COURSE DESCRIPTION

Naturopathic Sexology Course This Naturopathic Sexology course is truly unique and never before taught as the author Prof. Georgiou has coined the term ‘Naturopathic Sexology’ as a unique science. As a practicing Clinical Sexologist, Clinical Psychologist, Naturopath, Herbalist, Homeopath, and Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine he combines these modalities to provide a powerful tool in the diagnosis and treatment of sexual dysfunctions using a Holistic Approach.

Often sexual issues come up with clients and the Holistic practitioner should be in a position to handle the most basic of these such as erectile problems, premature ejaculation, sexual desire disorder in both gender, vaginismus and orgasmic dysfunction.

COURSE CURRICULUM

The Naturopathic Sexology course consists of the following lessons:

Lesson 1: What is Naturopathic Sexology?

Clinical Sexologists in the past have tended to learn how to treat sexual problems using a cognitive-behavioural approach. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is a form of psychotherapy that emphasises the important role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is based on the idea that our thoughts cause our feelings and behaviors, not external things, like people, situations, and events. The benefit of this fact is that we can change the way we think to feel / act better even if the situation does not change. More recent advances in understanding brain function and the ways that the autonomic nervous system is affected by social interactions add to the gains that were possible using CBT alone, so that there are now more options to achieve deep and lasting change. This will be addressed in a lesson later in the Naturopathic Sexology course.

Sex is complicated. Until something goes wrong people take it for granted. To enjoy lovemaking, there are many factors that need to come together properly. Chemicals in the brain and hormones circulating throughout the body have to set off the right reactions to get desire going; then blood vessels must respond. Stress such as financial worries, pressure at work or the fear of being interrupted by children can put a real damper on sexual enjoyment.

Lesson 2: Basic Sexual Rights and Sexual Health

The Naturopathic Sexology course will show that a growing body of knowledge indicates that problems in human sexuality are more pervasive and more important to the well-being and health of individuals in many cultures than has previously been recognized, and that there are important relationships between sexual ignorance and misconceptions and diverse problems of health and the quality of life. While recognising that it is difficult to arrive at a universally acceptable definition of the totality of human sexuality, the following definition of sexual health is presented as a step in this direction:

Sexual health is the integration of the somatic, emotional, intellectual, and social aspects of sexual being, in ways that are positively enriching and that enhance personality, communication, and love.

Fundamental to this concept are the right to sexual information and the right to pleasure.

According to Mace, Bannerman & Burton, the concept of sexual health includes three basic elements:

1. A capacity to enjoy and control sexual and reproductive behaviour in accordance with a social and personal ethic.

2. Freedom from fear, shame, guilt, false beliefs, and other psychological factors inhibiting sexual response and impairing sexual relationship.

3. Freedom from organic disorders, diseases, and deficiencies that interfere with sexual and reproductive functions.

Thus, the notion of sexual health implies a positive approach to human sexuality, and the purpose of sexual health care should be the enhancement of life and personal relationships and not merely counselling and care related to procreation or sexuality transmitted diseases.

Lesson 3: The Global Future of Sexology

Of all countries in the world, China has the oldest sexological tradition with a literature on sexual health dating back several thousand years. This venerable tradition had long been forgotten, mostly as a result of negative Western influences. However, the present political and cultural reassertion of China as a world power is now leading many Chinese to return to their own cultural roots. At the same time, they are helping the West to correct its formerly narrow view of cultural history. Especially my esteemed colleague, Prof. Liu Dalin, through his numerous publications, traveling exhibitions, and his museum, has done much to awaken the world to China’s rich sexological heritage. It was therefore a very significant and, indeed, symbolic event when, five years ago, the 14^th World Congress of Sexology was held in Hong Kong which, after long foreign rule, had returned to China.

This lesson look at the history of sexology and its implications for the future.

Lesson 4: Chronology of Sex Research

The Naturopathic Sexology course will also discuss a brief chronology of some of the pioneers that made the study of human sexuality a science by researching and systematically documenting their data. We will look briefly from antiquity over 2,500 BC, the Middle Ages all the way through to modern times.

Lesson 5: Theoretical Foundations of Sexology

This section provides, for the first time in English, lengthy original passages from the theoretical discussions of the early German sexologists.

The scientific study of sex, even in the modern, narrow sense, is no recent academic fad but as the section on the history of sexology shows, grew out of several old and respectable traditions, which, in the course of the 19th century, coalesced into a special intellectual enterprise.

