Jonah Taylor, MSW, LSW

Jonah Taylor (he/him) is an associate therapist at The Center for Growth specializing in mindfulness-based therapy for sexual health and well-being. 

Jonah’s sex therapy practice includes a current focus on sexual trauma and abuse, sexual dysfunction, compulsive sexual behaviors, gender/sexual identity, and couples counseling. No matter the issue, Jonah helps clients develop deeper, more fulfilling connections to others and with themselves. Jonah works with adults and teens.

Whether coming for individual or couples counseling, many clients begin sex therapy feeling confused about who they are sexually and rigid in the ways they cope with intimacy and relationship challenges. With kindness and humor, Jonah supports clients to create sexual and relationship narratives that are more coherent, affirming, and flexible. Clients find a greater sense of freedom for how they face challenges in their relationships and their lives.

Warm, gentle, and interactive, Jonah encourages a safe, trusting therapeutic relationship that also motivates clients to stay accountable to their goals. Clients learn to turn towards their experience with curiosity through free-flowing conversation and mindfulness techniques that repair damaged connections to the sexual self. Jonah balances these open-ended approaches with evidence-based tools to replace counterproductive patterns of thought and behavior.

In addition to sex therapy, Jonah has experience counseling clients facing:

Anger, anxiety, depression, ADHD, autism, grief, PTSD (trauma), eating disorders and body image concerns, sleep troubles, breakups, chronic illness and chronic pain, professional transitions, bereavement, and personality disorders, among other areas.

Jonah’s Background

Jonah joined The Center for Growth full-time in 2022 after spending a year there completing his graduate internship through the Rutgers University School of Social Work. As a graduate student, he focused on grief, loss, trauma, and illness. With a deep understanding for how the wounds one carries—both emotional and physical—can shape their behavior, Jonah guides clients to gain insight into the sources of their current sexual and relationship challenges. Connecting the dots between past and present, clients uncover hidden capacities for navigating the inner and outer landscapes of their lives.

Jonah’s background includes extensive study and practice in mindfulness meditation and Buddhism. With a therapy style that is contemplative, spiritual, and philosophical, clients gain more embodied awareness, acceptance for what they cannot change, and compassion for self and others.

Prior to joining The Center for Growth, Jonah provided behavioral therapy services to youth and their families. Before that, Jonah worked as a designer in the technology industry. He brings the same curiosity and creativity animating his former work to his counseling approach, and he is very glad to now be working with people instead of pixels.

Outside of being a therapist, Jonah is a visual artist and can often be found hiking the trails of the Philadelphia area.

What Sex Therapy Looks Like with Jonah

Holistic in his approach, therapy with Jonah typically includes an exploration of the mind-body connection, including how one’s physical health and neurodiversity can impact their sexual well-being and vice versa. Recognizing that everyone is more than a diagnosis, Jonah also helps clients to consider how external circumstances in their life, like school, work, and relationships, may be contributing to how they feel and behave. And while clients often enter therapy with specific symptoms like sexual dysfunction or compulsiveness, Jonah provides clients with an invitation to drop down to the existential questions often provoking intimacy challenges: Who am I and what are my sexual values? 

Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy in Philadelphia

By teaching people to pay attention to the present moment without judgment, Jonah uses mindfulness-based therapy to help clients change the way they experience themselves and their sexual lives. Mindfulness-based therapy strengthens clients’ steadiness in difficult moments while simultaneously making them feel more present to the deeper meaning and joy inherent to their sexuality.

How Mindfulness is Used in Sex Therapy

When working with Jonah, clients learn to increase awareness of their inner experience, including physical sensations, thoughts, and emotions that arise in sexual contexts. Importantly, mindfulness-based therapy teaches one to relate to their inner experience from a place of nonjudgment. With more awareness and less judgment, it becomes easier to impartially observe one’s experience rather than simply reacting to it on autopilot. An increased capacity to observe, rather than react, gives clients more freedom to choose how to respond to challenges in their lives. Ultimately, mindfulness-based sex therapy can help to interrupt painful patterns of thought and behavior that are negatively affecting one’s sexual well-being.

To start, Jonah provides basic instruction in mindfulness techniques for sex therapy, like focusing on the breath or sensations in the body, to learn to inhabit the body nonjudgmentally and with curiosity. By observing these inner experiences without running away from them, mindfulness-based therapy helps clients increase insight into the patterns and underlying causes of sexual health symptoms like sexual dysfunction, sexual trauma, and compulsive sexual behavior. With this more profound awareness of their inner world, clients feel steadier, more at peace, and more alive sexually. 

What Techniques Are Used in Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy

Jonah teaches clients mindfulness skills drawn from widely-practiced therapies, including Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Mindfulness-Based and Cognitive Therapy (MBCT).

Who is Helped by Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy

Evidence supports mindfulness as an effective intervention for a wide variety of concerns, including couples counseling, sexual trauma, sexual dysfunction, and compulsive sexual behaviors.

Mindfulness-Based Sex Therapy for Couples

In couples counseling, Jonah uses mindfulness-based skills to help you and your partner to experience each other in a more present and mindful way. Beginner’s mind, a mindfulness concept, stresses a stance towards life that is free of preconception and instead fosters openness and curiosity, like the way that a traveler experiences a new destination. Jonah supports you to practice beginner’s mind in your relationship by teaching you how to communicate with your partner about sex using an open, curious, and attentive presence. In addition to mindful communication exercises, mindfulness-based therapy for couples may include increasing awareness of the thoughts, feelings, and behavior leading to emotional disconnection and mindfulness-based relaxation techniques for reducing conflict during arguments. Importantly, mindfulness-based therapy can also help you and your partner to improve intimacy by having more mindful sex.