This textbook on palliative social work is a companion volume to the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Medicine and the Oxford Textbook of Palliative Nursing. To that end, this chapter will accomplish the following:

♦Sexuality is a key aspect of a person's quality of life and is consistent with the goals of palliative care.

♦Patients are too often seen as asexual beings with sexual activity being a part of their past but not their future.

♦Patients can project their rejection of their own bodies onto their partners, believing they will be rejected by them as well.

♦Partners become desexualized by their anxiety, sadness, and caregiver fatigue.

♦Helping patients and partners problem solve issues of sexuality can result in increased physical closeness.