The Effectiveness of Cognitive Hypnosis Therapy on Women's Sexual Desire and Marital Satisfaction

This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of cognitive hypnosis therapy on sexual desire and marital satisfaction of women. The study's design was semi-experimental and pre-test, post-test with the control group. The statistical population included all women referred to Babolsar Eltiam Psychological Clinic. Then, 22 women were selected through available sampling method and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups (11 women for each group). The experimental group received cognitive hypnosis therapy for 11 sessions, each lasting 90 minutes, while the control group did not receive any intervention during this research. Both groups completed the Apt and Halbert (HISD) Sex Desire Scale and Enriched Marital Satisfaction Scale (ESQ-47) in two stages; pre-test and post-test. The multivariate analysis of covariance showed a significant difference between the performance of the experimental and control groups in sexual desire and marital satisfaction scores in the post-test. In other words, cognitive hypnosis therapy improves sex desire (ES = 0/90, P <0/001, F=19), and increases marital satisfaction (ES = 0.87, P <0/001, F =17). Based on the findings, it can be concluded that cognitive hypnosis therapy can increase marital satisfaction and improve female sex desire; therefore, cognitive hypnosis therapy by using relaxation techniques, guided imaging, cognitive reconstruction, and suggested hypnosis skills training, is an appropriate and effective treatment method in individual, family, and couple counseling.