Sex Therapy or Psychosexual Therapy

Problems with sex come about for a variety of reasons. For some people it is as the result of an organic illness or disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular problems or MS. It might have been as the result of having had physical trauma to the brain and/or spine. It may be due to having had a failure in your sexual responsiveness for some reason and this becoming entrenched by subsequent anxieties about further failures. What is clear however, is that people in the above situations continue to feel sexual or who like to feel that way again because our sexuality is a bit part of who we are as people.

Sex and disability

However, when it comes to sex and disability this is one area where people are most likely to feel marginalised. Most of the time what is required is not so much sex therapy (although it is required in some cases) as much as advocacy, information and signposting. One resource that is worth following up is the organisation Outsiders www.outsiders.org.uk as they campaign for the acceptance of people living with disabilities as sexual partners and run a self-help club to help people with physical and social disabilities find love.

Sex therapy

For people who do require psychosexual therapy then the treatment that I offer is holistic sex therapy that draws its strength from cognitive behavioural approaches to sexual therapy, education to the clients about sexual functioning and homework assignments.

I have a speciality with clients and their partners who are living with a physical disability or acquired brain injury and who are experiencing difficulties in relation to sex and sexuality.However, I will signpost disabled clients to other resources if it seems that psychosexual therapy is not really the approach that is best going to meet their needs.

Sex and sexuality in rehabilitation

I have found that this side of a person's function or activity of daily living is not always addressed as fully as it might be during rehabilitation programmes. I think the following quotation probably captures this quite well:

“If the goal of rehabilitation is to restore the injured person as fully as possible, this must apply to sexuality as well…. It is just as important to address components of sexuality as it is to address aspects of mobility, self-care and vocational re-entry.” Kreuter et al 1998

Further information about psychosexual therapy can be found at www.basrt.org.uk