Arousal Non-Concordance · Clinical Exercise

The Body Is Not a Witness

Physiological genital arousal and subjective psychological arousal are separable processes governed by different circuits. Six situations to place on the concordance matrix, the hardest conversation in this module, and five inferences a clinician must never make.

What this exercise practises

Locating a presentation on the genital and subjective axes, delivering the correction a trauma survivor needs with enough precision that it holds, and recognising the point at which a clinically necessary explanation becomes a conclusion that is not yours to draw.

This is the most ethically consequential content in the module. It is also the content most likely to be delivered badly by a clinician who believes they have understood it.

Estimated time to complete this exercise: 25 minutes

1The matrix
2What you say
3Never infer
4Close

Before you begin

How this one works

Physiological genital arousal and subjective psychological arousal are separable processes governed by different circuits, and their correlation is moderate to weak depending on the population studied.
Part 1 puts six situations on a two-by-two matrix. You click the quadrant. One of the six is placed in the wrong quadrant by most people, and the reason is an assumption about who non-concordance happens to.
Part 2 is the hardest conversation in this module. Part 3 is a list of inferences, and five of the eight are ones a clinician must never make.
Nothing is graded and nothing is recorded. Reloading starts it again.

This is arguably the single most ethically consequential piece of sexual science available to a clinician in this field. Genital arousal during non-consensual sexual contact does not indicate desire, consent or enjoyment. Everything in this exercise follows from that sentence.

References

  1. Chivers, M. L., Seto, M. C., Lalumiére, M. L., Laan, E., & Sattler, S. (2010). Agreement of self-reported and genital measures of sexual arousal in men and women: A meta-analysis. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 39(1), 5–56. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-009-9556-9