Psychosexual Therapy

Psychosexual therapy aims to help you to improve the physical intimacy between you and your partner and to overcome or manage any sexual difficulties that you might be having.

Sexual difficulties can have many causes, and they can be physical, psychological, emotional, or situational in origin. For example, sexual difficulties might be caused by depression or anxiety, or by illness, surgery, or medications.

If you think the cause may be physical, then visiting your GP should be your first step. Sometimes your GP might be able to help by, for example, trying different medications. However, if they aren’t able to help, they may recommend that you try psychosexual therapy.

Psychosexual therapy can be one-to-one with the therapist, or you and your partner might both want to attend.

Psychosexual therapy can help with:

• a lack of sexual desire
• difficulty in getting or maintaining an erection
• premature ejaculation or other ejaculation problems
• difficulty climaxing
• pain during sex
• being unable to have penetrative sex

Sex can be tied up with emotions and relationship dynamics, so you may explore more topics with your therapist than just sex, however, the content of the sessions will depend on what you are seeking help for. Your therapist will likely advise you to try certain exercises outside of the sessions which you can then reflect on in future sessions.

In the UK, practising psychosexual therapists should be trained with a minimum of two years in a post-graduate diploma in psychosexual therapy, including a minimum of 200 supervised clinical hours.

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