Effectiveness of Hypnosis for the Treatment of Vulvar Vestibulitis Syndrome: A Preliminary Investigation
Bibliographic record
Abstract
INTRODUCTION: Vulvar vestibulitis syndrome (VVS) is a common cause of vulvar pain. Therapeutic options target different pain systems believed to be involved in its development and maintenance. Most treatments target the pain component with the assumption that sexual function will increase once the pain has decreased, yet this is not necessarily the case. AIMS: Research has supported the effectiveness of hypnosis for many chronic pain disorders, and a case report demonstrated pain reduction and an increase in intercourse pleasure in a woman with VVS. This preliminary study examined the effectiveness of hypnosis on pain and psychosexual function in VVS. METHODS; Eight women suffering from VVS completed a hypnosis screening assessment, an interview, pain and psychosexual questionnaires, a gynecologic examination, vestibular pain threshold measurement, a psychosexual assessment, and six hypnotherapy sessions. The physical examinations, interview, and questionnaires were repeated at 1 and 6 months posttreatment. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: These included pain ratings during the gynecologic examination, vestibular pain thresholds, scores on the McGill Pain Questionnaire and Pain Catastrophizing Scale, and responses to questions on intercourse-related and nonintercourse-related pain. Measures of psychosexual function included the Female Sexual Function Index, State-Trait Anxiety Scale, Beck Depression Inventory-II, and the Brief Symptom Inventory. RESULTS: Results indicated significant decreases in gynecologic examination pain and in several measures assessing intercourse pain, and nonsignificant increases in threshold. Some indices of noncoital vulvar pain decreased. Overall sexual function, particularly sexual satisfaction, increased at posttreatment. There were no differences on any psychological measure. Participants reported satisfaction with the treatment and rated their VVS pain reduction as average. CONCLUSIONS: Hypnotherapy appears to be a promising treatment for reducing intercourse pain and some aspects of noncoital vulvar pain, and for restoring sexual function in women with VVS. These results suggest that a large controlled trial should be considered.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".