29.04.2009
A patient used this expression and it seems to suit the situation very well. He had been married for three years; he was not impotent, but was unable to come to a climax. I had asked him not to have sex relations until he had mastered the exercises. One day he came in and announced that he was already getting «fringe benefits.» He said that he was much easier at his work, and added that his gait seemed easier as he walked. He was in fact a big, clumsy man with a rather awkward gait, His sexual difficulty cleared up completely.
Fringe benefits are not occasional incidents but are really the rule of the day. A patient who seeks help on account of tension in the home, finds that he is easier at his work and can do it more effectively. Many a wife has said that her husband is easier to live with, although this was not the cause of him coming to see me.
As our level of anxiety is reduced our sleep improves. This is a very constant finding of those who do the exercises.
Many people have told me how their golf has improved. When we are less tense we naturally swing more freely. Patients who ski have told me that their turns have improved because they are less tense and can balance better with more natural rhythm. I well remember the enthusiasm of a young stutterer about the improvement in his baseball.
One of the areas where anxiety is first felt is in sexual response. This is true for both men and women. Many patients have told me of improved sexual relationship when they have actually come for treatment of some quite different condition. Many of these people were in fact unaware that there had been anything wrong in their sexual response until they noticed this improvement. In more obvious cases, men who had habitually come to a climax very quickly found themselves no longer troubled with this difficulty. In the same way many women have reported more
satisfactory sexual experience as a fringe benefit when having treatment for some other reason.
We should not be surprised at this. In fact it is exactly what we should expect. Anxiety always tends to inhibit the smooth working of our body, so as we reduce the level of our anxiety we should expect fringe benefits of this nature.
I remember very clearly the case of a woman in her middle thirties who came to me to see if. I could help her with her stutter. Her speech difficulty was associated with a good deal of tension and anxiety. She had had considerable psychotherapy and speech therapy without significant effect. In order to find out the background of her tension, I asked her about her personal life. She was very much in love with her husband and he with her, but her sex life was a complete failure, and she had come to look upon it as a kind of nightmare.
I saw her six or eight times. Her speech returned to normal. On her final visit she explained that it was not only her speaking that had changed, but there had been a change all through her. When questioned further, she told me that she was now enjoying her intimate life with her husband in a way which she had not thought possible.
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