In the first years of the 20th century Iwan Bloch, the “father of sexology”, came to attack and then to dismiss the concept of sexual degeneracy that dominated medical and scientific thinking at the time.

Bloch arrived at his position by seizing upon a suggestion made decades earlier by the physician and ethnologist Bastian, who believed that every religion, language, philosophy, art, social, and legal system contains certain universal “basic ideas”. These basic ideas receive their particular form as a result of geography which forces people into particular economic systems. Thus, the elementary ideas appear in the special form of “ethnic ideas”. However, war, migration, and commerce eventually carry some of them into areas in which they did not originate.¹

It is Bloch’s unique accomplishment that he applied this concept of “basic ideas” to the subject of sex. Accordingly, he sought to treat this subject in a new, more comprehensive manner, than was customary in his days, and, in order to do so, he became the first sexologist.

Lesson 6: Basic Sexual Anatomy and Physiology

The Naturopathic Sexology course will take you through the basic anatomy and physiology of the male and female reproductive systems.

Lesson 7:  Sexual Organs

The expression “sex organs” has a double meaning:

1. The organs that determine a person’s physical sex. They account for the greatest anatomical difference between the sexes. For this reason the sex organs are also called primary sexual characteristics.

2. The term also suggests that they are involved in a person’s sexual response. Indeed, some people are under the false impression that the “sex organs” are the only organs so involved. However, the human sexual response is not restricted to a few particular organs but is a response of the whole body. Thus the mouth and the skin, for example, are also “sex” organs because they transmit and receive sexual stimulation.

Inappropriate terms

In many medical and professional textbooks the sex organs are called genitals (lat. genitalia: organs of generation) or “reproductive organs“. These one-sided terms can lead to misunderstandings, because they are ideological and misrepresent the facts: they emphasize the possible child producing, procreative function of the sex organs at the expense of their pleasure-giving, erotic function. Indeed, most of the time the so-called reproductive organs are not used for the purpose of reproduction at all, but function exclusively as organs of sexual pleasure. This is already obvious to children who may experience orgasms many years before they can reproduce. It is also obvious to self-pleasuring adolescents, to women after the menopause, and to any couple using contraception.

Lesson 8: Physical Problems in Males and Females

The ancient Chinese symbols of Yin (dark) and Yang (light) represent the female and male elements in nature and in the human body. Their fitting together in harmony represents health; if the balance is broken, disharmony and illness are the result.

Very few people enjoy perfect health throughout their lives. Most of us sooner or later find ourselves in need of medical attention, if only temporarily. Needless to say, many of the serious diseases that plague and cripple mankind also have a damaging effect on the sexual abilities.

Wounds and injuries can destroy the sex organs themselves or lead to the loss of control over parts or all of the body. Inborn chromosomal or hormonal deficiencies may hamper a person’s physical growth and require medical intervention. Certain illnesses can weaken the body to a point where sexual activity becomes difficult or impossible. Usually in such cases, the sexual difficulties are only the by-product of a general infirmity and therefore receive only minor attention. With a full recovery, the sexual capacities are also restored.

There are, however, certain physical disorders and diseases that affect human sexual activity and procreation directly. Some of these are easily cured or alleviated. Others are more difficult to treat or even untreatable. Fortunately, even without a recovery the case is not necessarily hopeless. Many permanently disabled and chronically ill patients can now be helped to achieve satisfying sex lives in spite of their problems. In any case, since at any given time many people all over the world are suffering from one or several of these conditions, every sexually mature person should know about them. The following pages provide some basic information about the main physical illnesses and impairments, which can interfere with human sexual functioning.

Lesson 9: Sexually Transmitted Diseases

Sexual intercourse can be among the healthiest and most enjoyable experiences in life. Unfortunately, it is also sometimes allowed to become the source of misery, suffering, and even death. One dramatic example is the continuing spread of dangerous infections through sexual contact. This is especially disturbing since, with appropriate precautions, such infections can easily be avoided. At least one of them can be prevented by vaccination (Hepatitis B) and the others by “safe” sexual behavior. Some people are able to remain sexually abstinent and thus escape all risks. Others live in an exclusive relationship with only one partner. Still, the partner may secretly have other sexual contacts. Indeed, very many females and males are neither abstinent nor sexually exclusive. In these cases, the practice of “safer sex”, or at least the consistent and correct use of a condom, can provide protection.

