Brief treatment of sexual problems.

Brief, behaviorally oriented treatment of sexual dysfunction is gaining increasing acceptance in medicine and psychiatry. However, relatively few clinics have published their treatment results. During a 2 1/2-year period, 36 couples with diagnoses of sexual dysfunction were treated with a modified Masters and Johnson protocol. The initial success rate was 83%, but the degree of improvement reported by the couples varied from marked to equivocal. Eighty-nine percent of the male partners and 83% of the female partners manifested psychologic signs or symptoms that either warranted a psychiatric diagnosis or were noted as significant traits or symptoms. With an average of 7.9 months of follow-up, the failure rate increased from 17% to 38%. This increase was attributed in part to the degree of combined psychosexual disorder identified in the patients. The etiologic relationships between psychiatric conditions and sexual dysfunctions are not fully understood and will require further study.