T08-P-05 Doing sexual homeworks is healthful. Do you want to know why?

Abstract

The authors introduce their long-term experience as sex-therapist with sexual homeworks methodical practise, prescribed to patients with sexual inadequacy during short-term therapies. Now positive results are widely recognized but it isn’t fully clear how the homeworks support behavioural and cognitive changes. To explain required changes, the authors assume that: a) sexual system is perfect somato-psychical pattern; b) change pathways are assimilable to learning pathways; c) most of the neuro-psychological and neurophysiologic experimental studies results can be tranferred to sexologic area; d) performed sexual homework effectiveness isn’t related to different therapists; e) homeworks are effective when used in different systems (i.e. stroke with hemiplegia). Several experimental researches results on C.N.S emphasize wide neuronal plasticity of the brain; not only in single areas differences between several people but also as possible variabilty of single person's cyto-architecture of cerebral cortex. The latter changes are strictly related to the stimulus or to the context changes. Furthermore, the changes on functional network happen after stimulus or context short-termed variations. The authors consider the homework as a part of a programme, a prescription of behavioural experience together with perceptive task, given to patients who agree to carry out them. The prescribed performance, “actively” done, could perturb the present neuronal network (related to “symptomatic unit”), could put the system in crisis and lastly let new neuronal correlations come out (or … come in). In this regard, the sex-therapist could be the catalyst, the strategically oriented perturber.