Ericksonian hypnosis in sexual rehabilitation of patients who underwent radical, nerve-sparing prostatectomy
Rosso, Piera, Di Bartolomeo, G., Piedimonte, Alessandro, Cavarra, Mauro, Bellina, Maurizio, Ambu, Alessandra, & Gava, Nicoletta. (2016). Ericksonian hypnosis in sexual rehabilitation of patients who underwent radical, nerve-sparing prostatectomy. Contemporary Hypnosis & Integrative Therapy, 31(1), 13-27.
The objective of the present research is to assess the effectiveness of an intervention basedon Ericksonian hypnosis in patients who underwent radical, nerve-sparing, prostatectomy inorder to improve healthcare programmes.
This study aims at: 1) testing the potential of hypnosis as a tool to reduce the time needed to recover sexual function in patients who under-went nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy; 2) assessing the potential impact of the hypnotictreatment on perceived quality of life. Patients were randomly assigned to the control andexperimental groups; in the experimental group, participants received, along with the standardrehabilitation programme, a hypnotic intervention programme which consisted of 30 minutesindividual hypnosis sessions, twice a month for nine months.
The results of this preliminarystudy indicate that neither group showed a complete recovery of erectile function, but theuse of Ericksonian hypnosis can speed up the recovery of erectile dysfunction and improve thequality of life of patients who underwent nerve-sparing radical prostatectomy and opens thepath to new studies in this field.
