What Can Women Do If They Are Not Enjoying Sex? - Dr. Ogden (VIDEO)

Dr. Ogden:

Many women, I have found, who come in to see me have numbed themselves, and I am not now talking about spinal cord injury. I am talking about women who are walking around, looking perfectly normal, whatever you think normal may look like, who have had histories of abuse, who have had histories of terrible messages about sex, who have had histories of upbringing in families or schools or religions that squeeze them into such a tight box that they don’t feel they can be real. And one of the ways that these women cope with this, particularly if it’s happened at a young age and happened repeatedly, is that they just begin to not feel, and they begin to not feel physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually.

So they are literally turned off, and “advice” is a tough word because I don’t so much give advice as I listen to women tell me their stories. And depending on what their story is, I may ask them some questions or suggest whether it’s even physically brushing their body all over with a brush or going out and smelling beautiful flowers or finding some kind of sensation or some kind of poetry or thoughts or feelings, feelings of love, whatever it is that begins to filter in through this numbness where they begin to be able to identify some kind of a feeling that they can own as theirs.

So basically it’s about learning to open up the heart, open up the mind; look around, open up your senses. You kind of have to be there to get it.

About Dr. Ogden, Ph.D.:
Dr. Gina Ogden, Ph.D., earned her doctorate in sexology from the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, California, where she is now an associate professor. Her M.A. is in family therapy from Goddard College in Plainfield, Vermont and her B.A. is in English literature, from Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has received grants for her work on sexuality and spirituality from Harvard Divinity School's Institute for the Study of World Religions and from the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality.

Visit Dr. Ogden at her Web site

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• HER Week In Health October 28, 2011

Tags

• Sexual Well-Being
• Sex & Relationships