Certified Sex Therapy & Identity-Focused Therapy in New Jersey
At The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy, we work with individuals and couples throughout New Jersey who feel disconnected from themselves, their bodies, or the version of life that once felt familiar.
Many of our clients come to therapy in the middle of a shift they can feel but can’t fully explain yet. Desire has changed. Intimacy feels distant. Your body feels unfamiliar, or a relationship no longer fits the same way. An identity you once relied on might not feel entirely true anymore. From the outside, it looks like you’re functioning perfectly—but internally, you feel untethered, numb, or unsure how to find your way back to yourself.
We support clients across New Jersey—including Clifton, Jersey City, Montclair, Princeton, Summit, and surrounding communities—as well as individuals statewide through secure telehealth.
Our Core Specialties
Our work is grounded in the belief that sexuality and identity are deeply connected. As an AASECT-certified sex therapy practice, we provide specialized, evidence-based care for conversations that are often misunderstood or left out of traditional therapy spaces altogether. We specialize in three primary areas:
Certified Sex Therapy & Intimacy: Navigating changes in desire, painful sex, sexual trauma, out-of-control sexual behaviors, and rebuilding intimacy after medical crises or relationship shifts.
Body Image & Somatic Healing: Working through the complex relationship between your mind and body, addressing body dysmorphia, chronic illness impacts, reproductive trauma, and learning to feel safe in your own skin.
Life Transitions & Identity Exploration: Supporting you through major identity shifts, including LGBTQ+ navigation, parenthood, relationship restructuring, or simply untangling who you are from who everyone else expects you to be.
A Relational, Nonjudgmental Approach
Our approach is relational and deeply nonjudgmental. We don't utilize a rigid, one-size-fits-all framework. Instead, we are here to create a safe, steady space for the parts of you that currently feel uncertain, disconnected, or just difficult to name.
Whether you are looking for an in-person connection in your local community or prefer the flexibility of statewide virtual care, we are here to help you navigate your next chapter.
You’re here because something in your life — or within yourself — has shifted.
And you’re ready to reconnect with yourself, your desires, and your relationships — and understand what it means for moving forward.
You’re at a crossroads. Health or life transitions can slowly pull you away from yourself, leaving you disconnected from your body, your desires and your identity. Maybe there’s a loneliness you haven’t known how to name. Intimacy may feel vulnerable or overwhelming. Desire can feel muted, arousal inconsistent or shame close by. You might prioritize others or say yes when you mean maybe. Perhaps you’re navigating LGBTQ, cultural or faith expectations, feeling torn between different parts of yourself. You want to feel like yourself again—comfortable, grounded and at home in your own skin. This is all deeply human—and I can help.
Founder of the Center for Identity & Sex Therapy, I’m a certified sex therapist who supports adults navigating health, cross-cultural and life transitions that can impact identity, sexuality, body image and intimacy. Using my ALIGN framework, I offer a grounded space to share the unsaid—to hold what hurts, ease anxiety, and make sense of who you’re becoming.
You’re not alone. I’ll walk alongside you as you reconnect with your body, restore intimacy on your own terms, and feel more at home within yourself. You are inherently deserving of joy, pleasure, desire, and satisfaction. Healing begins with the freedom to be yourself. Ready to feel like yourself again? Message me here for a complimentary consultation.
Hello,
You can find your way back yourself, even after everything changes. You are not broken. You are becoming. Every part of you is welcome here.
I founded this practice to walk with people through the "in-between"—those profound moments when a shift in your identity, sexuality, body, or relationships means you cannot go back to how things used to feel. We specialize in that exact space where your language hasn't yet caught up to your experience, but you know you have fundamentally changed.
As a feminist healthcare provider, I believe your sexuality is entirely inseparable from your identity. This mission is to help you reclaim the parts of yourself that have been silenced, shamed, or left behind by life transitions, illness, trauma, and cultural expectations.
I built this practice to offer rare, expert-level care rooted in the exact AASECT-certified sex therapy standards and clinical social work principles I have practiced throughout my career. Using my signature ALIGN Framework and my EMPOWER Your Sexual Health® curriculum, the practice combines evidence-based sex therapy with somatic, humanistic, and meaning-centered approaches to reconnect you with your desire, identity, and sense of self.
