Building a Healthy Sexual Mindset

Table of Contents T wo people can have nearly identical bodies, nearly identical relationships, and nearly identical sexual histories, and still have very different sexual lives, because of something that never shows up on a medical chart: the story each of them tells themselves about their own sexuality. Psychologists have a specific term for that story, and decades of research showing it isn't just a vague background feeling. It's measurable, it predicts real outcomes, and unlike a lot of psychological traits, it can be deliberately reshaped. The Story You Carry About Your Own Sexuality In 1994, psychologists Barbara Andersen and Jill Cyranowski introduced the concept of the sexual self-schema, defined as cognitive generalizations about sexual aspects of oneself that are derived from past experience, show up in current experience, shape how a person processes sexually relevant information, and guide sexual behavior (Andersen & Cyranowski, 1994). Their research identified thr…