Rui Miguel Costa

ISPA Instituto Universitário | ISPA · William James Center for Research

This review examined the effects of private and communal participatory prayer on pain. Nine databases were searched. Six randomized controlled trials were included. For private prayer, medium to large effects emerged for 67% to 69% of between-group comparisons; participants in the prayer condition reported lower pain intensity (0.59 < d < 26.17; 4...

Purpose: Previous research supports the usefulness of hypnosis (HYP), mindfulness meditation (MM), and prayer as pain self-management strategies in adults with chronic pain. However, their effects on acute pain have been less researched, and no previous head-to-head study compared the immediate effects of these three approaches on pain-related out...

Visual snow is a condition of unclear prevalence characterized by tiny flickering dots throughout the entire visual field. It appears to result from visual cortex hyperactivity and possibly correlates with propensity to be engrossed in sensory and imaginary experiences (absorption). The prevalence and correlates of visual snow, and emotional reacti...

Background The use of social networking sites (SNS) sometimes acquires an addictive-like quality, often referred to as problematic use of SNS. This condition overlaps with problematic (addictive-like) use of smartphones, as the latter are commonly used for online social networking in addition to other activities that may gain addictive-like qualiti...

There is mounting evidence to suggest that individuals with chronic pain adjusted poorly to and were impacted negatively by social distancing measures during the lockdown. However, there is limited data on the factors that might protect against the negative effects associated with social distancing measures, as most research has been conducted in t...

Several variables were associated with online dependence, but it is unclear to what extent they are independently associated. We examined the following statistical predictors of online dependence: food addiction, poor sleep quality, absence of physical activity, negative family interactions, positive family interactions, and age, in a sample of Por...

The present study aimed at examining whether better mood and better intimate relationship quality are independently associated with better sexual function. The sample consisted of 401 subjects aged between 18 and 65 years (265 females and 136 males). Participants completed the Perceived Relationship Quality Components (PRQC) Inventory and the Depre...

Introduction. The use of social networking sites (SNS) sometimes acquires an addictive-like quality, often referred to as problematic use of SNS. This condition overlaps with problematic (addictive-like) use of smartphones, as the latter are commonly used for online social networking in addition to other activities that may gain addictive-like qual...

Visual snow is a condition of unclear prevalence characterized by tiny flickering dots throughout the entire visual field. It appears to result from visual cortex hyperactivity and possibly correlates with propensity to be engrossed in sensory and imaginary experiences (absorption). The prevalence and correlates of visual snow, and emotional reacti...

There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of the wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were examined in a naturalistic study taking place in a wine bar located in one of the most touristic areas...

Erectile dysfunction (ED) in younger men is an increasing concern. In middle aged and older men, ED was related to lower resting heart rate variability (HRV), but research in younger men is lacking. The present study examined, in a nonclinical sample of 105 men between 18 and 39 years, the association of ED with several parameters of resting HRV. S...

Background: Pain is a universal experience and the most common reason for seeking health care. Inadequate pain management negatively impacts numerous aspects of patient health. Multidisciplinary treatment programs, including psychosocial interventions, are more useful for pain management than purely biomedical treatment alone. Recently, researchers...

Background and aims. There is an increasing interest in studying the efficacy of so-called complementary and alternative approaches for pain management. Hypnosis, mindfulness-based interventions, and spiritual practices are examples of such interventions. The purpose of this randomized quantitative experimental mixed-design repeated-measures study...

Background and aims. Pain is a universal experience and the most common reason for seeking health care. Inadequate pain management negatively impacts numerous aspects of patient health. Multidisciplinary treatment programs, including psychosocial interventions, are more useful for pain management than purely biomedical treatment alone. Recently, re...

Associations between Big Five personality traits and sexual function have been reported by many studies. Additionally, temporary alterations of consciousness influence sexual functioning. The present study examined how sexual responsiveness is independently associated with Big Five Personality traits and intensity of awareness of body, time, and su...

