Brief psychosexual therapy: reflections on the provision of a time-limited therapy service in a sexual health clinic

A person-centred approach to psychosexual therapy: theorizing practice

“…The process directive activities mentioned in our previous article included psychoeducation, mindfulness-based activities (such as body scans) and relaxation exercises (Irwin & Pullen, 2017), but many other forms of 'process direction' may be used in PST, including the use of sensate focus tasks. On one level, these activities may appear completely incompatible with a PCA, crossing the 'dividing line' between the PCA and more 'authoritative' forms of therapy that are grounded in different types of therapeutic relationship (Warner, 2000, p. 34).…”

“…The place occupied by formulation in a PCA to PST is likely to differ to its traditional position in PST process, where sharing and reviewing the formulation acts as a 'bridge' between the assessment and 'treatment' phases of therapy. In our previous article we noted that there was no such specific formulation 'session' in the brief approach to PST we outlined (Irwin & Pullen, 2017), but, as Gillon (2013) notes, this does not preclude the sharing of the formulation if this is done tentatively and when it supports the core conditions of empathy, acceptance and congruence in the therapeutic relationship.…”

“…Recently, we described an approach to delivering brief psychosexual therapy (PST) in a specialist sexual health service that is more closely aligned to a PCA than many traditional models of PST (Irwin & Pullen, 2017). Given that PST tends to be more closely associated with the clinical/medical model, and that some person-centred theorists and practitioners consider time-limited therapy to be fundamentally incompatible with the ethos of the PCA, the emergence of a PCA to PST in this setting might seem surprising.…”