ABSTRACT
Individual practitioners have their own history, know their particular skills, and are aware of their vulnerabilities and over time notice patterns in their own behaviour. The training produces measurable change in the skills of professionals. Many skills learnt in nstitute of Psychosexual Medicine seminars are also found in other forms of counselling, therapy, psychodynamic, humanistic and mindfulness techniques. Practitioners in seminar training acquire skills from interacting with patients, their peers and a group leader. Factual knowledge underpins the work. In primary care doctors, nurses and others are trained from the outset in consultation skills. In the process certain core skills become recognised as useful to understanding and managing psychosexual complaints. Synaesthetic skills are not widely understood. Synaesthesia is the state of blurring of perceptions from all the senses. Diacritic skills are those of thinking about the evidence, critically analysing, testing hypotheses and coming to conclusions that are logical and make sense.
