Dr. Anthony Hughes

I am a licensed marriage and family therapist and an AASECT certified sex therapist. I earned my PhD in marriage and family therapy at Brigham Young University with an emphasis in sex therapy, and I have practiced since 2013. I founded Covenant Sex Therapy in 2014, and it has grown into a team of licensed therapists with offices in Provo and Pleasant Grove and telehealth across Utah. I see individuals and couples for concerns with desire, arousal, orgasm, sexual pain, satisfaction, and sexual behavior that feels out of control.

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How I work

​​Most people who come to me have waited years, and they are relieved to finally sit with someone who talks about sex plainly. I start by understanding the whole picture: your health and body, your history, what happens between you and your partner, what you learned growing up, and what your faith and values mean to you. Sexual problems usually have more than one cause, and treating only one of them is why people stay stuck.

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I am direct. I will tell you what the research supports, what it does not, and what I think is going on. I will also give you something to practice between sessions, because sex therapy mostly happens at home, not in my office.

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What I treat

​Low sexual desire and differences in desire between partners. Arousal difficulty and erectile concerns. Difficulty reaching orgasm, and premature or delayed ejaculation. Painful sex. Pornography use and sexual behavior that feels out of control. Betrayal and affair recovery. Sexual shame, anxiety, and religious guilt about sex. The effects of sexual abuse and trauma. I also work with couples where nothing is technically wrong and they simply want a better sexual relationship.

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Training and credentials

​PhD in Marriage and Family Therapy, Brigham Young University, 2013, with an emphasis in sex therapy. My dissertation followed married couples at midlife over five years, studying couple attachment and sexual desire discrepancy.

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Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in Utah since 2013.

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AASECT Certified Sex Therapist since 2017. Certification required 300 hours of supervised sex therapy, 90 hours of human sexuality education, 60 hours of sex therapy training, a sexual attitude reassessment, and 50 hours of supervision. It is training well beyond a standard therapy license.

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AAMFT Approved Supervisor since 2015.

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Additional training includes Gottman Method Level One, an Emotionally Focused Therapy externship with TRI EFT, narrative therapy at Michael White's Dulwich Centre in Adelaide, Australia, and EMDR basic training with consultation hours.

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Over the course of my career I have also used EMDR and neurofeedback in my clinical work, particularly with trauma and anxiety. My practice now centers on sex therapy, and I draw on that broader training where it fits the person in front of me.

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Teaching and research

​I taught in the marriage and family therapy graduate program at Brigham Young University from 2016 to 2022, including Analysis and Treatment of Sexual Development, the course that prepares BYU's therapists in training for sexual concerns, and Advanced Clinical Specialization for doctoral students. I also taught human sexuality and couple and family practice in BYU's graduate social work program, human sexuality to graduate therapy students at Argosy University from 2015 to 2018, and family science courses at Utah Valley University.

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My research has focused on couple attachment, sexual desire discrepancy, and sexual satisfaction. I have published on treating more than one sexual dysfunction at a time, sex therapy with couples facing infertility, sexuality in later life, and treatment following sexual abuse. Therapists across the region still reach out to me for consultation on their most complex cases.

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Writing and speaking​​

​I wrote You, Me, and We, a practical guide to marital intimacy published by Cedar Fort, and I host the Covenant Sex Podcast. I have taught the principles of systemic sex therapy to medical residents at Intermountain Healthcare's Merrill Gappmayer Family Medicine Center, and I was an invited presenter at Clinical Conversations at the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, where I taught how to work with couples facing pornography concerns from a healthy sexuality perspective.

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A note on my book

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I wrote You, Me, and We in 2017, and my thinking has kept growing with the research. Three things I would say differently today.

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I would not describe sex in marriage as a duty. Research consistently finds that sex driven by obligation or pressure lowers desire and satisfaction over time, while sex freely chosen out of care for a spouse raises both (Impett, Peplau, and Gable, 2005; Muise and colleagues, 2013). The difference is not whether you give to your spouse. It is whether you are giving or complying.

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I would say much less about fixed differences between men and women. Desire varies enormously within each sex, and the variation inside a group is larger than the average difference between groups.

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I would not suggest a target frequency for sex. Couples who have sex about once a week report higher well-being than couples who have it less, but the benefit levels off after that, and more is not better (Muise, Schoenfeld, and Impett, 2016). A number on a calendar turns intimacy into a performance standard.

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The heart of the book, building closeness, safety, and pleasure together, still holds.

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Faith and values

​I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I have spent more than a decade helping Latter-day Saint individuals and couples with sexual concerns. You will not have to explain your beliefs from scratch, and you will not be asked to set them aside. I also work with clients of every background and belief, and everyone is welcome here.

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Starting with me

​You do not need the right words yet, and you do not need a diagnosis. Fill out the contact form and tell me a little about what is going on. We usually reply within one business day.

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