SEMINAR TRAINING FOR CONTRACEPTIVE CARE – SEXUAL PROBLEMS
Sexual problems may be the underlying cause of individual ill health and unhappiness. The destructive effect of marital disharmony on children is well recognized. If anything can be done to lessen the stresses present in the family, the returns are likely to be great, although difficult to measure in a quantitative way. Certainly, any help that can be given to the parents of children should help to break the cycle of emotional deprivation, where those who have had insufficient nurture when young find it difficult to offer such nourishment to their children.
Most doctors and nurses have received little training about sexual matters during the course of their undergraduate years, and indeed it can be argued that such a training is better provided at the postgraduate stage when they are not so preoccupied with the exploration of their own sexuality. Chapter 13 gives an account of the different ways of studying the consultation process. One of the models oudined can be used to provide a framework within which the interaction between the patient and the doctor or nurse, can be examined at the time the events are taking place. The importance of developing doctors who can think about these happenings has been stressed by Norell, who says that the consultation should be considered as an organic entity (Norell, 1984). Marinker suggests that not all consultations are problem solving, but that some are more like ‘a piece of theatre, a celebration or an expiation’; not to be valued as crosswords but more as poems (Marinker, 1986). The intuitive side of the consultation, suggested in the quotation from Chesterton above, has been explored by Neighbour.
Such an approach can become vague and sentimental if it is not balanced by a rigorous use of the intellect.
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