or an argument. It’s one that can get past obstacles with empathy when they inevitably show up.

Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist Rachel Smith runs Infinite Intimacy, a therapy practice where she helps couples get past obstacles using a holistic approach that is supportive and empowering. Rachel shared some of the struggles she commonly sees couples go through and explained how every kind of intimacy is rooted in communication.

“When I think about holistic care, I think about the combination of our mind, body, and soul,” Rachel said. “When it comes to sex therapy, sexuality, sensuality, intimacy, it’s really a whole mind, body, soul experience, or at least it can be.”

Relationships in Mind, Body, and Spirit

While studying psychology as an undergrad at the University of Central Florida, Rachel started volunteering at a center for children who had been sexually abused. In that role, she saw how much silenced populations need support and resources to heal, and her next career step became clear.

After earning a master’s in Marriage and Family Therapy, Rachel soon became state-certified in Sex Therapy. A practicing therapist since 2013, she said she loves helping individuals and couples build deeper connections with themselves, with each other, and with the world around them.

Holistic care sits at the core of Rachel’s approach to therapy. She explained, “As a traditional talk therapist, we can work through the things that are coming up mentally and emotionally, but we can’t deny our experiences. We must attend to the connection between our mind and body.”

Rachel’s holistic approach to therapy takes the whole self into account.

To address the mind-body connection, Rachel guides her clients into mindful awareness of their bodies, from how they’re breathing to where their muscles are holding tension. In a safe, controlled setting, she helps them understand how their emotions connect to their embodied experiences.

“Our mind is paying attention to our body, and our body is paying attention to our mind,” Rachel said. “It’s this incredible feedback loop that goes back and forth. I was introduced to the spiritual side of sexuality, like Tantra, and realized that the spiritual side is also what helps connect mind and body.”

Rachel teaches clients to tap into and explore their own spirituality as a bridge that strengthens the mind-body connection. Building this connection with yourself matters especially for couples: Partners can’t connect deeply and intimately with each other if they can’t reach that kind of intimacy with themselves.

“When we’re talking about true intimacy, the more present we can be, the more available we are for pleasure and connection,” Rachel said. 

Emotional Intimacy Leads to Sexual Connection

According to Rachel, mismatched sexual desire is one of the challenges she sees couples face most often.

“Couples are coming in with differences in desire,” she said. “One partner is saying they’re not interested in sex at all, but their partner is, and there’s often this feeling of confusion and guilt and shame.”

Almost every couple will run into a desire discrepancy at some point. Her clients, Rachel said, often find it upsetting because they have so few educational resources about sex and sexuality.

“We don’t have a real education around our sexual self,” she said. “I mean, sex education in schools is about learning about anatomy and birth control and STIs, but not really looking at the full structure of sexuality.”

When communication breaks down, every kind of intimacy suffers, not only the sexual kind.

Rachel often opens couples’ sex therapy with several educational sessions. “A lot of my work is in psychosexual education because you really have to understand the different dynamics that are at play in the different ways our bodies and minds respond sexually.”

That educational groundwork gives couples the knowledge and words to understand their sexual experiences and talk about them. “If we’re not taking the time to really get to know ourselves, our bodies, and likewise our partners, then that’s where we’re going to experience the disconnect,” Rachel said.

Rachel also sees many clients struggle with communication. Every kind of intimacy depends on open, clear communication, and like so many problems couples run into, plenty of sexual issues stem from a breakdown in communication.

“It tends to be a very, very major challenge within relationships all around,” she said. “I tell my couples that what’s going on in their sexual relationship is often mirroring what’s going on in their everyday relationship. If they’re struggling to communicate in their everyday relationship, they’re not going to be able to access the central sexual or intimate space fully.”

Infinite Intimacy Gives Couples Power

Each part of a relationship influences every other part, so shallow emotional intimacy makes deeply connected sexual experiences close to impossible. “It’s all interconnected,” Rachel said. “All parts feed into the other parts, and many people don’t take those key components of emotional intimacy into consideration.”

Couples who can’t seem to find a healthy way of communicating, or who simply aren’t connecting sexually the way they once did, have plenty of resources within reach. Rachel said she knows lots of people and couples may be unable to access or pay for counseling, but until then, many resources are available that they can start using right now.

“There are so many resources available, it’s just about sorting through what’s science-backed and what is an everyday person sharing their own experience,” Rachel said. For trustworthy, science-backed resources, she steered couples toward two big names in relationships and sexuality.

Infinite Intimacy, Rachel’s practice, works with individuals and couples around Miami.

“Dr. Emily Nagoski is a sex educator, and she wrote a book called ‘Come As You Are’ that I really love,” Rachel said. “She’s taken the breadth of research that’s been done over the last several years and put it into this really comprehensive book to help people understand their sexual responses and the different mechanisms at play.”

Rachel’s next recommendation was The Gottman Institute. Founded by Dr. John and Julie Gottman, the organization provides some of the best resources available for couples and families. She’s especially fond of it, Rachel said, because all of its materials rest on the Gottmans’ years of research and hands-on work with couples and families.

Working through relationship challenges is hard, but remember: Each time you and your partner resolve a disagreement in a loving, healthy way, you grow more intimate and your partnership gets stronger.

“It’s important for partners to realize they aren’t neglecting themselves by meeting their partner’s needs as long as their partner is also doing the same for them,” Rachel said. “When both partners are willing to take that uncomfortable step toward the other’s needs, that’s where that building that bridge and reestablishing that connection can happen.”