What we do

The approach

The interaction between your body and your brain is impossible to separate, especially with sexual response. For example, if you feel frightened, which is a ‘cognitive’ (brain) response to danger, your body will respond with increasing your heart rate/breathing in preparation to respond to that danger (fight or flight response). Sexual response works in the same way and physical arousal (such as erections or feeling desire) are highly affected by distraction and the content of our thoughts. Equally no amount of arousal or sexual focus might work if there is an underlying physical problem.

Our entire service is based on the ‘biopsychosocial model’ of sexual difficulties, which is widely known to be the most effective way to understand and treat sexual problems. This means that our doctors are trained in the psychological aspects of sexual problems and our psychologists are trained in the medical. This reduces the likelihood of us missing something crucial, but more importantly means we can be sure we’re offering you the most effective treatment.

The psychologists in our team work using a combination of evidence based approaches which are known to work in sexual problems such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Systemic Therapy and Sex Therapy Techniques. We would be happy to talk more with you about these approaches when you meet with us, and we welcome your feedback about how these approaches fit for you.