After Will Lily: How To Use What You Learn In The Brief Assessment (Part 2)

In my last post, I discussed how Will Lily fits into a treatment plan. I explained how the pieces of Will Lily work together to disentangle the factors underlying a complicated issue, like low desire. Now, I’m going to dive into the specifics of how to follow up on Will Lily. This guide will help you explore the issues that were revealed in the assessment in more depth and detail.

When I follow up on Will Lily, I prioritize the most pressing issues. If there is a problem with willingness, arousal, or pain, it is particularly concerning, because it indicates a serious risk for your client’s health and safety. However, I will follow up on anything that seems concerning.

There’s nothing particularly surprising about what I do to follow up. I’ll bet the kinds of questions I ask would come naturally to you. Your instincts as a therapist can guide you here.

Here are a few example of good follow‐up questions to inspire you:

• • When did it start?
  • How has it changed over time?
  • What is your theory about what is going on?
  • Specifically, where/when do you experience the problem?
    • If the symptoms are specifically sexual, you will be having a detailed conversation about body parts and sexual interactions. That’s ok. You can do it. You won’t be able to tell what’s going on (or ask me!) unless you know a fair amount about specifics.

• •  
  • Are there ever any exceptions?
  • How do you and your partner handle it when this issues arises?
    • This is the intersection between relational interactions and sex issues; you might want to refer to my blog post “When Sex Doesn’t Go As Planned.”

• •  
  • Are you taking any medications?
    • Many medications have sexual side effects. You should be able to google this quite easily; I encourage you to do so with every medication your client takes, because you might be surprised by how common these side effects are.

Once you have more of an idea about what is going on, particularly regarding the 3 categories that are potentially pressing (willingness, pain, & arousal), you can refer back to the assessment video for next steps. If you don’t find the answer there, err on the side of caution and consult.

I hope you get a ton of use out of my assessment tool, and I hope these ideas for how to follow up help you further uncover the tool’s potential as you grow more and more practiced and confident using it.