 |
PREVENTIVE MEDECINE: PSYCHOSEXUAL PROBLEMSSexuality is simply one aspect of a person’s personality and women who get pregnant when they know they shouldn’t often have some kind of psychosexual problem of which they may be unaware. The types of psychosexual disorder involved are numerous. An example of one of the commoner ones is a woman who believes that reproduction is the only justification for sexual pleasure. Such women may have had several babies yet deny that they are interested in sex. A second category includes those women who unconsciously believe that sex is sinful and that pregnancy is a punishment for their sin. This means that there must be a risk of pregnancy if they are to enjoy sex. Other women believe that sex is something done to them by a man and is therefore something for which they have no responsibility, so they don’t bother with contraception because to do so would be a contradiction. Many young women who believe that love is the only justification for sex refuse contraception until they are sure of the man (as a kind of denial that they are having sex) and get pregnant in the intervening time. Some women who don’t accept their sexual drives deny them consciously yet unconsciously try to indulge them (by getting drunk, losing control and then getting pregnant, for example). A small proportion of women cannot tolerate any sort of contraception because they feel guilty enjoying any form of sexual pleasure. Some women are so filled with shame about their sexual drives that they don’t seek contraceptive advice. Another common fear is that to accept effective contraception is to open the floodgates to promiscuity. Such women (especially when they are unmarried) refuse all contraception and then get pregnant. Some women are unconsciously incited to pregnancy by their mothers (who want a baby for themselves) but then regret the conception when it has occurred. Lastly there is the teenage girl who has just started having intercourse. Such adolescent girls frequently refuse to accept that their status has changed and even though they are not virgins can’t bring themselves to accept the fact and continue to live with the fictitious belief that they are virgins. Many such ‘part-time virgins’ say that they are better able to keep up the lie to their parents and themselves that they are virgins if they don’t use contraception. Such a girl believes she is still a virgin (albeit a part-time one) and for this reason doesn’t really need contraception. Such a delusion in a part-time virgin unfortunately leads, all too often, to unwanted pregnancies. Clearly an apparently simple thing like an unwelcome pregnancy is in fact enormously complex, and the unconscious mind plays a substantial part in almost all the mechanisms I have outlined. Consciously the woman says she doesn’t want to be pregnant. Contraceptive services are one of the most widely publicized and available of all the preventive services, yet still unwanted pregnancies abound. Similar situations operate in all kinds of other health areas-not just those to do with sex. At certain times in our lives we might have an unconscious need to be ill as an escape from something or as a way of gaining attention or being cared for. A smoker may have quite unconscious needs for oral gratification, as does many an over-eater and no matter how good the preventive medical information is, nor how good his or her motivation, little progress can be made until the individual can confront and understand the underlying psychological drives that make him or her smoke or eat. Similarly, a man with a poor sense of his male self-esteem who smokes because he considers it manly to do so may be quite unable to stop smoking until this part of his personality can be satisfied in other ways. It is only by confronting the psychological realities that it is possible to begin to understand why it is that even in the face of good information and motivation, most of us find it difficult or impossible to modify our behaviour in a way which prevents disease. And in this respect social class has little or no part to play-we are all ruled to a variable extent by unconscious motives and drives over which, by definition, we have no control until they are brought into the conscious mind and confronted. Whilst we frequently hear that ‘prevention is better than cure’ hardly anybody behaves as though he or she believes it and it has now become such a piece of fashionable cant that it should be relegated to the waste-bin along with ‘health is better than wealth’ and other such empty phrases. Not until the medical and health educational fraternity come to terms with the reality of people’s health needs will prevention ever be anything other than a subject of lofty rhetoric. *26/72/5*         Random PostsLeave OneYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
 |
 |
||||
 |
MedicblogsMedical news and information |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
|
SearchCalendar:Pharmacy LinkCategoriesRSS
|
|||
 |
||||
|
© Medicblogs 2010 - All Rights Reserved
|
||||
