A new psychological service aimed at people with relationship and sexuality issues has been launched by Saint John of God Hospital in Dublin.

The psychiatric hospital has almost 190 inpatient beds and already provides services for a range of mental health issues, including stress, eating disorders and addiction.

According to the hospital, its new ‘Healthy Relationships and Sexuality' service will provide ‘assessment and specific therapeutic interventions for patients who experience a range of challenges relating to their psychosexual and relationship functionality, and is open to both in-patients of the hospital, and for outpatients'.

The service will deal with a range of issues, including:
-Difficulty with sexual performance
-Sexual orientation/identity
-Excessive use of pornography
-Sexual behaviours that are harmful or hard to control.

According to the head of the service, senior counselling psychologist, Fergal Rooney, people tend to avoid talking abut sexuality.

"We expect this core part of being human to be healthy without thinking much about it or working out how we integrate it fully into our lives. All too often we are surrounded by a mixture of confusing and conflicting messages and images of sexuality. This makes it difficult to know what is helpful for us in how we approach and manage our own relationships and sexuality," he explained.

As part of this service, patients will be able to explore their issues with professional therapists who are experts in this field.

Sessions can be conducted on an individual, family or group basis and outpatient referrals can be made by healthcare professionals.

For more information, contact the hospital on (01) 277 1662 or (01) 277 1470.