Episode #34
Artist Recovery Podcast S2 Ep. 34 | Permission to Feel Alive Again with Dr. Alisa Kriegal
Dr. Alisa Kriegal joins Rich Wright for a raw, wide-open conversation about desire, healing, self-discovery, and the courage it takes to reclaim pleasure at any stage of life. A psychologist with over 30 years in the field, Alisa spent the first half of her career in community mental health settings and hospitals serving clients with complex needs, while teaching and supervising graduate students in mindfulness, DBT, and trauma. She opened her private practice in 2009 and now works with young adults, adults, and couples in New York City, both in person and virtually, including those in monogamous relationships and people exploring consensual non-monogamy. Her debut memoir, "From Sexless Marriage to Sex Goddess," released in November 2025, and the story behind it anchors this episode. Alisa opens up about a marriage that carried deep friendship and intellectual closeness yet quietly lost its sexual center, the shame and silence that surround sexless relationships, and the season of upheaval that finally cracked her life wide open. She shares what almost no one talks about: how birth control, a tilted uterus, and decades of missing information shaped her experience, and why she wrote a book to break the silence when as many as 40 percent of couples describe themselves as sexless. This is also a story about creativity as medicine. Alisa traces a lifetime of art, dance, poetry, and writing, from a mother who taught in Watts to a grandmother named Blanche who found ceramics and painting in her sixties and spent the final decades of her life winning art shows. Her belief in second chapters and in it never being too late runs through everything. She and Rich explore the healing power of writing, the difference between healing in private and healing that is shared, and why creativity and sexuality are entwined threads of the same aliveness. Together they dig into being your own advocate in therapy and in life, how to find a therapist who truly fits, why it is never your job to protect your therapist's feelings, and the permission we all need to give ourselves to feel pleasure again. From walking barefoot through grass to reclaiming intimacy, this conversation is an invitation to reconnect with the parts of yourself you may have quietly shut off. Connect with Dr Alisa Kriegal: Website: https://alisakriegel.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/letstalkaboutsex_really Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alisa-kriegel-ph-d-299a4141 Youtube: @dralisakriegel Get Her Book: https://a.co/d/0ivqMT55 #ArtistRecoveryPodcast #DrAlisaKriegal #SexlessMarriage #SexGoddess #Memoir #CreativeHealing #WritingToHeal #Psychology #Relationships #Intimacy #Desire #ReclaimingPleasure #SelfDiscovery #SecondChapters #MidlifeReinvention #Divorce #DatingAfterDivorce #ConsensualNonMonogamy #OpenMarriage #FindingATherapist #SelfAdvocacy #MentalHealth #DBT #Mindfulness #Trauma #Permission #Sexuality #Creativity #SensitiveSoul #PersonalGrowth #WomensHealth #HealingJourney #AuthenticLiving #beaguest #podmatchguest @podmatch #richwrightartist #richwrightunlimited #richwrightunltd Support the show Always remember, Listen to your Heart and Be Kind to Your Mind! -Rich Wright Follow us here: https://www.theartistrecovery.com Join the Community: https://www,artrecroom.com Listen Weekly at: https://www.artistrecoverypodcast.com Connect: Instagram Facebook X TikTok Linkedin
