I grew up in a middle class neighborhood of Detroit. Back then it was the proud Motor City and future home of Motown Records. The original recording studio is now a fascinating museum. At an early age I exhibited suspicious therapist-like behaviors. I was extremely curious about myself and others. People frequently confided in me, which I liked. I usually didn't like it, though, when adults asked me for advice.
I was naturally a "good boy"—a mixed blessing, to be sure. On the plus side, I earned a tremendous amount of freedom at an early age. But later on it took a lot of work to get out from under the impossible expectations that go with that role. In school I was something of a teacher's pet. In the seventh grade I a wrote an essay about my teacher for a local radio station and got her the "apple for the teacher" award. I kind of knew I did it as much to get on the radio as out of respect for her.
From Radio to Seminary
In high school I started my own radio station in my basement. I got a Radio Shack short-range transmitter and violated the 10-foot-antenna rule slightly by draping wires back and forth across the rafters of the attic. People up to
a mile away would tune in Friday and Saturday evenings to hear my friends and me play cool songs, interview each other, and do fake commercials. What a blast! (That's me on the right.)
In college at Wayne State University I pursued a dual major in Mass Communications and Psychology. I worked as a DJ at the University radio station and loved it. But one morning I asked myself how I would feel about doing this 10 years down the road. My answer: it would be fun but not very meaningful. I also felt an urge to make some sort of contribution. Having been active in my neighborhood Methodist church and mentored by the wonderful minister there, I enrolled in a theological seminary at Northwestern University and spent four years earning a Master of Divinity degree. The more I studied theology and world religions, the
more I questioned everything I once believed. I didn't mind, though. I threw myself into "pastoral counseling," navigated the politics of a large suburban church, became an activist against the Vietnam War and for civil rights, lived in a commune for a year, and learned crisis intervention on the streets of Birmingham, Alabama. Although the ministry wasn't for me, these were among the best years of my life—filled to the brim with vitality and learning.
Westward Bound
My last winter in Chicago I got very sick during a huge blizzard and realized it was time to move on. After traveling around the country for a couple of months with two friends in a VW Beetle, in 1972 I packed up and drove to San Francisco with hardly any money and only a promise of a place to stay for a short while. Ah, the freedom of youth! My first full-time counseling job was at a small non-profit dedicated to delinquency prevention. There I learned family therapy, play therapy with kids, and how to evaluate and train volunteers. I also entered the most effective therapy of my life. After a few years I had accumulated the required supervised hours to get licensed as a Marriage and Family Therapist. Then the agency lost
its funding. So I took the plunge into private practice, which I've been doing ever since.
Adventures in Sex Therapy
Masters and Johnson had recently published their pioneering book on sex therapy, which seemed so much more open and sensible than anything I had read before. So I trained with several therapists who had studied with them. These were exciting times, but I knew that M&J had only scratched the surface and I was determined to take things further. An unexpected opportunity came when, out of the blue, men and women clients started discussing anal sexuality with me, especially how they were too tense and uncomfortable to enjoy it. A literature check revealed that no serious work had ever been done in this area. In spite of my own embarrassment, I invited them to work with me in finding an approach that might help. Soon I was leading eight-week "Anal Awareness & Relaxation Workshops" to handle the growing demand, as word spread about my work. All the while, I continued doing psychotherapy with all kinds of people and problems, which has always kept me on my toes.
Around the same time, I entered a doctoral program in clinical psychology at Saybrook University. It was a fairly new school founded by humanistic scholars with a willingness to allow students to design their own courses of study. This allowed me to get into sexology and sex therapy in depth. Eventually, I chose to do my dissertation research on the anal awareness process I had developed, with a focus on how to test effectiveness in any therapeutic endeavor. I graduated in 1978, and by 1981 I had transformed my research
into a popular book, Anal Pleasure & Health: A Guide for Men, Women, and Couples,
which has been in print ever since. The new Fourth Edition is now available.
Delving Into Eros
Throughout my studies, I realized that my greatest interests were the mysteries of sexual attraction, desire, and arousal—where they come from, what they mean, how they work, and why they can sometimes be as difficult and painful as they are compelling and joyful. As I presented my evolving theories and challenging cases to professional groups, I eagerly accepted clients with complicated erotic conflicts and struggles. These amazing men and women gave me access to their innermost desires and secrets. I decided to supplement this work with a detailed survey asking people to anonymously describe their most exciting and fulfilling erotic experiences and fantasies. Out of the interplay of problems and peaks, I developed a "paradoxical" view of the erotic adventure. After getting bogged down in years of data analysis and a horrible case of writer's block, The Erotic Mind was published in 1995.
My clinical work still stimulates and fulfills me, and even keeps growing and deepening. I also love teaching, which I've done continuously since the late 70s. In addition to my professional presentations and trainings, I've taught Human Sexuality at the community college level for many years. I'm now on the faculty of The Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality (IASHS) , and have been a professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) since 1996.
I'm extraordinarily lucky to have found two great passions in life besides my family, friends,
and romantic loves: psychotherapy and teaching. Who could ask for more? But there has been more. Ever since I became mesmerized by photography in my dad's darkroom at age 10, I've been enlivened by seeing and creating images. Although this passion often had to take a back seat to my other pursuits, I've found an active place for it in the last decade. You can see my work at www.jackmorinphotography.com.
