Sexual life can be a complicated and highly complex part of human existence and as such, problems that relate to this part of our lives can arise seemingly without meaning or explanation and can cause many difficulties not only personally but also between couples as well.
Sometimes the problem of a lack of sexual desire can be a complicated interplay of not only personal forces and conflict in your own psyche but also relationship factors in-between two people that can create difficulties in enjoying your sexual life.
In some situations, a partner’s addiction to pornography can attenuate the desire for sexual relations and create disharmony in the relationship. In some other situations, past traumas can make the pursuit of sexual satisfaction and act of sex a very difficult prospect.
In this short article, we will look at some of the ways in which sex and sexual arousal can become problematic and how counselling and psychotherapy can help.
Aversion to Sexual Arousal
The excitement and emotions that can get produced in the body, whether through the thoughts of sexual fantasies, the act of foreplay or of sexual desire, can produce an emotional reaction that can be very unpleasant and will be avoided at all costs.
Intense feelings of anxiety and panic can be so overwhelming that the individual will avoid any thoughts, sounds or images that may produce a feeling of sexual desire or arousal in the body. Other common emotions that are avoided are the powerful feelings of disgust or guilt at the thought of sex or in the actual act of foreplay, being touched or kissed or the sex act itself. The aversion of these overwhelming feelings and thoughts that can get produced by sexual excitement are enough for the person to avoid all things related to sex and can sometimes create immense suffering and conflict in the mind and body of the individual.
The Lack of Sexual Desire
The lack of sexual desire or hypoactive sexual desire means that an individual has little or no interest in any type of sexual activity, whether in their fantasy life or reality. This can be a common complaint between couples where one partner has a desire for more sexual contact than the other and this can create disharmony and suspicion in a relationship. Although each individual and their relationship to sex must be understood on an individual basis, sometimes this can be related to other concerns and may not strictly be due to a lack of sexual drive.
Premature Ejaculation & Erectile Dysfunction
With sexual problems related to erectile dysfunction, the difficulty doesn’t relate to the issue of sexual desire or avoiding sexual fantasies or thoughts but achieving and maintaining an erection during sexual intercourse and sometimes, although not as common, during masturbation. This is the same for premature ejaculation, where the issues isn’t the avoidance of sexual feelings but that the ejaculation occurs before the man and his partner want it to. Both of these problems can cause distress for both the individual and their partner. In both these cases, it can be the perceived lack of control around these two issues that can cause both the sufferer and their partner a lot of pain and distress and can create further problems in a relationship and personally if it is not resolved.
If there are no organic issues that maybe the cause of these two difficulties, counselling and psychotherapy can be very helpful to work through the issues that may be causing this to occur and can lead to the cessation of both these problems.
How Counselling & Psychotherapy Can Help
Counselling & Psychotherapy with all of these difficulties can be resolved or greatly diminished through the counselling & psychotherapy process. Whether the problem is very specific and situational in your life or these problems have been over your lifetime, the working through of the conflicts in your life that have played there part in the development of these difficulties can be overcome and you can begin to enjoy your sexual life again.
Sex Counselling Melbourne
Paul Reid – Counselling & Psychotherapy
0420496599
Email: [email protected]