The practice’s style is warm, collaborative, and thoughtfully direct. Let’s make space for the complexity of your experience and build a life that feels aligned, embodied, and authentically your own.
Warmly,
Genevieve Marie Gellert, MSW, LCSW, CST (she/her)
Founder, The Center for Identity and Sex Therapy
The 25 Unspoken Realities of Sex, Identity, & Invisible Loss Traditional Therapy Overlooks
Because “anxiety” and “depression” don't even scratch the surface of what you’re actually going through.
Bespoke, expert-level care for the sexual complexities, disorders, dynamics, and desires we rarely name.
AASECT-Certified sex therapyReclaiming comfort, confidence, and connection when your relationship with yourself or identity shifts.
body image, IDENTITY, & intimacyHolding space for the silent, complicated, and invisible heartbreaks traditional talk therapy overlooks.
grief & loss Sex Therapy in New Jersey
Sex therapy is a specialized form of psychotherapy focused on sexual wellbeing, intimacy, relationships, desire, and the emotional experiences connected to sexuality. The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy is grounded in the standards of the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT), the leading certifying body for sex therapy professionals. Founder Genevieve Gellert, MSW, LCSW, CST is one of fewer than 900 licensed clinical social workers worldwide who are also AASECT-certified sex therapists.Clients throughout New Jersey often seek sex therapy for concerns such as:
Changes in sexual desire or mismatched libido in relationships
Difficulty with arousal or orgasm
Identity shifts related to gender, parenthood, relationships, or major life transitions
Pain during intimacy or disconnection from sexual experience
Relationship conflict related to intimacy or communication
Rebuilding trust and connection after rupture or distance
Reproductive health concerns impacting identity, sexuality, or relationships
Sexual anxiety, shame, or avoidance
Trauma and the impact of past experiences on intimacy, identity, or connection
Our work is collaborative, nonjudgmental, and paced according to your comfort level. We focus on helping you better understand your experiences—not pathologize them.
Body Image & Intimacy Therapy in New Jersey
Your relationship with your body can shape the way you experience intimacy, desire, confidence, and emotional connection. When you feel disconnected from your body—or at war with it—it can become difficult to fully relax, feel present, or allow yourself to be seen.
You may find yourself bracing during intimacy, avoiding mirrors or touch, overanalyzing how your body looks instead of noticing how you feel, or carrying a constant undercurrent of shame, self-consciousness, or tension. Sometimes the body begins to feel unfamiliar after illness, trauma, weight changes, parenthood, aging, eating disorder recovery, cancer, hormonal shifts, or major life transitions.
Over time, this disconnection can impact relationships, sexuality, self-esteem, and the ability to experience closeness without fear, performance pressure, or self-monitoring.
Therapy can help you rebuild a more compassionate, grounded, and trusting relationship with your body—one that allows for greater connection, presence, and ease. We work with clients across New Jersey experiencing:
Anxiety during intimacy
Body dysmorphia and distress related to appearance, self-perception, or being seen by others
Body shame or self-consciousness in relationships
Difficulty feeling present or grounded in the body
Disconnection from physical or emotional experience
Eating disorder recovery and rebuilding trust, safety, and connection with the body
Navigating body changes related to pregnancy, illness, cancer, disability, hormonal shifts, surgery, or other major health experiences
Pressure to perform or meet expectations around intimacy, appearance, or sexuality
Questions or emotional complexity related to GLP-1 medication use, weight changes, identity, body image, or shifting relationships with food and self-image
Our approach supports building a more compassionate and grounded relationship with yourself.
LGBTQ+ Affirming Therapy in New Jersey
We provide LGBTQ+ affirming therapy for individuals, couples, and relationships throughout Clifton and New Jersey.
At The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy, we understand that exploring your identity isn't always a single moment of coming out. More often, it's an ongoing process of becoming—one that can reshape your relationships, your body, your sexuality, your sense of belonging, and the way you move through the world.
