Reflection on sexual dysfunction treatment books and counselor applications

Sexuality Treatment

The author of this response was asked to review two books regarding sexual function, dysfunction and treatment and answer to four specific questions. The first question asks the author to ask what topic surprises the most. The second question asks what question was the easiest to learn about. The third asks what topic made the author uncomfortable and the fourth asked for two specific points of learning that can be used and applied as a counselor by the author of this report.

Questions Answered

The topic that surprised the author the most was the chapter in the Long book that talked about goal setting and treatment planning. The author perhaps thinks that being so clinical and formal about that topic is perhaps being a little too involved and over-thorough because the topic at hand is not all that complicated. People certainly make it complicated but it's not usually that hard to boil things down and put the cards out on the table. To that end, a counselor would be useful but over-complicating the process is probably more trouble than it's worth a lot of the time.

The easiest chapter to go through was the third chapter in the Sexual Dysfunction book, which is in reference to sexual arousal disorders. The chapter is great because it doesn't stay in the terminology ether and uses the terms that are more common in today's society which aids in the feeling that there is not a huge disconnect between the clinicians that treat sexual arousal disorders and the patients. This disconnect perhaps explains a lot of why many people delay or avoid treatment for sexual arousal disorders altogether and this book's third chapter would aid in tamping down some of those concerns, even if the audience of this book would mostly be counselors and people that are in school for the field.

As for what made the author of this report uncomfortable, the author would point to chapter 7 of the Sexual Dysfunctions book, which relates to psychosocial approaches to treatments. The material itself is not the issue but there is a lot of different problems and approaches being thrown at the reader and there is certainly a lot to take in. It perhaps just will take some getting used to and things will ease as the author of this report becomes more involved and accustomed to the commonalities and trends that will avail themselves from patient to patient, but it is a little daunting at the moment.

Conclusion

In closing, there are a lot of misconceptions and static that counselors have to sort through. This is true in a clinical setting but the same is also true with broader culture. The two texts make clear that keeping informed and up-to-date is vital and so is keeping an open mind about each person being treated rather than typecasting people or otherwise assuming what is really going on and why before any verification or assessments have been made. These two texts make it clear that the mark of any good counselor is diligence, exquisite attention to detail and an unbiased approach that does not assign any broad assumptions (or even specific ones) based on race, gender ethnicity, age or other attribute to which an assumption or stereotype could be assigned.