The men on my couch

The Men on My Couch traces the unique psychology of male sexuality, which will make readers—both men and women—reconsider their ideas about sex and love.

When Dr. Brandy Engler, a psychologist specializing in relationships and sexuality, opened her sex therapy clinic for women in Manhattan, she was met with a big surprise. Most of the calls were from men. They wanted to talk about relationships, porn addiction, sexual impotence, prostitutes, and, above all, love.

The Men on My Couch brings together accounts from Dr. Engler's patients, ordinary men from different walks of life. Among them were David, the Wall Street power broker and compulsive womanizer who longed for more romantic and stable relationships; Charles, an introvert who always rejected his fiancée because he considered her too beautiful for him; Paul, the successful executive who frequented massage parlors despite his sexy wife; and the group of men with stark revelations about male rage and the search for the right woman. Co-authored with David Rensin, Dr. Engler allows readers to witness, through accounts of therapy sessions, the moving and surprising desires of these men.

Men on My Couch goes beyond easy conclusions and pejorative generalizations and retraces the unique psychology of male sexuality, which will inevitably make readers—men and women alike—reconsider their ideas about sex and love. Here, there are new insights into modern sexual idiosyncrasies, gleaned from real people having real struggles and experiencing real epiphanies.

Challenged to help these men, Dr. Engler explored their desires and fears in search of understanding. With great candor, she explains her reactions to the men's revelations and their impact on her own love affairs. It soon becomes clear that there was a process of mutual support, as her patients helped her evolve professionally and personally, reconciling her own idealized notions of love with the raw truths she heard in the office.

" Men on My Couch" will take you into my confidential therapy sessions and witness provocative and powerful dialogues that reveal the core issues underlying male sexual behavior. Like a fly on the wall, you'll observe the raw emotions and real reasons behind the modern sexual maladies that led my patients to seek help. Unlike most other books on male sexual behavior, in this one you'll also be privy to my professional and personal reactions, both those I shared in sessions and those I didn't express verbally.

Soon I discovered a constant truth: sex is rarely just sex. Sex is an experience charged with other meanings.”