International Handbook of Clinical Hypnosis - E-Lib FK UWKS

TREATMENT OF SEXUAL DYSFUNCTIONS 237
HYPNOTIC ABSORPTION IN FANTASY, INCLUDING SEXUAL
FANTASY, CAUSES THE FANTASY TO BE RESPONDED TO AS
REALITY
A great advantage of the use of hypnosis is that the sexual suggestions or fantasies
created either by direct suggestion or indirectly by metaphor are responded to as
though they were reality. As well as distracting the patient from negative self talk,
this provides for effective sexual desensitization, sexual rehearsal of successful
sexual functioning and attitude change.
Additionally the malleability of fantasy in the hypnotic state can result in shifting
sexual arousal, from response to some unacceptable fetish) fantasy, towards an
acceptable fantasy. This reorientation towards a more appropriate sexual context
can occur with the patient using fantasy in conjunction with sexual intimacy or in
masturbatory changes in sexual focus, as suggested by Marquis 1970).
ABSORPTION IN PLEASURABLE SENSATIONS
Dissociation into sexual involvement rather than away from it can be used to
heighten arousal and defeat affective and cognitive distractions. The use of the
hypnotic focus and suggestion to encourage ampli®cation of sexual arousal,
through intense focusing on sexually pleasurable sensations, heightens sexual
involvement, particularly in those disorders that require increased sexual arousal,
such as the hypoactive sexual desire disorders, erectile dif®culties, dyspareunia
when due to inadequate arousal), female orgasmic disorders and retarded ejaculation.
REINTERPRETATIONS OF PAST EXPERIENCES AND FANTASIES
Through the use of direct suggestion and metaphor past experiences may be
reinterpreted and past problematic sexual fantasies changed. Fetish-based focuses
may be shifted through such a process of reinterpretation, for example injurydominated
masochistic sexual fantasies may be reinterpreted progressively into
a self-nurturing fantasy. Guilt over past sexual events may be lessened as the reinterpretation
of the patient's part in former events is modi®ed. Separation of the
healthy and acceptable component of past experiences from the unacceptable and
unhealthy aspects can be achieved through reinterpretation.
DISTANCING FROM PAST EXPERIENCES
Using the techniques most commonly applied to dealing with traumatic experiences,
patients can come to distance themselves from their past, and thereby the
contemporary situation is not seen as an extension of that former disturbing
experience. Theatre and television techniques and metaphors relating into the