Asociación AELIP

Sexual Counselling has to be addressed from any age, since we are all born with a sex.

This service will work in an efficient manner to deal with concerns, doubts, worries or difficulties, through a brief mediation, without pathologizing situations that have simple resolution.

Through counseling, the person or couple is guided so that they can find their own answers.

Sexual Counselling can help people who feel that their sex life could be better, and want to do something to achieve that. We consider that anybody has the potential and inner resources to create a fulfilling and satisfactory sex life, growing individually and building constructive relations with those close to them.

Some situations can appear in the individual or couple's sex life which, without becoming problems, pose difficulties that sexual counseling can solve

Sexuality is part of everyone's life. Of course, it is also part of the lives of people with rare diseases (RD) or rare disorders. Whatever the type of rare disease, when it appears, its symptoms and implications (physical, cognitive-intellectual, behavioural, sensory,...), the degree of autonomy or the derived support needs. Everyone is EVERYONE.

This includes the entire plurality of people (without discrimination on the grounds of: race, ethnicity, age, sex, functional diversity, sexual orientation, religion or beliefs, ... ), of heterogeneity of rare diseases ( Lipodystrophies, Scleroderma, Phelan McDermid Syndrome, Osteogenesis Imperfecta, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, 5P-Cri du Cha Syndrome, Bladder and Cloacal Extrophy and Epispadias...), with their corresponding diversity of "expressions", "experiences", demands or needs, and, in each case, with their unique and absolute peculiarity.

Sexuality is not something negotiable, it is not something that can be chosen. It is present from birth and accompanies you throughout your life.

As with the rest of people, the sexuality of people with lipodystrophies can and must be cared for and educated, regardless of the person's age* (children, adolescents, young people, adults and/or the elderly) or the changing circumstances that accompany the process and evolution of each type of lipodystrophy (Berardinelli-Seip Syndrome, Lawreance Syndrome, Partial Family Lipodystrophy, Barraquer Simons Syndrome,...) There are always things that can be done to improve situations.

It doesn't matter if you talk or if you shut up. Which topics are prioritized or addressed and which are avoided. Nor does it matter what tone of voice or facial expression is used when addressing questions or situations where sexuality is present. For the same reasons, it is also educated, in one direction or another, according to the consideration given to the naked body or to modesty, or according to the management of times and spaces of intimacy or how the attitude is shown before interpersonal relationships or the expression of affections. In short, one is always educating and, depending on one's actions, one will be educating in a positive or negative way.

With the present SPECIALIZED SERVICE OF ATTENTION AND SEXOLOGICAL ADVICE we try to GIVE RESPONSE to the diverse demands, needs, interests, curiosities,... existing in the people with lipodystrophies related to the sexuality, facilitating in addition to their next environment KEYS and GUIDELINES that help to that and the professionals of the area, relatives of the people with lipodystrophies, contribute to take care of, to educate and to give support to their sexuality of suitable way. To walk in the same direction, accompanying people with lipodystrophies in their life projects, and doing it in a coordinated way and together with the rest of agents involved (other professionals, volunteers, institutions,...).

AELIP has a collaboration agreement with the entity ASOCIACIÓN ESTATAL SEXUALIDAD Y DISCAPACIDAD for the development of the following actions:

a) To contribute to the care, education and support of the sexuality of people with lipodystrophies and their immediate environment (family, professionals and volunteers):

 Taking care of their demands, needs, desires and motivations in what refers to the experience of their sexuality.
Educating and contributing to people with rare diseases learning to know, accept and live their sexuality in a satisfactory way.
Providing specific and individualised support according to the need, frequency and intensity of the support, adapted to each person.
b) Propitiating and encouraging the provision of specialized services in Sexology for people with lipodystrophies, their partners, family members, professionals and/or volunteers of the entities linked, belonging or related to AELIP (territorial delegations). Working in the line of facilitating the accessibility of them.

In the following lines of work:

ORIENTATION and ADVICE In face-to-face, telephone and online formats. For professionals, people with lipodystrophies or family members. Accessible and adapted information. A space for specific demands, follow-up of cases and supervisions to find solutions to difficulties.

ATTENTION and ASSISTANCE: Individualized interventions adapted to the profile and support needs of each person. Each demand is unique and so each case must be considered and attended to, trying to find keys that allow the different situations to be dealt with, offering guidelines, protocols and criteria for action.

SEXUAL, COUPLE and FAMILY PSYCHOTHERAPY The presence of a rare disease should not cancel out the possibility of continuing to grow in all areas of a person's life, also on a relational level, as a couple, in the family... Different intervention formats: face-to-face, online or combined.

SUPPORT and RESOURCES. Coordination and mediation with other devices and services (educational, health, social...). Dissemination of the didactic-pedagogical resource centre with materials and technical aids adapted and aimed at promoting personal autonomy.
c) To advise on the management and mobilization of resources, aid and support for people with lipodystrophies, their families and professionals linked to the entity in order to achieve independent living projects, with special emphasis on sexuality.

c) To advise on the management and mobilization of resources, aid and support for people with lipodystrophies, their families and professionals linked to the entity in order to achieve independent living projects, with special emphasis on sexuality.

d) To provide formative actions and/or to collaborate in them, at different levels: local, provincial, autonomic, state, international,... trying to contemplate the existing diversity in the scope of the lipodystrophies, as well as taking care of the different agents implied in the attention to the sexuality of the people with lipodystrophies, their families, couples and the professionals who take care of them and give support.

(e) To develop and disseminate materials aimed at raising awareness and providing information on care, education and support for the sexuality of persons with lipodystrophies

f) To develop campaigns to raise awareness in society, making visible the need to care for, educate and provide support for the sexuality of people with lipodystrophies and to give it legitimacy. To work for the defense, protection, vindication of sexual and reproductive rights of people with lipodystrophies.

g) To influence in a specific way and with specific actions in groups in which a double marginalization could occur: women with lipodystrophies, young people with lipodystrophies, immigrant population with lipodystrophies, old people with lipodystrophies, LGTBIQ population with lipodystrophies, people victims of situations of abuse, mistreatment and/or gender violence... Attending equally in these interventions to professionals and relatives of these groups

How can I contact the Sexual Counselling services?

- By phone, calling +34 692397840 Or you can contact us via WhatsApp

- By email to info@aelip.org

-You can visit us at the AELIP headquarters