However, for a variety of reasons, many people fail to use any protection. Some have personal inhibitions, but there may also be objective obstacles: Many women and men are uninformed or misinformed about the STDs and their prevention, others cannot get tested and cannot get medical treatment. For still others, condoms are too expensive, or they are difficult to get or even unavailable. Finally, in some societies, females are kept powerless to protect themselves as long as the males refuse to cooperate. Therefore, STDs are not only a medical, but also a larger social and cultural, indeed, a political problem.

Lesson 10: STD Prevention

AIDS has forced people to concentrate on its prevention, since there is neither a cure for it nor a vaccine against it. This renewed interest in prevention has, in turn, reminded the medical profession of other incurable and curable STDs that could profit from the same measures. Indeed, not only local health authorities, but many national governments and international organizations have now once again recognized the importance of STD prevention and are making great efforts to support it. In addition to traditional measures like safeguarding the blood supply, testing patients for diagnostic purposes and tracing the contacts of infected persons, there are now also increasing attempts to change the sexual behavior of those at risk. This goal of behavior change is being pursued under two slogans: “Abstinence” and “Safer Sex”.

Lesson 11: The Diet for Healthy Lovemaking

The greatest obstacle to effective sexual functioning is the feeling that particular goals must be achieved. These goals may include attaining an erection and sustaining it until orgasm, always having an orgasm, being naturally lubricated enough for easy penetration, or having simultaneous orgasms. Performance has become blindly revered. Underlying this per­formance anxiety, or fear of sexual failure, is the belief that you are not a “real” man or woman if your performance is not first-rate. People put very irrational demands on themselves when it comes to their sexuality.

Sex is a psychological as well as a physical need. You require sexual relations as much for the state of your mind as for the state of your body. Sexual intercourse is a physiological fulfillment—the confirming act of your sexuality. And sexuality is your psychosocial attitude toward, interest in, feelings about, belief in, and comfort with sex and all its ramifications in your relations with the environment and the people around you. Your concept of your personal sexuality laps over into all the spheres of your life.

However, diet can also play a large role in our sexual health, as it can in our overall health. This lesson in the Naturopathic Sexology course looks at some of the aspects of our diet that can lead to sexual difficulties.

Lesson 12: Sexual Health with Herbs

Decoction? Infusion? Tincture? What do these terms mean? In every society that kept records, herbal medicine played an integral part. This includes the current Western civilization, which calls allopathic treatment the orthodox method. Herbology is not at all primitive, for new herbal discoveries are being made regularly and incorporated into the armamentarium of modern physicians. For example, most people know digitalis as a heart stimulant, part of the drug therapy of today’s Western cardiovascular specialists. Digitalis is processed from an herb, foxglove, a discovery of old-time herbology. The effective anti-clotting drug coumarin comes from the herb sweet clover. One of the most popular allopathic tranquilizer drugs, reserpine, is refined from the herb snakeroot. Quinine, used for the treatment of malaria and other high fevers, is made from Peruvian (cinchona) bark.

The Naturopathic Sexology course will show that when a whole herb is utilised for relieving ills, there are usually no side effects. But when one component is extracted from a plant, as is done in modern drug manufacturing, the medicinal portion of the herb is altered from its whole natural state and many side effects may be produced. For instance, you can drink all the Peruvian-bark tea you want without any side effects, but take too much quinine extracted from that same bark and you will lose your hearing and maybe die.

In 1965, more than 130 million of the prescription drugs ordered by Ameri­can physicians came from herbs. Today, about 50 percent of all pharmaceuticals are made from plants, and 75 percent of the hormones used for their medicinal effects are derived completely from herbs. Herbs are prepared by individuals for use at home by methods that are not unlike the manufacturing processes that produce prescription drugs. You can make your own remedies by follow­ing the directions in a good book on herbology. Many fine volumes are available at health food stores, bookstores, and libraries.

Traditional physicians in the United States and other countries are gradually recognising the value of herbal medicine. They are now making use of herbs under the banner of “holistic medicine”—the well-rounded, “whole” approach to health care. Today’s herbalist-nutritionist is finding a new status within orthodoxy.

