Hypnotherapy and Sexual Dysfunction
By Shaun Brookhouse, Ph.D., D.C.H., F.H.R.S.

Sexual dysfunction affect both sexes in fairly equal proportions. In some cases the dysfunction has a physiological cause. However, in many cases the cause of the dysfunction is psychological. In the case of the latter, hypnotherapy can be a very effective treatment. The following case is an example of the latter and how Hypnotherapy managed to break through the blockage of the unconscious mind to eradicate a very profound case of sexual dysfunction. To protect the identity of the client, who has given me permission to write this article about her condition I have changed her name to Janet.

Janet came to me suffering from what she called frigidity. She had been with her partner for a number of years and had enjoyed a very active sex life. However, shortly before coming to see me she had lost all sexual feeling for her partner. In fact, she had begun to feel a kind of growing resentment towards her partner. When she came to me she continued to profess her love for him, yet she had reached the stage where she could not even bear to have him touch her. Her G.P. suggested that she might be going through the menopause, however she seemed too young for this to occur. Janet believed that the reason for her change towards her partner was somehow deep within her subconscious, and she thought that hypnotherapy could access the reason for this change and resolve it.

I began her first session, by taking her case history. From the information she gave me, it appeared that she had enjoyed a varied and full sex life throughout her adult life. She had no inhibitions about talking about sex and the things that she found sexually attractive about her partner. Janet continued to say throughout the first session that she wanted to make love to her partner, but when it came down to it she found herself physically unable to, and in some cases she found her partner physically repulsive. Towards the end of the first session, she expressed the desire to experience hypnosis, as she had never been hypnotised before. I did what is known as a progressive relaxation programme with her. 

This type of induction takes each part of the body in turn and gives suggestions that it relaxes completely. Even though she had never been hypnotised before, she went very deeply into trance. This first part of her treatment lasted for approximately 45 minutes. She had enjoyed the hypnosis very much, so she made an appointment for the same time the following week.

She was very enthusiastic about hypnosis the following week. Janet wanted to start right away. She reported that there had been no change in her condition with regards to her partner, but she was finding it easier to sleep now. I then asked her why she had not mentioned the fact that she had not been sleeping well. Janet said that she did not think that it was important. We started the hypnotherapy session by doing a regression (taking the client back into her memory). I usually would not have done this, but I was convinced that her sexual dysfunction was rooted in the past and not in the present. I gave the suggestion that as I counted her back from her present age that each year of her life in which there was a significant trauma her right index finger would rise.

I began counting her down from 35 years old. We got passed the first 10 years with no finger signals. As I continued to count we got down to age 21 years old and her index finger stuck straight up, and she began to cry inconsolably. I assured her that she was quite safe and that whatever she was recalling could not hurt her. She managed to calm down and while still in the trance, I asked her to describe what she had experienced. 
Janet started by saying that she was in the dormitory of a friend of hers. The hallway was not very well lit. As she walked she felt as though someone was following her. No sooner did she feel this when she was grabbed from behind and forced into a room where she was sexually assaulted.

She began to scream and cry again at this point, so I brought her out of trance and consoled her. After a few moments I asked her if she could describe anything about the assault. She replied that she could hardly remember it. We agreed that we would meet again the following day to get more information about what had happened. When she arrived the next day she was visibly apprehensive. Janet told me that she was not sure that she wanted to experience this again. Understanding this, I tried a different hypnotic approach. When I hypnotised her this time I had her visualise that she was in a cinema. There were no other people there, it was a private screening. The movie that was playing was the scenario that she had experienced the day before.
I emphasised that she could control the film by making it go faster or slower or even stop it all together.

While the film played I asked her if she could describe to me what she could see. Janet said almost exactly what she described the day before. 
I asked her to visualise only the scenery of the movie and ignore the characters. 
Her description of the location was so clear that I could easily imagine it myself. I asked about the scenery because I had a hunch that it had some part to play in her dysfunction. Everything that she had described came to life and when she began to describe the room where the assault occurred she said "My Room!!!". I was naturally concerned about this because she told me the day before that she was visiting a friend in this building and her dorm room was in another building. I asked her to 
describe the room she was in. She talked about the mess it was in, the posters on the wall even the colour of the room itself.

After all of this, I roused her and we talked about what she had described. I told Janet that she had said while in hypnosis that the room she was in was her room. She said that it was not her room. So I asked her to describe the room she was living in while at University. To my surprise it did not match the description she had given in trance. I then asked her to describe her bedroom at home now. As she described it she said "It is light blue.....No my partner just repainted it light green". The colour of the room she described in which the assault occurred was also light green. After asking a few more questions I discovered that the sexual dysfunction occurred shortly after the redecoration. I asked her to try making love to her partner in a different room of the house and see if she could do it.

Two days later she called to tell me that she had tried what I suggested and it was like it had been before the problem. We both determined that the reason for her dysfunction was due to the colour change in the bedroom. Janet's partner was, at the time of the call, busy repainting it in another colour. 

As you can see from this case Janet had had a real sexual dysfunction. However, it was brought on by a psychological cue, the colour of the room. Not all cases of psychological sexual dysfunction are so easy to resolve. Also, not all sexual dysfunction is psychological. If you suffer from a for of sexual dysfunction ask for your medical practitioner's opinion as to its cause. If it is psychological, be sure that you consult a properly qualified therapist. When looking for a therapist to assist you with sexual dysfunction, please ensure that the therapist treats the situation with a great deal of kindness and compassion. Remember, therapists are human too and just as some people don't like to discuss sexual topics there are therapists who feel that way as well.