T08-O-15 Childhood sexual abuse and vulvodynia: hypnotic psychotherapy and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) – an integrated approach

Objectives

Dysesthetic vulvodynia plays an important role in the sexology of the most common female genital system disorders; its psychosomatic origin is by now widely acknowledged.

Its main symptoms are: acute pain at each penetration attempt (dyspareunia), pain under local pressure on the vaginal vestibule, erythemas of different intensities.

In recent years the role of childhood sexual abuse as one of the possible predisposing (vulnerability) factors of vulvodynia development has found positive confirmations in the literature. Authorʼs aims are to verify this correlation and check efficacy of specific psychotherapeutical approaches.

Method

The choice of psychodiagnostic reactive tests, such as the Sexuality Questionnaire (symptomatology screening), the recent Female Sexual Disorders Analytical Questionnaire (screening and sexual abuse) and the Chronic Pain Risk Factors Questionnaire, assessing stressful and traumatic events such as sexual abuse, to identify vulvodynia is of particular importance.

The therapeutic approach presented here is integrated: gynecological, physical-rehabilitational, psycho-educational and psycho-sexological.

Results and conclusions

The psychological therapies recommended for the treatment of this disorder and the associated abuse (substantiated by international literature and years of clinical practice) are EMDR and hypnotic psychotherapy, integrated with sexological techniques, starting from the assumption that any eventual effective therapy of vulvodynia cannot but include appropriate (psychosomatic and not merely verbal) processing of the childhood sexual abuse.