At Center for Sexual Medicine of AF HANOI (CSM HANOI), 100% cases of ‘vaginismus’ syndrome are given psychological counseling during the treatment process to achieve successful results.
First-line management in treating sexual disorders
The Center for Sexual Medicine of AF HANOI has received thousands of patients for examination and treatment of issues related to male and female sexual health, and cases from the LGBT community, especially cases of sexual dysfunction that difficult-to-treat. In particular, psychological counseling combined with drug treatment or combined with sex therapy has brought about many positive results.
Dr. Nguyen Anh Tu – Director of CSM HANOI consults a patient with vaginismus syndrome.
Nguyen Anh Tu MD. – Director of the CSM HANOI said that sexual intercourse is a sensitive issue related to both the physical and mental health of a person. The fear of sharing, fear of going to the doctor and even difficulty in following the doctor’s instructions when doing therapy will also affect the outcome of a case related to sexual disorders.
“In sexual medicine, there are many conditions that after clinical examination, have not yet shown the exact cause, or have been treated with medication or even surgery but have not achieved long-term and optimal results. In these cases, many prestigious medical associations in the world recommend that patients should be consulted psychologically before making a therapy decision,” said Dr. Tu.
Taking the example of sexual dysfunction and the need for psychological consultation at the center, Dr. Tu informed: Vaginismus is the uncontrolled contraction of the vaginal muscles – perineum, leading to the inability to have sexual intercourse, causing anxiety and fear for the patient.
“The important thing in treating vaginismus is to stabilize the patient’s psychology. Along with psychological therapy and practical exercises, it will help patients better understand their bodies as well as their psychological reactions, thereby gradually achieving the goal of treating the patient’s spasm problem,” said Dr. Tu.
According to Dr. Tu, psychological counseling plays an important role in supporting cases where the root cause of the sexual dysfunction is not a physical problem but a mental problem. To achieve effective treatment, the patient herself must comply with the treatment and put his trust in the doctor.
In other cases of male hypogonadism such as erectile dysfunction or ejaculation disorder, despite being treated many times with medication, the couple still cannot achieve orgasm in sexual intercourse, and the relationship between husband and wife gradually turns down over time. When the patient came to the Center for Sexual Medicine of AF HANOI, the doctor explored that the husband had psychological problems due to work stress, and the wife lacked trust in her husband. During the treatment process, the doctor and the psychologist performed couple psychotherapy, learned about the couple’s thoughts, and finally came up with a suitable treatment solution.
LGBT and family psychological counseling
LGBT is a group of people who face many psychological problems because they are under a lot of pressure and discrimination in the social community as well as in their own family relationships, so they need to find a place where they can share and receive psychological counseling to help them overcome difficulties and barriers in life.
Nguyen Quoc Linh. MSc. MD., Hanoi Center for Sexual Medicine, said that some young people in the LGBT community, when having problems and conflicts in their families, come to the center to meet with psychological experts to share their feelings and find solutions. In these cases, psychologists will conduct family counseling, explain to the young person why their parents have that reaction to them, and advise the parents to understand more about their children, recreating the connection so that parents and children can share with each other as much as possible before moving on to the next steps of counseling.
The expert also emphasized that each individual’s aspects on sexual orientation and gender identity are different, which sometimes causes conflicts, so it takes time to share and break down barriers between parents and children.
MSc. Dr. Nguyen Quoc Linh provides psychological counseling for cases in the LGBT community.
Nowadays it can be seen that psychological consultation is not widely a combination with treatment of gender medical problems in our country. Realizing that, the Center for Sexual Medicine – Andrology and Fertility Hospital of Hanoi has established a psychological clinic to facilitate doctors, psychologists and patients in treating difficult-to-talk-about problems and difficult-to-remove psychological barriers.
“Normally, it takes an average of 30 minutes to 1 hour for patients to confide in the problems they are facing, then communicating to the patient to resolve those problems also takes a similar amount of time. That is why we separate psychological counseling from gender medical examination to create a private space, to understand the patient’s story accurately, from which the doctor and therapist can come up with the best solution” – Dr. Tu shared.
