Treatment of Sexual Dysfunctions by Sex Therapy and Other Approaches

Abstract

Sex therapy is now a well-established form of treatment. It should be more widely available for patients seen in psychiatry departments.

Empirically supported couple and family interventions for marital distress and adult mental health problems.

“…As noted in the introduction to this section, our application of EST criteria may have led to an underestimated efficacy for the less recently developed and investigated treatments. In fact, Hawton and Catalan (1986) and Hawton (1995) have suggested that the paucity of controlled studies of earlier treatments does not necessarily imply that they are not efficacious. For example, they reported an overall improvement rate of 66% for patients in the Masters and Johnson program and stated that they consider it a treatment that is now "wellestablished" (Hawton, 1995, p. 307).…”

“…Because the more comprehensive therapies have been studied more recently and according to recent experimental design expectations, evidence for the efficacy of comprehensive treatments of HSDD is more likely to exist than for the early treatments of orgasmic disorders developed by Masters and Johnson and LoPiccolo and Lobitz. In other words, the efficacy status reported in the following section may be an underestimate of the persuasiveness of the evidence, especially regarding early treatments for sexual dysfunctions (see other reviews by Beck, 1995;Emmelkamp, 1994;Hawton, 1995;LoPiccolo & Stock, 1986).…”

“…Over the past three decades, investigators have collected data on improvement rates for the various sexual dysfunctions, using patients' own baseline data as a control (see Hawton, 1995, for a review). These investigators, however, have also suggested some factors that may restrict the applicability of this treatment.…”

“…The frequent exclusion of maritally distressed couples from traditional sex therapy (Hawton, 1995) precludes the application of Masters and Johnson's treatments to many cases of HSDD and secondary orgasmic disorders (i.e., situational rather than lifelong), because couples presenting with these dysfunctions are significantly more maritally distressed than couples who receive sex therapy for other sexual dysfunctions (e.g., vaginismus or life-long orgasmic disorders; F. Stuart, Hammond, &Pett, 1987). Because in more than half of these couples the disorder is partner specific (or relationship specific), adding a component of general marital therapy to partner-assisted and disorder-specific couple treatments is reasonable.…”

Brief psychosexual therapy: reflections on the provision of a time-limited therapy service in a sexual health clinic

“…An emphasis on brevity of treatment is one of the characteristics of modern sex therapy: Hawton (1995) suggests that 'standard sex therapy', which has been strongly influenced by the work of Masters and Johnson (1970), consists on average of between 8 and 20 sessions delivered over a period of 3 to 9 months. The intensive, dyadic and predominantly behavioural approach to treating sexual symptoms outlined by Masters and Johnson (1970) marked a significant shift from the longer-term psychotherapy for sexual problems, which characterised its psychodynamic predecessors.…”