Men who suffer from impotence fall into two categories: those whose impotence is life long, where psychotherapy is the treatment of choice, and those who have functioned adequately in the past but have acquired an impotence problem, and in these cases hypnotherapy is a very successful form of treatment. It is important to establish before any treatment begins that there is no underlying medical condition which is responsible for the impotence.
In patients with acquired impotence it is important to take a careful history to determine the onset of the problem and to try and discover if there is any known reason why it developed at that time. There are many factors which might contribute to the inability to achieve and maintain an adequate erection; however, sometimes the patient is unable to isolate any precipitating factors. Hypnotherapy is the treatment of choice for acquired impotence and has been shown to be highly effective. In many cases the patient finds it helpful when a combination of psychotherapy and hypnotherapy is used as this gives him the opportunity to explore, in a safe environment, the causative factors responsible for the impotence.
Patients who have never been able to achieve an adequate erection will require on going regular once a week individual psychotherapy over an extended period of time as this is a much more complex problem.