I’m Jessa Zimmerman.
I’m a licensed couples counselor and an AASECT-certified sex therapist in Seattle. For more than fifteen years I have worked with couples on sex and intimacy, and it is the only thing I do.
I’m also the author of Sex Without Stress, the host of the Better Sex Podcast, and an AASECT-certified supervisor who trains other therapists toward their own certification.
Sex matters more than people admit — and in a lopsided way.
When a couple is happy with their sex life, it accounts for a small slice of their satisfaction. When they’re unhappy with it, it takes up about seventy per cent.
That asymmetry is the whole reason this work exists. Sex is easy to dismiss as one component among many — until it stops working, at which point it quietly colonises everything. It shapes how you greet each other, how safe you feel, whether you touch in the kitchen, what you assume the other person thinks of you.
Which is also why it’s worth addressing directly rather than hoping it settles. It doesn’t settle. It compounds.
I also believe there’s no better vehicle for growing up than a relationship. Nothing else asks so much of you, or shows you so precisely where your edges are. The work it takes to be good at this makes you a more substantial person, and I’ve watched that happen to people over and over.
I’m sex positive and LGBTQ affirming, and I mean that as a working description rather than a slogan. I work with couples of every orientation, gender, and relationship structure, and you will not have to explain your relationship to me before we can begin.
Respectfully confrontational.
That’s the phrase I’ve always used, and it’s the most honest two-word description of me I can offer.
I’m warm. I will like you. I’m also going to tell you the truth as I see it, including the parts you were hoping I’d be too polite to mention. I think leaving the challenge out is a way of not really showing up — and if I only ever agreed with you, you’d be paying a great deal for a sympathetic audience.
I’m an active participant, not a referee. I’ll slow the conversation down. I’ll interrupt, gently. When your pattern starts happening live in the room, I’ll name it, because that’s the moment anything can shift.
And I treat the pattern as the problem — not either of you. That isn’t diplomacy. After fifteen years I genuinely believe it, because I’ve watched two decent people build the same trap together, without either of them meaning to, more times than I can count.
Most people find that combination a relief rather than a shock. If you’ve had therapy that consisted mainly of being listened to, this will feel different.
Because I’ve done the learning myself.
The marriage I have now is wonderful. It did not arrive that way — it took a great deal of learning and growth on my part, and not all of it was comfortable.
So I know what a strained relationship costs, from the inside. The steady drain of it. The worry that never quite switches off. The way it reaches the kids, and the job, and the four-in-the-morning stretch where you lie there turning it over again.
And I know the other side, because I’ve watched it happen to a great many couples. They reconnect. They thrive. Not through luck — through being willing to be honest, to actually address what’s going on, and, hardest of all, to take on their own contribution to it.
That last part is the whole thing. It’s also why I’m still interested after fifteen years.
Where all this came from.
Why the AASECT part matters
Washington State has no legal standard for who may call themselves a sex therapist. Anyone can use the title. AASECT certification requires over 160 hours of specialised coursework, 50 hours of supervision with a certified supervisor, a Sexual Attitude Reassessment, and hundreds of clinical hours treating sexual concerns. It is the only dependable way to tell trained from self-declared — and it’s worth checking for whoever you end up seeing, me or not.
Writing, talking, and teaching.
Sex Without Stress
My book — a couple’s guide to overcoming disappointment, avoidance, and pressure. It lays out the nine-phase process I use with couples, so you can work through it at home.
The bookBetter Sex Podcast
Weekly conversations with researchers, clinicians, and educators about desire, bodies, communication, and everything couples find hard to raise.
ListenSupervising therapists
I supervise clinicians working toward AASECT certification, and mentor therapists on the business of building a private practice.
Clinical supervisionI write and comment regularly for:
- Mind Body Green
- Marriage.com
- Refinery29
- Business Insider
If that sounds like what you need.
Tell me a little about what’s going on between the two of you, and we’ll work out whether I’m the right person for it. If I’m not, I’ll say so and try to point you somewhere better.
Or call 206-919-9488 · change@jessazimmerman.com