Background and Aims Renal amyloidosis include amyloid A (AA) and light chain (AL) as well as amyloidogenic leukocyte chemotactic factor 2 (ALECT2) and numerous hereditary forms. After identifying amyloidosis by its suggestive pale pink amorphous appearance in optic microscopy (OM) and Congo red positivity, a correct diagnosis of the amyloidogenic p...

The power of Dionysus-Effects of red wine on consciousness: a naturalistic study in a wine bar Abstract There is lack of research on effects of red wine on consciousness when drank in wine bars designed to enhance the pleasurableness of wine drinking experience. Effects of a moderate dose of red wine (≈ 40.98 g of ethanol) on consciousness were exa...

Background . This study aimed at assessing the mental health status of adults living in Portugal during the national lockdown of March 2020 to May 2020, how study participants coped with stress during the national lockdown, as well as the association between coping responses and mental health status. Methods . 430 adults from the general population...

Background: This study aimed at assessing the mental health status of adults living in Portugal during the national lockdown of March 2020 to May 2020, how study participants coped with stress during the national lockdown, as well as the association between coping responses and mental health status. Methods: 430 adults from the general populatio...

Background There has been an increasing interest in studying the potential benefits of so-called complementary and alternative approaches for pain management, such as hypnosis and mindfulness-based interventions. More recently, researchers have been interested in studying the effects of spiritual practices on pain experience as well. These practice...

Sexual intercourse alters normal waking consciousness. Altered states of consciousness (ASC) refer to marked deviations from usual waking consciousness, and include alterations in the sense of self, attention, thought processes, time awareness and sensory perception. Sex can induce ASC, as indicated by states of attentional absorption in bodily sen...

Smoking is a dose-dependent risk factor for erectile dysfunction in samples that include or are entirely made up of men over the age of 40. In young men, the results are contradictory. Tobacco consumption and female sexual difficulties have been found to be unrelated in studies in samples that include or are entirely made up of women over 40 years...

Cushman argues that “rationalization is rational.” We show that there is reasonable empirical clinical and forensic psychological evidence to support viewing rationalization as a quite suboptimal defense mechanism. Rationalization has been found to be associated not only with poorer emotional development, but also with a broad range of antisocial b...

Comunicação Intitulada "Interoceção e Funcionamento Sexual" apresentada no simpósio "Sexualidade e Factores Relacionados Com a Saúde: Corpo e Smartphones" no 13º Congresso Nacional Psicologia da saúde.

Mindfulness-based group therapy for men with situational erectile dysfunction: A mixed-methods feasibility analysis and pilot study. A interoceção diz respeito à consciência dos estados corporais internos, como fome, sede, temperatura, excitação, entre outros (1). Um estudo recente (2) demonstrou que, em ambos os sexos, maiores dificuldades sexuais...

Greater vaginal intercourse frequency has been related to greater resting heart rate variability (HRV) as indicated by the standard deviation of the heart rate, which can express a combination of greater sympathetic and parasympathetic activity. The present study examined associations of several HRV parameters with sexual satisfaction and several s...

Estudos mostram que 25% das mulheres experimenta pelo menos uma disfunção do pavimento pélvico, ao longo da vida. Calcula-se que cerca de 50% das mulheres, acima dos 50 anos, sofram de prolapso dos órgãos pélvicos. A elevada prevalência das disfunções do pavimento pélvico e o facto de ser uma questão dificilmente abordada fora de um enquadramento u...

Research in women suggests a relation between sexual difficulties and lower interoceptive awareness, the conscious perception of internal bodily states. Lower interoceptive awareness is theoretically linked to greater alexithymia, which has been related to sexual dysfunctions. Hence, we examined the relations of interoceptive awareness and alexithy...

Objectives Low sexual desire is a common complaint among women in the reproductive years. There is controversy regarding the relationship between testosterone (T) and female desire, but there is also lack of research on moderators. Lack of awareness of effects of T on emotions and bodily sensations might interfere with the subjective experience of...

