Automatic Affective Appraisal of Sexual Penetration Stimuli in Women with Vaginismus or Dyspareunia

Unexpectedly, deliberate appraisals seemed to be most important in vaginismus, whereas dyspareunia did not seem to implicate negative deliberate or automatic affective appraisals. These findings dispute the view that global automatic affect lies at the core of vaginismus and indicate that a useful element in therapeutic interventions may be the modification of deliberate global affective appraisals of sexual penetration (e.g., via counter‐conditioning). Huijding J, Borg C, Weijmar‐Schultz W, and de Jong PJ. Automatic affective appraisal of sexual penetration stimuli in women with vaginismus or dyspareunia.