Couple therapy for low sexual desire: a systemic approach

Abstract

This article will illustrate how marital therapists and their supervisors can instructively use the Basson Sexual Response Cycle (BSRC) as a teaching and therapeutic tool to enable students to move their clients toward improved sexual relationships. Second, it will illustrate that the Basson model can be integrated into Emotionally Focused Martial Therapy (EFT) to track and shift the couple's habitual attachment pattern or circular fight. Third, it will show that by working the triangle of emotion and the triangle of conflict described in the Brief Psychodynamic Model during the second step of stages 4-6 of EFT, the couple therapist has a working methodology to create change at a deeper emotional level, when the couple's intimacy issues are complex. Two case examples will be used.