Healing Painful Sex is the only book on the market that provides a comprehensive deep insight into the medical and psychological treatment of women suffering from sexual pain conditions. Both Deborah Coady, MD’s medical expertise and Nancy Fish’s MSW, MPH, personal experience with sexual pain and her extensive professional experience as a psychotherapist provide readers with an all-inclusive understanding of the medical causes of these complex conditions as well as multi-dimensional medical and psychological treatments. The book includes numerous patient vignettes based on women suffering from sexual pain and interviews with healthcare professionals treating women with sexual pain.
The book is organized into three parts. The first section explains how common sexual pain is and offers the promise of the book: physical and psychological recovery from sexual pain. Dr. Coady and Nancy Fish speak honestly and directly to the reader’s experience, helping her to become comfortable with the topic and aware that this a problem that can be talked about, in preparation for absorbing and acting on the medical and psychological information in the chapters to come. We help women make sense of their medical experience up to now, helping them evaluate what has happened to enable them to move forward with optimism and assertiveness. A medical checklist helps to make sure their doctors are exploring all the latest diagnostic strategies to find out what is causing their pain and how it should be treated. We help our readers go into their medical office visits armed with all the personal and medical information the doctor needs to know about them.
The second part of the book focuses on all the possible medical diagnoses, and is organized around patients' stories, possible treatments, and an integrated medical/psychological approach to overcoming sexual pain. The third section helps women redefine their sexuality, focusing on their entire being, and provides guidance for re-entering an active and fully responsive sexual life both during treatment and after recovery. As sexual healing takes place, the destructive after-effects can be repaired, and we offer concrete guidance on how to move into the future.
In summary, Deborah Coady’s extensive clinical experience and knowledge provides practical information to readers that no other doctor in this country has offered. Nancy Fish provides an understanding of the overwhelming challenges women face because she has faced and overcome many of the difficulties of sexual pain.
