Psychological and hormonal factors in the treatment of female sexual dysfunction

Abstract

SynopsisForty-eight couples with a presenting problem of female sexual unresponsiveness were treated in a controlled study using a balanced factorial design. The factors varied in this design were medication (testosterone or placebo), treatment frequency (weekly or monthly sessions), and the number of therapists involved (one female or a male/female pair). All counselling was adapted from that described by Masters & Johnson (1970) and Heiman et al. (1976). Results were assessed before and after a 3-month treatment period, and again 6 months later. Contary to expectations from earlier work, there was no benefit attributable to testosterone or to the use two therapits; selfrating favoured weekly sessions with one therapist.