The World Health Organization states that sexual health is a fundamental dimension in the achievement of biopsychosocial wellbeing (WHO, 2021): in our species, sexual pleasure is expressed as a state of physical, emotional, mental, and social wellbeing.
From a cognitiveevolutionary perspective (Liotti, 1994), sexual behavior is essentially expressed through the activation of multiple motivational systems: 1) the archaic sexual motivational system, aimed at the reproduction of the species; 2) the interpersonal sexual and affective motivational system, which promotes the formation of affective and sexual bonds in view of offspring care; 3) the outcome of a complex activity associated with the epistemic motivational system, oriented toward meaningseeking and the shared construction of meanings, which becomes evident through the creation of stories and narratives (Veglia, 1999). Sexuality may be conceptualized as a vast and heterogeneous territory, composed of multiple domains such as biological sex, gender identity, gender roles, sexual orientation, reproduction and procreation, affectivity and relationships, meanings and mental images, and, certainly, the narration of the Self. Sexual experience is expressed through beliefs and convictions, fantasies and expectations, feelings and emotions, sensations and behaviors, all sharing the defining element of the experience of pleasure. The present article aims to offer an essential overview of the treatment of sexual dysfunctions, with the awareness that specialized training is necessary for the appropriate application of interventions (Fiore et al., 2025).
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