An Interview with Bernie Newton: Male Counselor in Winston-Salem
Bernie Newton is a male counselor in Winston-Salem. In his practice, Newton Psychotherapy and Consulting PLLC, Bernie specializes in helping clients struggling with sexual behavior conflicts and questions.
This interview touches on his experience as a counselor, regulating the nervous system, and the intersection of spirituality, trauma, and sexuality.
- Travis
Interview with Male Counselor Bernie Newton
How Bernie Newton Became a Counselor
Travis: So I know from our previous conversations that you have had a pretty wild journey to find yourself where you are now as a licensed therapist, I'm sure people would be interested to hear a little of that journey.
Bernie: Yeah. So my specialty right now is sex therapy, as you know, and I feel like that began early in my life. I was the like the one kid in my sex education class back in the day and middle school who wasn't freaked out in the the class and was like, actually interested. I've always been a big science person since I was a tiny little kid. So that was part of it. But for whatever reason, it didn't weird me out. I ended up in middle school being the person that other kids would come to and ask questions because they knew I paid attention, and I had answers. So my journey to talking to people about sexual health started a long time ago.
And then I went and got my marriage and family therapy degree out in California. And right away I knew that I wanted to focus on sexuality in terms of couples therapy. I didn't want to ignore the sexual component. A lot of even trained couples therapists don't get very well trained in talking about sex. I really tried to pay attention to how I could bring that into my work. Then in 2017 and 2018 I thought, I'm talking about this enough, I need to go actually become more of an official sex therapist. So I did this program at University of Michigan, which is a ton of fun, and almost honestly, almost like another Master's degree in terms of the amount of work it took. But, the most entertaining master's degree that I could imagine getting for myself. There is never a boring moment in these conversations, and how are we sort of challenging each other to learn and expand and challenge our viewpoints?
So now about half of my practice is particularly sex therapy focused, and the other half is more general therapy largely with the queer community, but not exclusively.
Bernie Newton on Talking About the Uncomfortable
Travis: Thank you. I love that. One of the themes that stuck out for me was, even as a youth, being comfortable talking about the uncomfortable. That is such a theme of “good” counseling.
Bernie: It should be such a theme in therapy. Therapy is a space to talk about the uncomfortable, and yet I find that a lot of therapists really aren't. Or, just have places where they're not comfortable. All of the things that you're not supposed to talk about in polite company: sex, religion, money, deaths, are actually my favorite topics in therapy.
I don't know exactly why that is some intrinsic personality trait. Some of my own developmental experience of having to come face to face with some of these things early in life, maybe have given me a comfort, but nothing lights me up more than knowing that I'm able to create a space for people to kind of run into these really difficult taboo, sometimes dark areas.
The greatest joy for me is when somebody can come into my office and we start a relationship and they feel safe enough to say that taboo thing…and it's usually in my office, and it's usually about about sex, or their gender: understanding their gender or sexual orientation or something like that. They feel safe enough to say that thing that has been so scary for them to say and that's such a unique and powerful moment for them. That is something that I do all day long. Being on the receiving side of it, it's my biggest joy in my work of being able to create space where we can talk about these hard topics and thankfully, they don't feel very difficult for me. I just I feel have a lot of comfort with that. I see that as even kind of generally even beyond my job or what I get paid to do. I see that as kind of my mission in the world.
Travis: Yes. I remember a moment in my own therapy years ago, where I was holding on to a statement and I thought ‘if I tell my therapist this, she's gonna crumble. No one can carry the weight of this but me’. I named it, and she was totally unfazed. Her nervous system was completely calm. And she just said, ‘okay, tell me more about that’. And just that moment of knowing that she could hear that and be okay with it was a huge relief to me.
Bernie: What do you think that did to have her nervous system calm? What did that do to your nervous system in that moment?
Travis: It released my own anxiety. I thought, ‘if it's safe for her to feel this, it can be safe for me’.
Bernie: That's beautiful.
Thanks for letting me ask you. We’’re therapists. We can't help but think, ‘oh, tell me about that. What are the details of that experience?’ It's also one of the things that I love doing in my office is like paying attention to the nervous system. Really, naming it. How do we help you regulate your nervous system and learn how to do that? In so, so many ways that we don't pay attention to that very much and that really impacts our mental health. I may help clients check and notice what is happening in them.
Bernie Newton on The Nervous System and Mental Health
Travis: For someone who doesn't know about nervous system and mental health, how would you explain that to someone and what that is why that's important?
Bernie: Yeah. I think about how we have kind of two parts of our nervous system. One that's the gas pedal and one that's more the brake. That's the same image that Emily Negaski used to talk about turn ons and turn offs. So same metaphor, really different idea, but you have part of our nervous system that's in charge of getting us awake, and saying let's get going and let's get activated and do something. For example, as small as I'm gonna pick up my phone right now that takes some nervous system activation, to as big as I'm gonna go run a marathon or fight this fight.
Then there's the other part, the break part that is rest and digest. That is in charge of getting us to sleep and getting us relaxed on the couch and just watching TV or helping us connect with our intimate partners. That's a big part of that sort of rest place usually.