Many LGBTQ+ clients come to therapy carrying the quiet exhaustion of having spent years adapting to environments that weren't built with them in mind. You may have learned to monitor how you speak, dress, express affection, or talk about your relationships. You may have become fluent in anticipating other people's reactions before fully checking in with your own.
Sometimes identity feels expansive and liberating.
Other times, it can feel disorienting.
You may be navigating a later-in-life coming out, questioning your sexual orientation or gender identity, exploring gender expression, grieving relationships that changed after coming out, or trying to understand how your identity intersects with culture, religion, family expectations, disability, or neurodivergence. You may find yourself wondering where you belong—or how to build a life that feels authentically yours.
For others, the challenges are less visible. Shame that lives in the body. Difficulty relaxing during intimacy. Fear of rejection. Minority stress. Family estrangement. Internalized messages that continue to shape self-worth long after you've stopped believing them intellectually.
Our work creates space for the full complexity of identity, sexuality, gender, relationships, and embodiment—without assumptions, labels, or pressure to have everything figured out.
We support clients throughout New Jersey who are exploring:
Sexual orientation and identity exploration
Gender identity, gender expression, and gender-affirming care
Gender-affirming surgery assessment letters
LGBTQ+ relationships, dating, and diverse relationship structures
Coming out, identity development, and life transitions
Minority stress, identity-based anxiety, and experiences of discrimination
Family, cultural, or religious conflicts related to identity
Body image, intimacy, and sexuality across the LGBTQ+ spectrum
Our approach is identity-informed, trauma-informed, and deeply affirming. Whether you're questioning, transitioning, grieving, celebrating, or simply trying to understand yourself more fully, therapy offers a space where every part of your identity is welcomed with curiosity, respect, and compassion—not because it needs to be explained or defended, but because it deserves to be understood
ALL PARTS OF YOU ARE WELCOME HERE:
A Safe, Specialized Space for Complex Conversations
Topics related to sexuality, identity, and intimacy can feel difficult to talk about—even in therapy.
Our work is designed to support clients who want a space that feels:
Specialized rather than general
Informed by sexuality-focused training
Respectful of identity and lived experience
Grounded in clinical care without judgment or assumptions
We understand that these conversations require trust, care, and nuance.
Virtual therapy that moves with you.
The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy is based in Clifton, NJ and provides secure online therapy for adults throughout New Jersey. The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy offers secure online sessions, expanding access to care without the barriers of commutes, waiting rooms, or rigid schedules. Virtual therapy ensures more equitable access — especially for clients who are immunocompromised, managing chronic illness or disability, balancing caregiving, relocating for work, or living between homes.
Meet from wherever feels safest and most supportive — at home, in a private office, or even outdoors on a walk if movement helps regulate overwhelm. The work meets you where you are — literally.
The Center for Identity & Sex Therapy provides inclusive, queer-affirming sex therapy and identity-focused counseling for adults. Our work is grounded in diversity, pride, and social justice, creating a safe, affirming space for clients across sexual orientations, gender identities, and cultural backgrounds.
Grounded in purpose and guided by curiosity, this work is shaped by a deep respect for history, a commitment to social justice, and thoughtful care for complex human experiences.
Curious about our logo or the history of the Pride Flag? Learn more about the values that guide our LGBTQ-affirming therapy practice. Read more.
RECLAIM YOUR StoryBegin Sex Therapy in
New Jersey
If you are looking for sex therapy or identity-focused therapy in New Jersey, we invite you to reach out and learn more about working together.
You do not need to have everything figured out to begin therapy—clarity often develops through the process itself.
Contact The Center for Identity and Sex Therapy to schedule a consultation.
WE PROVIDE THERAPY TO CLIENTS ACROSS NEW JERSEY VIA SECURE TELEHEALTH SESSIONS.
Explore our New Jersey locations:
Clifton, NJ
Cherry Hill, NJ
Jersey City, NJ
Montclair, NJ
Newark, NJ
Princeton, NJ
Ridgewood, NJ
Summit, NJ
All surrounding NJ areas
Contact
When desire changes or identity shifts, intimacy can feel miles away. Stop navigating that untethered feeling alone.
Through online, AASECT-certified sex therapy, we provide a relational, specialized space for adults facing health, cross-cultural, or life transitions that disrupt sexuality and body image. Let's explore what’s evolving.
