Home / About Shira
A place for the
honest version.
The version where you love each other, feel stuck, and don’t yet know how to say what you need.
I’m Shira Hearn.
I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist, and my work is with couples. Intimacy Joplin brings a focused part of that work into view: the conversations about sex, desire, and closeness that can be difficult to have anywhere else.
You may have tried talking about it many times. You may barely have said it out loud. Either way, you do not need to arrive with a polished explanation.
Education & training
I earned my M.S. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2016, following my B.S. in Information Technology and Psychology from Southern New Hampshire University in 2014.
I completed an AASECT Sexual Attitude Reassessment (SAR) training on May 11, 2026. My University of Michigan sex therapy program is in progress. I am not AASECT certified.
The relationship is part of the conversation.
My approach draws on Emotionally Focused Therapy. We pay attention to what happens between you when something feels tender or threatening: reaching harder, pulling back, getting angry, going quiet.
In sex therapy, that means making room for both the concern itself and the meaning it holds for each of you. We can talk plainly about desire, pain, worry, and the ways you have learned to protect yourselves.
Your values belong in the room.
You bring your own history, beliefs, and hopes for your relationship. We can include faith if you want it to be part of the work. You do not have to share a particular belief system to start.
Intimacy Joplin & RRT.
I also practice through Radical Relationship Transformation. Intimacy Joplin is the focused home for sex-and-intimacy work with couples. Broader relationship concerns can be part of that conversation, and we can discuss the best fit for what brings you in.
Appointments are in person at my Webb City office, serving the Joplin area. Both partners attend.
Shira Hearn, LMFT
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Missouri license #2022045023
Shira Hearn, LMFT
Portrait coming soon
Shira Hearn, LMFT · Webb City, Missouri
A DIFFERENT CONVERSATION