Objectivo Consciência interoceptiva refere-se à percepção consciente dos estados internos do organismo. O presente trabalho pretendeu a validação do Multidimensional Assessment of Interoceptive Awareness (MAIA) recolhida a partir de uma amostra não probabilística de 755 indivíduos. Método O MAIA é originalmente constituído por 32 itens (divididos...

Objectives: Internet addiction or problematic internet use (PIU) has been related to feelings of loneliness and social networking. Research suggests that online communication may cause loneliness. We examined if the association between PIU and loneliness is independent of lack of social support, as indicated by lack of a committed romantic relation...

Absorption refers to an intense attentional focus on sensory and/or imaginary experiences, which induces a sense of unity with the object of attention together with a transient change of the usual notion of self, space and time (absorbed states). As a personality trait, it reflects the individual differences in the tendency to enter absorbed states...

Introduction: REM sleep deprivation increases unstimulated erections in rats, and total sleep deprivation increases erections during audiovisual sexual stimulation in men, but the effects of sleep problems on human unstimulated sexual arousal are unknown. Objective: We examined the associations of subjective sleep quality with unstimulated sexual a...

Greater vibrotactile sensitivity has been related to better erectile function in men, and vibrotactile and pressure tactile sensitivity have been related to better sexual function in women. Our previous study found that, for both sexes, greater recalled body awareness during last sexual relation correlated with greater recalled desire and arousal....

Self-forgetfulness is a facet of self-transcendence characterized by tendency to experience altered states of consciousness. We examined associations of self-forgetfulness with sexual desire and frequency. 261 Portuguese completed the self-forgetfulness subscale of the Temperament and Character Inventory - Revised, a measure of openness to experien...

A recent study by Therrien and Brotto (2016) examined the associations of orgasm during intercourse, concordance of laboratory genital and subjective arousal, and demographic variables in a group of sexually dysfunctional women. The authors claimed that their results cast doubt on the large body of multi-method multi-national research demonstrating...

One facet of self-transcendence is creative self-forgetfulness (CSF; tendency to be attentionally absorbed in mind-altering experiences). Proneness to mind-altering attentional absorption and other aspects of self-transcendence were previously related to vaginal intercourse frequency, sexual arousability, and female coital orgasm. Given that sexual...

Lack of sleep enhances erections and lubrication the next day. This raises the possibility that poorer subjective sleep quality is related to sexual arousal. To test this hypothesis, sexual arousal was elicited in 70 Portuguese women of reproductive age by means of fantasy. Salivary testosterone before and shortly after fantasy was determined by lu...

Neuropsychoanalytic theories view maladaptive defense mechanisms as disturbances of brain regions or networks implicated in emotional awareness, which is consistent with maladaptive defenses being automatic processes to cope with stressors by avoiding the awareness of disturbing emotions. Freud proposed that defenses against sexual drives were used...

Research shows that testosterone (T) is lower among partnered women, but not for women with a more unrestricted sociosexuality. There are fundamental personality traits, which are indices of mating effort and might moderate the association between T and relationship status. Two such traits are extraversion (E) and sensation seeking (SS). The presen...

Background: Previous research shows that smoking status is unrelated to female sexual difficulties. However, degree of nicotine dependence has not been measured, and the assessment of sexual functioning has not specified penile-vaginal intercourse (henceforth, intercourse), which is more clearly impaired by sexual difficulties than other sexual be...

Objective: Given that adiposity is related to poorer female sexual function, among many other health problems, the present study aimed at testing the hypothesis that larger waist circumference, an index of subcutaneous and abdominal fat mass, is associated with lack of specifically vaginal orgasm. Study design One hundred and twenty Portuguese wom...

Immature psychological defense mechanisms are psychological processes that play an important role in suppressing emotional awareness and contribute to psychopathology. In addition, unhealthy food, television viewing, and alcohol consumption can be among the means to escape self-awareness. In contrast, engaging in, and responding fully to specifical...

