Exploring meaning of penetration in vaginismus

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  How exploring penetration in women with life long vaginismus informs Counselling and Psychotherapy

• IRAS ID

  207614

• Contact name

  Gordon Jinks

• Contact email

  gordon@uel.ac.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  University of East London

• Duration of Study in the UK

  0 years, 5 months, 10 days

• Research summary

  In this research I will explore experiences of women with Life Long Vaginismus (LLV) in relation to vaginal penetration. LLV is a female sexual problem in relation to penetration and includes women who during their life time are not able to have vaginal penetration or painless vaginal intercourse. The other form of penetration includes: insertion of tampons, swabs, speculums, vibrators, dildos and digital penetration.
  The reasons for this research are:
  1. Female sexuality is an under explored issue in counselling and psychotherapy
  2. Conditions like vaginismus are very rarely researched through qualitative method, and they are mainly quantitative and medical.
  3. Working as a psychosexual counsellor for 15 years, I am aware about how vaginismus affects psychological, relational and wider social areas of women's life hence counselling can help address these issues.
  4. Research will have an educational aspect in which we can use women's experience to educate practitioners about creating better treatments.
  5. Create a better recognition of the problem.As an illustration, almost everyone knows about Erectile dysfunction (ED) but only professionals in the field of sexology or women who suffer from this condition are familiar with the name vaginismus. The research will help with the recognition of the issue.
  6. Last but possibly most important reason for the research is to to give voices to the women who suffer from this condition.
  I will interview, via semi-structured interview, women who speak English, have ability to consent, suffer from vaginismus all their life and are over 18. Semi -structured interviews will have 10 questions. The interviews will be conducted on two sites.
  The Interviews will be 1 hour long and the study will need to be completed by June 2017

• REC name

  East of England - Cambridge Central Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  16/EE/0307

• Date of REC Opinion

  4 Nov 2016

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion