Sex therapy: what's it all about?
Sex therapy was first developed in the 1970s and seeks to recreate the conditions for a happy and fulfilling sexuality.
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Unlike other treatments for sexual dysfunction, such as drugs, surgery, psychotherapy or couple’s counselling, which can be provided by a variety of health professionals, sex therapy is always performed by specialised sexologists, and is also known as psychosexual therapy.
What does sex therapy refer to?
Sex therapy is a therapeutic approach to sexual disorders designed by William Masters and Virginia Johnson almost 40 years ago. At the time, Masters and Johnson recommended that two sexologists, a male and a female, set about treating the couple experiencing sexual problems.
Nowadays, for practical reasons, few sexologists work in these circumstances. Instances where this is actually the case, though, are referred to as “couple co-therapy”. Couples undergoing sex therapy would generally perform sexual experiments at home, as well as discussing their sexual life with their sexologist(s).
Sexual experiments
Sexual experiments aim to create or re-create a favourable environment for sexuality by increasing relaxation, eroticism and exchange between a couple. The experiments are tailored to the particular problem faced by the couple, whether it’s erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation or vaginismus for example, and most would appear relatively simple…
However, a couple will sometimes face hurdles, which, rather than being a sign of failure, help them to more accurately pinpoint the blockage experienced by either partner. With the sexologist’s assistance, the couple will be able to overcome the obstacle and, if need be, seek a therapy that’s better adapted to their problem.
An example of sexual experiments offered is sensate focus, which is a sensory concentration exercise. This experiment allows each partner to focus on his or her own body and pay special attention to perceived sensations so as to break out of the vicious circle of failure: sexual defect leads to stress during future sexual intercourse, which in turn breeds more difficulty.
Discussion as part of sexual therapy
Discussion between the couple, facilitated and guided by the sexologist, is the time for reflection on what happened during the experiments and what goes on in the couple’s life in general. Dialogue is established: the therapist and both partners get a chance to express themselves. If everything went well, a new experiment would be perhaps proposed.
In the event of a problem or difficulty, the discussion periods are a great opportunity to better understand it in an attempt to devise new strategies to surmount the obstacle. Identifying and understanding the issue may in some instances suffice to resolve it. In other cases, an adapted sexual experiment will be required to help resolve the situation.
The benefits and the limitations of sex therapy
Sex therapy methods are perfectly suited to the treatment of sexual disorders due to insufficient awareness of sexual physiology or to poor communication in a couple. In cases where sexual dysfunction arises from much deeper unconscious psychological factors, sex therapy isn’t capable of solving everything but can definitely help the couple to better understand one another, to adapt their sexuality or to consider going into a different, more appropriate, sort of psychological therapy.
To get more information about sex therapy in the UK, you can visit the following websites:
- Relate, a marriage/relationship counselling agency that also has some counsellors with psychosexual training
- The Institute of Psychosexual Medicine, a group of family planning doctors who have also trained in sexual problems
Copyright © 2010 Doctissimo
Posted 22.02.2011
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