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Objectives

Below average heart rate variability (HRV) has been associated with sexual arousal dysfunction and overall sexual dysfunction in women (Stanton, Lorenz, Pulverman, & Meston, 2015). Autogenic training, a psychophysiological relaxation technique, has been shown to increase HRV. In a recent study, sexually healthy women experienced acute increases in both physiological and subjective sexual arousal, as well as increases in resting HRV, after one brief session of autogenic training (Stanton & Meston, in press). The present study builds on these recent findings by testing the effects of a single session of autogenic training on sexual arousal in women with diminished or absent physiological (ie, genital) sexual arousal and/or diminished or absent subjective (ie, mental) sexual arousal.

Methods

Vaginal pulse amplitude (VPA), an index of genital sexual arousal, and subjective sexual arousal were …