Ready to begin?
Fill out the contact form below to schedule your complimentary 15-minute consultation to ensure it’s the right match.
Frequently asked questions
Got questions?
We’ve got answers.
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I own a virtual practice, serving all of NJ, NY, PA & FL, while based in Clifton, NJ. I use a HIPAA-secure, AI free video platform, Doxy.me.
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I’m an AASECT-certified sex therapist and one of fewer than 900 LCSWs in the U.S. with this credential. I use my ALIGN Framework, which blends evidence-based therapy with a focus on identity, meaning, and the mind-body connection.
This work isn’t just about resolving a specific concern—it’s about helping you feel more aligned in your sexuality, your relationships, and your sense of self.
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I work with individuals and couples navigating a range of concerns related to sexuality, intimacy, and connection, including:
Low or mismatched desire
Arousal or orgasm difficulties
Pain or discomfort during sex
Body image and confidence challenges
Relationship or communication struggles
Sexual changes connected to stress, health, or life transitions
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Not at all. Many clients come in because something feels off, disconnected, or different—even if they can’t fully explain why. You don’t need a clear label for your experience to be worth exploring.
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No. You’re welcome to come individually or as a couple. Many clients start on their own to build self-awareness, confidence, and clarity, which often supports healthier relationships over time.
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No. While we may talk about sexual experiences, the focus is on the emotional, psychological, and relational patterns that shape your sexuality. This work is about understanding yourself more deeply—not just changing behaviors.
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That’s completely normal. You don’t need the “right” words or to feel fully comfortable to begin. I create a space where you can go at your own pace and talk about things in a way that feels manageable.
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I work from a consistency-first model. Most clients begin with weekly or every-other-week sessions. Monthly sessions are typically used for maintenance after we’ve built a strong foundation.
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I’m in-network with select plans, including Aetna and United. Otherwise, I operate as a private-pay practice. Many clients receive partial reimbursement for out-of-pocket sessions through Thrizer or Mentaya. HSA/FSA and major debit or credit cards are accepted.
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I offer virtual therapy only for clients in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Florida. Virtual work is often the most flexible and consistent option.
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Your first session is a chance for us to connect, talk through what’s bringing you in, and begin identifying your goals. It’s also an opportunity for you to get a feel for my approach and see if it feels like the right fit.
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That depends on your goals and what you’re working through. Some clients experience meaningful shifts in a shorter period, while others benefit from longer-term support.
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This work is best suited for clients who are open to honest reflection and consistent engagement. If you’re looking for quick fixes or a more surface-level approach, this may not feel aligned.
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Yes—I have advanced training and focused specialty areas within sex therapy. If you’re looking for more in-depth information, you can explore my pages on:
AASECT-certified sex therapy
Sexuality and identity during health and life transitions
Body image and intimacy
These go deeper into how I approach specific concerns and who that work is best suited for.
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If you’re ready to feel more connected—to yourself, your body, and your relationships—you can reach out through the contact form. You don’t need to have everything figured out to begin.
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Under federal law, you have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” of the expected cost of services if you are not using insurance or choose to pay out of pocket. I review my fees at the time of consultation, verbally and in writing. This estimate outlines the anticipated cost of therapy based on your individual needs and treatment plan.
You’ll receive a Good Faith Estimate before starting services, and you can request one at any time.
Your rights:
You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency healthcare services, including therapy. If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you have the right to dispute the bill.For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, you can visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises.
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Sex therapy isn’t just for crisis situations—it’s often helpful when something feels off, disconnected, or harder than it used to be, even if you can’t fully explain why.
You might benefit from this work if:
You feel disconnected from your body, desire, or sense of self
Intimacy feels strained, avoidant, or difficult to talk about
You and your partner feel out of sync sexually or emotionally
Changes in your life, health, or identity have impacted your sexuality
You’re wanting a deeper, more intentional relationship with yourself or your partner
You don’t need a clear “problem” or diagnosis to start. Often, it begins with a sense that something isn’t quite aligned—and a desire to feel more connected, confident, and at ease in your sexuality and relationships.