Healthy sexuality: how difficult is it to achieve?

When I came to this country a few years ago, I had the belief that people in England are very much at ease both in communicating and acting on their sexual needs!! Well you see, in the country I come from, men and women do not touch each other until they are married, so when I would see couples kissing on the trains or parks I would be very happy to see this open expression of love and affection (within limits of expression of freedom that does not impinge on others' freedom of course!) which is very healthy if you ask for my opinion.

Little did I know when I started seeing clients with sexual problems, that I will be confronted by so many limiting beliefs and actions that are destroying relationships on such a regular basis. On average, as a Clinical Hypnotherapist I see around three to four men and women with sexual problems every week. Now what do I mean by sexual problems?

It could range from issues like being a survivor of child sexual abuse or aggression and still finding it difficult to allow the partner in the present to touch you; it can be as complex as suffering from retarded ejaculation, vaginismus or frigidity.
I would always ask clients to seek medical advice first and then when it's established that the cause of sexual inhibition is psychological and emotional we will start work, which usually can span over five sessions.

The problems are often undetectable until the person gets intimate with a person that he/she loves and wants to be intimate with at all costs but finds that the sexual interest is just not there. Then starts the roller coaster of guilt, shame, anger and frustration: even if the partner is trying to be understanding and patient it just adds on to the pressures on the suffering person. What does tend to happen is that this issue gradually pales and hangs over their emotional as well as physical ability to sit and cuddle together as well as just laugh together sometimes.
Clients need to understand that these problems, from vaginismus (tightness/pain in the vagina) and frigidity (no sexual urge or desire) to male premature/retarded ejaculation or inability for erection, are common and as normal as problems with any other part of their body. I do know that the social expectations and taboos make the client feel as if they are "not normal" but in my practice it is very normal to meet with these problems.

How does Hypnotherapy help? Well, in hypnotherapy we will help the client access the part of their mind known as the unconscious mind, where all our emotional triggers are lying and change those triggers into constructive ones.Often people with sexual issues feel this conflict between their rational/conscious mind telling them they should be enjoying their closeness with the other person but their unconscious mind is creating tensions and inhibitory thoughts and they get very frustrated by their own split mind.

For example, a woman feels herself tightening up as soon as her husband starts sexual caresses; even if her conscious mind is saying "relax. it is your husband, the man you love and want to be with!" her inner mind, the unconscious mind is creating horrifying images of pain and tension, her body is tense with fear and all she can think of is "I do not like this; it is making me feel as if I am losing control; it makes me feel dirty..." Depending on how that person's unconscious mind has learnt and absorbed those messages/experiences with sexuality in the past, she will react accordingly as soon as her unconscious mind gets triggered with those similar feelings.

Hypnotherapy has been very effective in helping men and women alter their perceptions of themselves and their sexuality thereby helping their body to relax and let go with the result that nature takes its own course: they will react more naturally to the loved one's caresses and be able to enjoy their sexual lives more fully as their unconscious mind is at peace now with their sexual identity!!

I dream of a world where we will be as expressive of our sexual problems, thereby making it easier to seek professional help rather than suffer in silence and guilt feelings of "not normal".

For more information, feel free to contact Amreeta via mail or phone. She is trained as a Psychologist and Clinical Hypnotherapist and sees her client at Zen Shiatsu on Victoria Street, Windsor.

Amreeta Chapman
Clinical Psychologist and Hypnotherapist
www.innerpotential.info