An important part of mental health work is noticing what impacts that for us. For example, people who have had experiences of trauma, that activation part of their nervous system, which is called the sympathetic nervous system, is often kind of on higher alert than it needs to be.
A big part of therapy can be taking that higher alert and helping that person feels safe, helping that creaturely part of the person across from me feel safe. It's not just up here in the thought process, because somebody could be sitting in a room and I can tell you, ‘there's not a tiger right here’. I will affirm that there is no tiger sitting beside me, but the body doesn't necessarily know that. In my work, I'm helping not just the brain, but to know it down here in your body, as well. To calm the body, which is so important for sex work and in sexual health for folks, because sexual health is this combination of safety and pleasure. So like we've got it in the safety part. We've got to talk about the nervous system piece. People are often like, ‘can I feel safe enough?’ And, ‘can this be exciting rather than anxiety provoking? Those two are real close neighbors, and often I'm helping people differentiate those two and helping them calm the anxious part.
Bernie Newton on Trauma, Spirituality, and Sexuality
Travis: I'm jumping topics here, but we’ve talked about your history and training around spirituality. It's so common in our culture to think spirituality and religion and sexuality are opposites, are against each other. I'd love to hear how you think about those two, how they can coexist and support each other in some way if you think that.
Bernie: Absolutely. I absolutely think that. Part of my story is that I grew up with a pretty conservative Christian evangelical background. Growing up as a kid in the 80s and the early 90s, I kind of grew up at the peak time of what's called ‘purity culture’, which is this whole big movement that was happening in the 80s and 90s around ‘what does it mean to be to be, quote unquote pure?’ as a Christian?
That was my experience. It was also happening and other religious circles, but my experience is the Christian experience and those messages were all about, ‘don't do anything until you have passed this sacrament of marriage’. Then, somehow, all of a sudden, you're allowed to do everything and you should know what you're doing. It's not a great system. It's not a real good sexual health system. And it's also not a system that anybody was following. The truth is that people were putting on their purity rings and signing their pledges and reading, ‘I kiss dating goodbye’, and going to youth group. And then they were doing all kinds of…everything but what I call everything. Everything but, because it was how they work around the rules, right?
Travis: Vaginal penetration is the only thing, the only taboo we can't engage in.
Bernie: Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly right. So you know.
So it was a lot of hypocrisy. I think what it really is, is a lot of basic humanity coming through and a part of the human experience that is just not really possible to squash.
That's a little bit of where I'm coming from in terms of spirituality. Then, I went to Fuller Seminary 20 years ago now to get my master's degree. They have a great psychology program there. We talked about the sort of integration of spirituality and mental health and at that point, I was already thinking about sexuality and how we pull all that together.
In my educational experience, I still was not out as a gay man at that point. So I was still in a place of…’I really want to integrate this sort of sexuality and spirituality’. But I havdn’t really felt that or fully done that for myself yet. That's a really big part of my journey, being able to do that for myself and honestly, kind of recover from the purity culture impact, which was so shaming and sex negative. I also really enjoy helping other people along that journey for themselves. You know, really asking open questions. I don't come in with a sense that I have the answers for you. But sort of just being in a space of letting people explore like, ‘what does sexual health really look like for me? I got all of these messages from my religious community,
does that fit with me?’ And maybe it does, maybe it doesn't it? I don't know. But let's make some space to explore that.
From my own experience and other people's experience, when spirituality can be part of sexuality, that's like leveling up. And what I mean by spirituality is different from religion. Those two words are different. What I mean by spirituality is that sense of something that lets me know that I'm connected to something greater than myself.
That might show up in your religious community. I hope it does. I hope it does show up in people's religious communities, their sense of connection to community - a sense of connection to higher power (however they understand that) - but it also can show up and it shows up for me as a theater guy. I go to show on Broadway or I participate in a show that's a transcendent spiritual experience for me often, something greater than me. Or I go stand on top of a mountain in western North Carolina, and that feels very spiritual. I also know that if we're open to it, sex can feel very spiritual in that way. It is often like we're creating something greater than just the two or three or 4 or 7 people in the room, whatever it may be. But there's a greater sense of something greater than us. There can be his place of transcendence there. If you're open to it. You know, part of what happened with purity culture mindset is, it leaves you not open to it. It kind of shuts down part of what can be true about sexual experiences for people.
Hi, I’m Travis.
My clients describe me as calm, compassionate, and curious…
You have these qualities inside you at your core too. You just need a little help uncovering them.
If you’re dominated by anger, anxiety, shame, or self-criticism, I can help you re-connect with who you really are: confident, calm, courageous, compassionate, and connected to yourself and others.
Travis Jeffords - LCMHCA | MDiv. | Male Counselor
In-person counselor: Greensboro & Winston-Salem
Virtual counselor: North Carolina
Licensed Counselor
Please note: The information provided in this blog is for general informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional counseling or therapy. The content presented here is based on my professional knowledge, personal experiences and research, but it should not be considered as a replacement for individualized mental health advice.
Every individual is unique, and the content provided may not be applicable to everyone's specific circumstances. It is important to consult with a licensed mental health professional regarding your specific concerns and to receive personalized guidance tailored to your needs.