Lesson 13: Nutritional Aphrodisiacs

People have been seeking the ultimate aphrodisiac for as long as they have been searching for the formula to change lead into gold. Until now, unfortunately, sex researchers have been laboring with little success, perhaps because they have been hunting for the uncompounded aphrodisiac in the wrong place—in the chemistry laboratory—when all the time people have been walking around with it as part of their own bodies.

An aphrodisiac is a substance or preparation that tends to increase or arouse sexual desire and heighten sexual excitement. For thousands of years, people in every part of the world have tried different items, internal and external, to enhance sexual response. The reputations that various plant and animal substances enjoy for having aphrodisiacal effects can be traced back to ancient beliefs. The physiological basis for some aphrodisiacal claims is that when the substance is eaten, drunk, or rubbed on the body, it acts on nerve centers in the brain to decrease inhibitions.

Substances considered aphrodisiacal have varied from human breast milk to the powder derived from ground-up dried beetles (cantharides) to cherry pits, which contain amygdalin. These many eatables—numbering about two thousand—have been applied as potency aids, sexual stimula­tors, or the means for “getting in the mood.”

Lesson 14: Honeybee Pollen and Glandular Extracts for Sexual Vigour

Physicians who are members of the Academy of Orthomolecular Psychiatry say that most of the foods in the daily Western diet are merely artifacts recombined by processors into products designed to please consumers’ palates. These “foods” contain little actual nutrition. In consequence, it is difficult to find a really complete food for building up sexual vigor.

The human digestive tract will need several thousand years to evolve and learn how best to utilize the new “plastic” foods. The artificial and processed foods of modern society provide insufficient energy for full sexual vigor. The producers of packaged supermarket foods tend to ignore the fundamental orchestra principle of harmony in the human digestive and absorption processes. Refined foods offer metabolic discord. They lack the accessory factors found in whole, natural foods. A missing nutrient makes the body like a fiddle with a broken string.

Honeybee pollen not only produces no discord in the body, but it also acts as a neutralizer of any artificial substances that may be present in other foods consumed. It is one of the foods that offer greater amounts of vigor and can be considered primary sources of sexual vigor.

Honeybee pollen provides vigor through the release of high-energy chemical bonds and the generation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP). ATP, a compound that contains adenine, ribose, and three phosphate molecular groups, occurs in human body cells. The chemical bonds of the phosphate groups comprise the stored energy needed by the cell for nervous response, metabolic maintenance, and muscle contraction. The stored energy is re­leased when ATP is created from adenosine diphosphate (ADP) or adeno­sine monophosphate (AMP) using energy derived from the breakdown of carbohydrates or other food substances.

Lesson 15: Natural Treatments for Senior Citizens

During all of my 88 years, I’ve considered sex to be a crucial part of my life. It gives me a general sense of well-being and a good feeling about myself. And it’s no different for me now than when I was a girl, for having sexual relations helps me realize an exhilaration, an awareness of being desirable and beautiful. 

My need for sex is one of my strongest drives and very important to my self-image. My only problem is in finding a partner. Young men don’t want an old lady. Old men seemingly don’t have any sex drive left, at least not the ones I have met; most apparently have erection difficulties and shy away from facing them. My husband died five years ago at the age of ninety-one. Until then, we enjoyed sexual intercourse at least twice a week and often more.

The trouble with living long and remaining sexually active is that your sexual partners tend to die off. Now I’ve been left alone and looking for that rare man who feels as uninhibited in his old age as I do. Where am I to find someone who believes in himself and feels that he’s getting better as he gets older?

Lesson 16 – Lifestyle and Sexual Health

A certain concept circulating in the worlds of medicine and sexology is that a loss of interest in sex, possibly accompanied by depression or lethargy, may be due to allergies. There are many new allergic substances in our altered ecology.

The human digestive and breathing systems are tubes that are open to the environment. They draw sustenance from the environment, and they return wastes to it.

These digestive and breathing systems are vulnerable to the unfamiliar allergens created by modern technology, for none of us has armor against surroundings that irritate us physically.

The result is that most people suffer mental, sexual, emotional, or physical problems. In fact, more than 80 percent of people who are ill actually are victims of non-personal environmental excitants in air, water, food, drugs, or other substances that have been thrust upon modern civilisation mostly by the technology of industrialisation.

Course Materials

All the course material for the Naturopathic Sexology course, such as assignments and final exams are online, so there are no additional books required for this course. There are also many online books and articles available in .pdf format that you can download onto your computer so that you may read these at leisure.