Hi all. It can be so hard to communicate effectively with your spouse at times. I found this especially difficult while going through vaginismus and I know we both could’ve benefited from couples counseling.
In an excellent post, Joe Winn, MSW, LICSW, CST http://www.josephwinnlicsw.com shared some great tips to get the ball rolling with communicating and also some great resources for finding for finding professionals who specialize in the treatment of sexual pain issues.
Specifically, he writes:
“Be prepared to share the following information with your partner; 1) where specifically the pain is located on, or in, your body, 2) the experience of the pain, e.g., burning, sharp, dull, stabbing, etc., and 3) the pains intensity level, e.g., on a scale ranging from one to five, where one is no pain and five represents excruciating pain, what level of do you experience during sex. Share with your partner how you feel this pain has impacted your sense of self and sexuality and ask how the absence of sex has impacted your partners’ sense of self and sexuality; discuss how the sexual pain has impacted your shared experience as a couple. This will also help both of you to begin working together to address the problem and can, for many couples, create a collaborative effort to begin looking for ways to address the problem together. There are many professionals who specialize in the treatment of sexual pain issues. Two resources that can be helpful in locating professional assistance in treating sexual pain issues are The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists, or AASECT, and The Society for Sex Therapy and Research. These organizations provide people with access to therapists who have extensive training and experience in treating a variety of sexuality difficulties, including sexual pain issues. There are multiple options to treat sexual pain issues that range from psychotherapy, behavioral exercises, mind body approaches, state of the art medical interventions, to integrated modalities that involve all of these approaches. There is no need to suffer the agony of sexual pain. Help is available for both of you”
What ways have you found effective to communicate with your significant other about sexual pain or in general???
