What happens in therapy?

First of all, you can expect to be talking explicitly and in detail about sex. One cannot solve sexual problems by talking around them. Neither can one gain new sexual information unless clear instruction is given.

Second, you might expect to be offered the opportunity to add to your knowledge by reading selected books and/or viewing clinical films designed specifically for use in sex therapy. You should not, however, do anything, which you do not understand, and you must reserve, for yourself the right to question the purpose of an assignment. It is your right to decline or postpone acting in the suggestions of your therapist, rather than allowing yourself to be pushed into behaviour, which might actually increase your discomfort.

Every assignment, task, or experience presented by the therapist should fit into an understandable and acceptable treatment plan – and you have the right to question the procedures.

Third, you should expect sex therapist to be non-judgemental and to portray their own comfort in giving and receiving sexual information. While you might expect to be challenged and confronted on important issues, you should also expect to experience a respectful attitude toward those . . .

Fourth, unless your therapist is a licensed HCP wishing to conduct a physical examination, you should not expect to be asked to disrobe in the presence of your therapist. Sexual contact between client and therapist is considered unethical and is destructive to be therapeutic relationship. Neither should you expect to be required to perform sexually with your partner in the presence of your therapist.

Overt sexual activities just should not occur in your therapist’s presence, even though the talk, material and the assignments must, by the nature of the problem, be specially sexual and at times blunt and explicit.

Finally, you should feel that you are heard and adequately represented in your sexual therapy. That is, you should not feel that you have been stereotyped as “female” as “gay” as “too old” or in any other way that interferes with your sense of uniqueness within the therapeutic setting.

You should feel that you are being treated as an individual, not as a category!

Sex therapy is by its nature a very sensitive treatment modality and by necessity must include respect for the client’s values. It must be non-sexist, with recognition of the equal rights of man and woman to full expression and enjoyment of healthy sexual relationships.