Introduction. Research indicates that (i) women's orgasm during penile–vaginal intercourse (PVI) is influenced by fitness-related male partner characteristics, (ii) penis size is important for many women, and (iii) preference for a longer penis is associated with greater vaginal orgasm consistency (triggered by PVI without concurrent clitoral mastu...

The authors reply to a quartet of recent articles in this journal. We detail certain misrepresentations and the dismissal of existing research in those articles (including attempts at denial of the repeatedly documented association of lack of vaginal orgasm with greater use of immature psychological defense mechanisms and other indices of poorer he...

Although some studies of clinical populations suggest an association of adult toy animal ownership with personality disorder, studies of nonclinical populations have been lacking. In a nonclinical young adult sample (N = 148), we found no association of toy animal ownership with use of immature, mature, or neurotic defense mechanisms; avoidant or a...

Resting heart rate variability (HRV), a marker of parasympathetic activity, is a predictor of health and longevity. Better erectile function is associated with greater resting HRV (assessed by high frequency power [HF]), and in both sexes, penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) is the only sexual behavior consistently associated with indices of better ph...

Recent studies have uncovered multiple markers of vaginal orgasm history (unblocked pelvic movement during walking, less use of immature psychological defense mechanisms, greater urethrovaginal space). Other markers (perhaps of prenatal origin) even without obvious mechanistic roles in vaginal orgasm might exist, and a clinical observation led to t...

Introduction: Disturbances in intimate relationships are among the risk factors for female sexual dysfunction. Insecure styles of anxious attachment (preoccupations about abandonment) and avoidant attachment (avoidance of closeness in relationships) are robustly associated with sexual problems, relationship difficulties, and several indices of poo...

This letter to the editor gives opposing views to a study finding risk of mental disorders and suicidal tendencies associated with lack of condom use in Americans. It argues that a wide range of studies have found that greater frequency of penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI) is associated with measures of better health and that condoms might detract f...

Research shows that (1) greater use of immature psychological defence mechanisms (associated with psychopathology) is associated with lesser orgasmic consistency from penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), but greater frequency of other sexual behaviours and greater condom use for PVI, and (2) unlike the vectors of receptive anal intercourse and punctur...

Introduction: Disturbances of emotional and physical awareness can impair female sexual function. Previous research revealed that immature psychological defense mechanisms (impairing emotional awareness) are associated specifically with impaired vaginal orgasm (orgasm triggered solely by penile-vaginal stimulation). Alcohol consumed before sex (AC...

Some sex therapists and educators assume that many sexual behaviors provide comparable sexual satisfaction. Evidence is required to determine whether sexual behaviors differ in their associations with both sexual satisfaction and satisfaction with other aspects of life. To test the hypothesis that satisfaction with sex life, life in general, sexual...

Freud opined that condom use during penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), like sexual activities other than PVI, led to a detrimental effect on orgasm that fueled the neuroses. Although this hypothesis had not been empirically tested, Freud's hypothesis that inability to have a (PVI) vaginal orgasm is a sign of psychological immaturity has recently rec...

Freud implied a link between inability to have a vaginal orgasm and psychosexual immaturity. Since Kinsey, many sexologists have asserted that no such link exists. However, empirical testing of the issue has been lacking. The objective was to determine the relationship between different sexual behavior triggers of female orgasm and use of immature...

Previous research showed that the asymmetrical direction of bilateral skin conductance responses (SCRs) remains constant regardless of task (with larger left SCRs in men and larger right SCRs in women). However, SCRs are controlled ipsilaterally by structures also associated with sexual arousal, hence it could be expected that larger right SCRs are...

A growing empirical literature demonstrates that the only sexual behavior consistently associated with indices of better physiological and psychological function is the one sexual behavior relevant to potential gene propagation. In the present study, 30 Portuguese women reported on their frequency of different sexual behaviors and corresponding org...